Snapped Shot

The United States Army has detained a Reuters photographer, according to Reuters.

Far be it from me to suggest that coordinating with local "militants" might be seen as somewhat "prejudicial" in the eyes of the U.S. Army.

Seeing how the same have a tendency to bomb said Army.

(Incidentally, I'm getting nothing searching for his byline on the wire feed. He must not have been that productive for Reuters.)

Hamas has apparently issued a call for photographers to come and "observe" its smuggling operations underneath the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Despite the fact that such an operation is in flagrant violation of international law, a handful of stringers do appear to have heeded the call, and as such, have provided us with a propagandists' view of the Hamas humanitarian corps. Continue reading »

I've finally had a chance to sit down and ponder our regular enemy-embedded fun in a little bit more depth than usual:

The idea that the press exists to cover all aspects of a war isn't new. Reporters have a history of putting their lives on the line to cover the events on the ground as they happen. And as long as we've had photojournalists, we've had daring individuals who go out of their way to get the shot less taken. But there can be a fine line between aggressively documenting events as they happen -- and actively supporting one side in a conflict.

For the rest, including a brief look at the history of activist embeds, be sure to hop on over to BlackStar!

If Mohammed Abed/AFP would have happened to have been killed by the IDF while filming this Hamas rocket crew in action, how loud do you think the international press would've howled?

My guess is that it'd be a somewhat louder protest than what these guys got.

[Picture]—DayLife link pending

Palestinian militants take position in the early hours on the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Three Hamas gunmen were killed by Israeli troops in Gaza as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was set to meet top ministers to weigh up a possible military offensive on the territory in a bid to stop militant rocket fire. (AFP/Mohammed Abed)

Full series here.

Crud, I saw these photos on the wire earlier today, and it didn't even occur to me to bring them up!

[Photo 1] [Photo 2]

Urban Infidel (via LGF) has identified yet another instance of Associated Press personnel "coincidentally" being on-site to photograph enemy forces (the Taliban, whom we're still ostensively fighting in Afghanistan) transferring their weaponry in the middle of the night.

It's curious to note that the AP didn't feel compelled to identify the stringer who took this picture. Based on what's on the wire, the only named AP stringer in Kandahar at the moment is Allauddin Khan. Could he be our "anonymous" photographer in this series? Or is the AP relying on someone else to gather its Taliban-friendly coverage?

Why not name the photographer? Is the editorial staff afraid that yet another one of their stringers will be arrested for assisting enemy forces?

Previously: AP + Islamic Jihad, AP + Hamas, AP + al Qaeda.

If nothing else, this trend just goes to show that the Associated Press is full of equal opportunity anti-Westerners.

A Blog for All asks if Western news stringers operating in Beirut today are enemy embeds. The answer to that is twofold:—For starters, all of the photographers that are covering this week's events live there, so they're essentially covering their home turf. However, Hezbullah has been going through plenty of effort to censor photographers that are "unfriendly" to the group, and has shut down media outlets that are run by the opposition, so the remaining photographers aren't exactly enemy "embeds," as much as they are enemy-vetted.

By the way, I still haven't heard a single word of condemnation issued by Reuters against the brutal treatment shown to its employees by the terrorist militia. Yet, if Israel were even remotely thought to have been involved, I'm sure the press releases would've been flying before the photos even hit the wires.

One wonders why Hezbullah feels it needs to even bother with censorship of the press, considering how friendly to the group the media already are.

I'm sorry, but there really is absolutely no excuse for photos like this. It's an AFP photo, so the link should stay good forever, but just in case, it's also archived here.

Seriously: What "news" does this convey? How does this serve the average newsreader?

As Gateway Pundit has pointed out earlier, Essam al-Sudani is actively involved with the Mahdi Army, but the picture above is well beyond all reasonable limits of news gathering, and has clearly moved into the realm of actively assisting a terrorist group.

If I were a news customer, I would demand that the AFP immediately cease all association with Mr. al-Sudani, and that they remove all of his terrorist propaganda from their archives.

Jan-Edward has more thoughts on this. Via Google Translate, he asks:

There has been in recent months and years been much discussion about whether or not to use as a (photo) journalist embedded with a military unit to work.

That is the question arises: Are there also photographers "embedded" with the other warring parties? (For words like 'rebels',' freedom 'and' terrorists' but even aside to let).

Today I ask this question but again on the agenda, following photos AFP photographer Essam al-Sudani through his press office has published.

Those photos show that Essam al-Sudani zastane Sjiitische with fighters of the Mahdi militia in Basra, for example, he photographs at the time it places a roadside bomb. I still get an uneasy feeling in these and other photographs of the said AFP photographer.

I'm glad I am not the only one thinking this.

Okay, so for the next little while, I'm going to be going back through this blog's archives and flagging all of the stories that are demonstrably within my legal "fair use" rights for the wire service photos. I'm composing this list mostly for my own reference, so if you're not interested, feel free to pass it on. (I'll be blogging on current news as soon as I'm caught up with what's going on in the world, of course.)

For those of you who don't care about piddly little things like "fair use" and "article lists," I present this offering—The classic Atari game "Pole Position," played with humans. It will hopefully keep you entertained until this blog is able to get back on track with current events:



(With thanks to my buddy Ian for the excellent inspiration.) Continue reading »

The Associated Press does us proud yet again, bringing us the first-hand report of people who want to indiscriminately kill civilians:



For more background on these type of antics, start reading here.

As an aside, I'm trying to track down some information about AP photos that were reportedly taken at the Hamas school-slash-rocket launching ground from last week that Soccer Dad has alerted me to. I hope to have more on that shortly.

Jack Williams asks, I deliver. Though it seems that this is a picture from before the first one:



As the esteemed Lawhawk [blog] points out, Agence France-Presse was on-site for this Hamas photo-op as well. Here's a sample for ya—



Here's a question for ya, while I'm busy rounding up photos:—If the IDF were to decide to counter-attack this enemy mortar position, either with a jet or a tank round, the photographers in situ would almost certainly be killed. Were that to have happened, what do you suppose the odds are that the usual suspects would be weeping and gnashing their teeth over Israel's war crimes?

It's nice to know that Ramadan hasn't cramped Hamas' terror-training style—Or the desire of their sycophants in the press to transmit their propaganda.



Feel their peace yet? Continue reading »

Ibraheem Abu Mustafa of REUTERS tirelessly brings us the terrorists' side of everyday news events. Apparently, his allies in Islamic Jihad—a designated terrorist group, incidentally—are all wound up and worried about an "impending" attack by the Israeli Defence Forces.



Impending Israeli invasion? Is that something like the coming war on Iran that these idiots keep spouting off about?

Update: An indeterminate AP stringer was on-scene as well. As an aside, it's curious to note that the Associated Press stopped sending photographer identifications along with some of its captions sometime over the past week. I'd be interested in knowing how a decision like that gets made, and why.

Continue reading »

Full photo series available here.

There are no depths that our intrepid photojournalists will refuse to go. For instance, here is a lovely contribution from Hamas supporter Kevin Frayer of the Associated Press, who has tagged along with a group of weapons smugglers "Peaceful" tunnel-digging non-combatants:



Kevin, I appreciate your desire to get "all" of the news, but tagging along with international border-hopping terrorists is probably not the best way to get objective facts...
Continue reading »

What holds true of Palestine, holds true of just about anywhere else. Check out this example from Iraq, where we can see our brave, impartial reporters embedding themselves with Iraqi foreign "insurgents" as they fight against Coalition forces:



How, oh how, do these brave journalists ever manage to get killed in these places? (Insert weeping and gnashing of teeth here.)

It should be noted, of course, that because these men are fighting against a uniformed army, using weapons which—by nature of the fact that they are photographed—are quite real, they cannot (and should not!) be afforded the protections given by the Geneva Conventions. So, if we aren't to imprison people like this, what would "The World Community™" rather us do with them?

I've got an idea or two that'd be fairly effective:



More of this enemy-embedded idiocy can be found beyond the fold. Continue reading »

Our press is still hard at work today, presenting the terrorist point-of-view from the Palestinian human shield "refugee" camps in Lebanon.



I'll be tracking the photos as they come in, so be sure to check back periodically for new updates. Continue reading »