WB: Eye of the Beholder – Moon of Alabama

August 8, 2006

WB: Eye of the Beholder

Billmon:

The fact that our homegrown war porn aficionados apparently find this offense more atrocious than the vile crimes being committed in this war — by their side as well as by the officially designated terrorists — speaks volumes about their ethical priorities, not to mention their sanitary habits.

Eye of the Beholder

Posted by b on August 8, 2006 at 16:22 UTC | Permalink

Comments

When I heard the intro to this “doctoring” report on NPR I thought, “Oh, no, those before after shots showing massive destruction in block after block of apartment buildings are fake??!” When I heard what it was about I was stunned. Massive bombing day after day and the most intense news coverage of the bombing will be about “added smoke?”
The US media is really shamelessly coluding in the propaganda war here. Not that it takes much effort. Give the INCREASED number of Americans who believe Iraq had WMD….

Posted by: ChetBob | Aug 8 2006 16:30 utc | 1

Found this on the net.
This an old joke from the 60s. The Lebanese seem to be in such a morale that they resurrected it and reclaimed it.

Olmert was sitting in his office wondering how to invade Lebanon when his telephone rang.
“Hello, Mr. Olmert!” a heavily accented voice said. “This is Abul Abed,down at the tea house in Beirut! I am callin` to tell ya dat we are officially declaring war on you, yes you!”
“Well” Olmert replied, “This is indeed important news! How big is your army?”
“Right now,” said Abul Abed, after a moments calculation “there is myself, my cousin Mustafa, me next-door-neighbor Abou khaled, and the whole team from the tea house. That makes eight!”
Olmert paused. “I must tell you Abul Abed, that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command.”
“Holy jeez,” said Abul Abed. “I`ll have to call ya back!” Sure enough, the next day, AbulAbed called again. “Mr. Olmert, the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some infantry equipment!”
“And what equipment would that be Abul Abed?”, Olmert asked.
“Well sir, we have two Mercedes 180, and a truck.”
Olmert sighed. “I must tell you Abul Abed, that I have 16,000 tanks and 14,000 armoured personnel carriers. Also I`ve increased my army to one and a half million since we last spoke.”
“Ya lateef”, said A Abul Abed, “I`ll be getting back to ya.”
Sure enough, Abul Abed rang again the next day. “Mr. Olmert , the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We modified a helicopter with a couple of shotguns in the cockpit, and four more neighbors have joined us as well!”
Olmert was silent for a minute then cleared his throat. “I must tell you Abul Abed that I have 10,000 bombers and 20,000 fighter planes. My military complex is surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites. And since we last spoke, I`ve increased my army to TWO MILLION!”
“Lah lah lah lah,” said Abul Abed, “I`ll have to call you back.”
Sure enough, Abul Abed called again the next day. “Mr. Olmert I am sorry to have to tell you dat we have had to call off this war.”
“I`m sorry to hear that” said Olmert. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
“Well, sir,” said Abul Abed, “we`ve all sat ourselves down and had a long chat, and come to realize that there is no way we can feed two million prisoners.”

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 8 2006 16:36 utc | 2

kinda surprising that more of these types of tactics haven’t been used. you know, stage some photos of an attrocity, disseminate them widely in this image-saturated medium, and then prove they’re fake & use that to discount all photos. the technology is certainly there to manipulate photos way more professionally than that crudely executed smoke job. that this controversy originated almost entirely from rightwing blogsphere smells suspect, imo.

Posted by: b real | Aug 8 2006 17:21 utc | 3

I watched this whole event unfold here…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 8 2006 17:28 utc | 4

kinda surprising that more of these types of tactics haven’t been used. you know, stage some photos of an attrocity, disseminate them widely in this image-saturated medium, and then prove they’re fake
I assume that if this had actually been a black op, the doctoring would have been more sophisticated (although still detectable) and the fraud would have been more significant — like faking a picture of dead children after the Qana massacre, which the right wing bloggers have been desperately trying to prove was all a propaganda set up.
This looks to me like just another Little Green Footballs circle jerk, without any napkins.

Posted by: Billmon | Aug 8 2006 17:43 utc | 5

in this obscenity of war – a photographer exaggerating smoke in a photograph is very minor indeed – in relation to, for example, anderson cooper daily sucking the cocks of regev & the israeli ambassador to th u.n.
why don’t they research for example why the video of the bombing of the funeral in tyre is deliberately out of frame, the image is flou, they would say they don’t want to disturb your sensibilities
i am sure this night i will see clear photos on both al arabiya & al jazeera

Posted by: r’giap | Aug 8 2006 17:50 utc | 6

& the killing of people at funerals is on old idf tradition – doing it regularly in the occupied territores
that too they share with their old-comrade-in-arms, apartheid south africa

Posted by: r’giap | Aug 8 2006 18:23 utc | 7

the net result was the firing of the freelancer, the purging of 900+ photos from reuter’s library stock, an established meme of increased scrutiny/scepticism of photos coming from the arab side of the battle, and validation of rightwing “analyses”. there’s bound to be more to this than just the photog himself trying to pass this off.

Posted by: b real | Aug 8 2006 18:50 utc | 8

Smoke is a very sensitive topic. 9/11. Smoke sends everyone into a tizzy. Smoke is sensitive like certain body parts of little girls. Smoke is controversial. Smoke is difficult. Smoke must be PC. Smoke can be shown, or not shown, doctored, haloed, colored or not, all under certain unspoken rules. Smoke is a bitch. Don’t take pictures of smoke.
🙂

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 8 2006 19:34 utc | 9

Guys, the old ‘kerning’ crowd has found a new calling.

Posted by: moe99 | Aug 8 2006 20:24 utc | 10

When you study the before/after images it is immediately apparent that the alterations don’t make any real change to the intensity of the assault or the subsequent damage.
All they do is make the pix more saleable. Not something that I find acceptable but I would have thought that alla the frustrated and failed capitalists that loiter about LGF would applaud such entrepreneurial enterprise.
The real issue is whi really discovered it, given that these pix are but two of many hundreds coming out of this butchery every day?
Either someone had too much time on their hands, or some alphabet agency had too much taxpayer largesse and have squandered it on going over pix that are really are no concern of amerika.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 9 2006 1:30 utc | 11

This is the same technique as the discreditation of Rather’s report of Bush’s AWOL at the National Guard before 2004 election. Rather sacked.
No accident. Rove.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 9 2006 2:34 utc | 12

Glad to see others taking and studying photography seriously.
Some see it, some don’t.
Whatever the definition of blake smoke is.

Posted by: Matthew Brady | Aug 9 2006 3:04 utc | 13

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