Snapped Shot

Always Watching the All-Seeing Eye

 

A Proper Context for Everything

By Brian C. Ledbetter · Thursday, November 15. 2007 11:31
It's always interesting to see things put in their proper context. Consider this photograph of an ambulance rushing to the aid of some innocent bystanders, from the Associated Press:

An ambulance drives to the site of an explosion after an Israeli airstrike in the town of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip,Thursday, Nov. 14, 2007. The Israeli army opened fire Thursday on a car carrying militants in northern Gaza, killing two and injuring five, [...] (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)


Obviously, we're to assume that someone is truly in need after seeing this picture. You'd be surprised, though, to discover the true context of all of that smoke in the background:
Palestinians look at a homemade rocket after the launching area was hit in an Israeli airstrike in the town of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2007. The Israeli army opened fire Thursday on a car carrying militants in northern Gaza, killing two and injuring five, [...] (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)


In other words, the Israeli Air Force launched an attack on a legitimate military target. Imagine the shock!

Alas, the truth not always as simple as the emotional appeals make it appear to be. At the time of writing, I haven't seen any photographs on the wire of any strike on a car, and these are generally fairly well-documented. If I run across any, I'll be sure to update things here—until then, I'm writing that little nugget of information off as a lie, as the evidence available in this second photograph contradicts it pretty strongly.

As an aside, you might have noticed that I redacted a portion of the caption in both of these photographs. This is because the source of the information that went into these captions is very amusing. For your enjoyment, here is what's missing from the above captions:

militants and a health official said.


Glad to see that the Associated Press considers militants to be a trustworthy source of information. Or, at least, as trustworthy as "a health official." Journalistic integrity, indeed.
· permalink · Comments (4) · Trackbacks (0)
Defined tags for this entry: ,
Related entries by tags:
Women Storage Device
American Soldiers Are <i>Scary</i>
The AP Questions Everything
Hamas Does Public Relations
Tiresome
 
Snap.com Popups

If they're driving you crazy, please click here to disable them on this website.




Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments [RSS]
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Here is what a handful of random people think about this article. But first, the fine print:
The opinions expressed here, even where approved for display, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this website, the management, or any other entity or organization, with the exception of the Vast Zionist Conspiracy. Those opinions we represent in style, yo. Please keep the language in these comments clean, as this is intended to be a family-friendly, work-friendly website. Comments not compliant with this policy will be edited for content where necessary. Abusive or otherwise illegal comments will be reported to the proper authorities, up to and including the aforementioned Vast Zionist Conspiracy. The Management cannot and will not be held responsible for commenters making a spectacle of themselves, even if The Management are the said commenters in question. In other words, don't take yourself so seriously, folks. We're all here to discuss the news, and more importantly, to have fun. Now go get yourself into some OCD treatment program—you obviously need it if you actually read all of this mess.

forest on 2007-11-15 12:55 #1
*How did that photo of the rocket and rocket launch thingy get past the editors? It makes it look like the Israelis are bombing terrorists.
Reply  
Eric W on 2007-11-15 19:40 #2
*How stupid do those civvies have to be to get so close to live ordinance? I guess it's one of those things, like the car swarm phenomenon, that I'll never understand.
Reply  
ajm on 2007-11-16 09:03 #3
*It is fairly common for a Muslim believer to hope for such a death. It would be a good death and Muslim life is so boring and cruel.
Reply  
captainfish on 2007-11-17 20:41 #4
*yes, but notice that the rocket is laying on its side. They seem to be hesitant. Could this have been a live rocket and was knocked off of the launch platform (seen in pic) when an Israeli anti-humanitarian bomb went off?

Could that smoke in first pic really have been from the people messing with that live rocket and then it went off? (snicker)

The second pic is a bit different due to the depth of field. Makes it hard to determine how far away the people really are from the rocket.

How come Israel does not go after the official meeting places of Hamas? Hamas is an international terrorist organization bent on Israel's destruction.... right?

But then, our world... "has moved on". Even in USA, we turn a blind eye when Mexico kidnaps 30 people from American soil. About 20 are still being held. How long are we going to put up with a nation that wants to do harm to us on our border?
Reply  

Add Comment

HTML-Tags will be converted to Entities.
Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.
BBCode format allowed
Gravatar/MyBlogLog/Favatar/Pavatar author images supported.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA