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BAGHDAD, (AP) -- The U.S. military released Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein on Wednesday after holding him for more than two years without filing formal charges. Hussein, 36, was handed over to AP colleagues at a checkpoint in Baghdad. He was taken to the site aboard a prisoner bus and left U.S. custody wearing a traditional Iraqi robe. He was smiling and appeared in good health. "I want to thank all the people working in AP. ... I have spent two years in prison even though I was innocent. I thank everybody," Hussein said after being freed. AP President Tom...

If you’ve wondered why so many mainstream media stories about Islamic issues omit important details and draw spurious morally equivalent conclusions, wonder no more. They’re doing it on purpose. This was apparently released by the Society of Professional Journalists shortly after the 9/11 attacks: Guidelines for Countering Racial, Ethnic and Religious Profiling. On Oct. 6 at its National Convention in Seattle, the Society of Professional Journalists passed a resolution urging members and fellow journalists to take steps against racial profiling in their coverage of the war on terrorism and to reaffirm their commitment to: — Use language that is informative...

Biblical hero Joseph 'was really a Muslim' Palestinians make astonishing claim, deny they'll help restore burned tomb -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Building at Joseph's Tomb site after Palestinian Authority took control in 2000 . In the wake of an attempt by Palestinians to burn down Joseph's Tomb – Judaism's third holiest site – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction issued a statement denying it will help restore the shrine, referring to both the shrine and the biblical patriarch as "Muslim." "Pay no attention to the rumors that we will work with Israel to restore the burial site of the holy Muslim Joseph,"...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- A secret intelligence assessment of the first battle of Fallujah shows the U.S. military believes it lost control over information about what was happening in the town, leading to political pressure that ended its April 2004 offensive with control being handed to Sunni insurgents. "The outcome of a purely military contest in Fallujah was always a foregone conclusion -- coalition victory," reads the assessment, prepared by analysts at the U.S. Army's National Ground Intelligence Center. "But Fallujah was not simply a military action, it was a political and informational battle. … The effects of media...

How Muslims are perceived in 21st Century Abid Ullah Jan Exactly four years ago, I came to the conclusion that Muslims are fast becoming 21st Century Jews. The initial thoughts were published in an article on January 7, 2004. The argument was backed up by an attempt to monitor the status of Muslims and attacks on Islam as a religion from around the world. It has been observed that the perception of Muslims as terrorist and extremists kept consolidating with the passage of time. In 2006, the theme was expanded and turned it into a chapter in After Fascism. Two...

Who does the 'Pallywood' photos for EuroNews?   Dec. 26, 2007   The latest bias "report" out of: http://EuroNews.net. TV.    Euro news has a feature of 'no comment', it is at the bottom of each round-up round, usually intended to show a message: "a picture is worth a thousand words". http://www.euronews.net/index.php?page=nocomment&lng=1   The only problem is that when a picture is not spontaneous but orchestrated, a picture is then worthless of course.   Too bad that EuroNews doesn't "know" this, to show a latest example of outrageous anti Israel bigoted propaganda, just another 'Pallywood' [http://seconddraft.org] piece, the Islamo-Arab "Palestinians" realizing...

NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. military's plan to seek a criminal case against an Associated Press photographer in Iraq without disclosing the charges or evidence against him makes a mockery of American democratic principles, AP President and CEO Tom Curley said Saturday. "This is a poor example—and not the first of its kind—of the way our government honors the democratic principles and values it says it wants to share with the Iraqi people," Curley said in a column in The Washington Post. The U.S. military notified the AP last weekend that it intended to submit a complaint against Bilal...

NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented. An AP attorney on Monday strongly protested the decision, calling the U.S. military plans a "sham of due process." The journalist, Bilal Hussein, has already been imprisoned without charges for more than 19 months. A public affairs officer notified the AP on Sunday that the military intends to submit a written complaint against Hussein that would bring the case into the Iraqi justice system as...

We all know that Islamofascism Awareness Week is here and witness time and time again from the left and Islamists that this is some racist event by neocons, Zionists, crusaders, etc. This line of “reason” usually quickly degenerates into anti-Semitic rants and calls for censorship from the same “enlightened” and “tolerant” leftists and Islamic appeasers/supporters. Take the responses in the following article. To counteract the movement, MSA is hosting a "Peace not Prejudice" seminar series during the next two weeks that will feature several professors of Middle Eastern studies and Muslim civil rights advocates. "Labeling an entire religion as fascist...

Magic Bullets Discovered in Sadr City by AFP PhotographerWed, Aug 15, 2007 at 9:45:56 am PSThttp://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=26666_Magic_Bullets_Discovered_in_Sadr_City_by_AFP_Photographer&onlySometimes the propaganda is so obvious it’s almost funny.An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City. At least 175 people were slaughtered on Tuesday and more than 200 wounded when four suicide truck bombs targeted people from an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq, officials said. (AFP/Wissam al-Okaili)To make it even tastier, there’s another one from July 10, 2007, apparently featuring the same woman, holding...

Terrorist Propaganda Picture of the Week. An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City.

United States Department of State (Washington, DC) Washington, DC Some years ago, Amir Muhammad began researching his family's roots without any thought that it might lead him to America's little-known Islamic heritage. Until then, he assumed that most American Muslims arrived in the 20th century, and he was unaware of any Islamic connection in his own family prior to his personal acceptance of Islam 35 years ago. But Muhammad discovered he does have Muslim ancestors, as do many African Americans and Native Americans, and that the story of Islam in America reaches back much further than most people imagine. In...

Media and terrorism experts alike have remarked on the increasing sophistication of al Qaeda propaganda videos that continue to be released by the group's media wing, as Sahab. One computer expert, however, has conducted extensive image analysis on many of the videos and concluded that in many cases the tapes were likely doctored to give a false impression of the speaker's location.

At Iran’s Fars News Agency, LGF readers tipped me off to a blatant Photoshop fraud in an article claiming to have discovered US weapons in Iran: Terrorists Use US-Gifted Arsenals. (Beware. The Fars News site resizes your browser window without asking, and may attempt other more sneaky things.) TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Following a Saturday report about the use of US manufactured weapons in the recent terrorist operations in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan, a security official provided FNA with a photograph of the said weaponry.These arsenals have been confiscated during a raid on the hideout of a...

The most explosive and far-reaching news story of the year has nothing to do with underage pages and a certain Republican ex-Congressman. This story involves ignition in the streets of Baghdad and six immolations that probably never occurred. While Mark Foley took down a congressional majority, the tale of Jamil Hussein may end up permanently damaging the credibility of the world's premier news gathering source, the Associate Press... The story begins on Nov. 24 when Qais al-Bashir, an Iraqi "stringer" working for the AP, wrote a story in which he alleged that Shiite militiamen avenging earlier attacks burned down four...

Anyone watch Hannity & Colmes last night? One of their guests was a Nation of Islam spokesman. He claimed the United States was founded on Islam. I kid you not.

CNN Airs Terrorist Sniper Killing US Soldier Del Williams October 19, 2006 CNN aired a terrorist sniper killing a US soldier. They blacked out the screen when the bullet hit, but that did not stop the sound or description that they went on to share. According to CNN, “The graphic video of 10 sniper attacks was obtained by CNN -- through intermediaries --from the Islamic Army of Iraq, one of the most active insurgent organizations in Iraq.” Are critics correct in their assessment that CNN is full of terrorist sympathizers? Well, after their report on “In the Footsteps of Bin...

AMMAN, Jordan — On the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Abu Omar received the call to jihad. Literally. “There’s a present for you,” a voice on the other end of the phone said that morning, he recalled. It was a common code whenever his friends and colleagues wanted to share a new broadcast or communiqué from Al Qaeda over the Internet, he said. Abu Omar, speaking on the condition that only his nickname be used, said he soon went to one of the Internet cafes he frequents in Amman and began distributing the latest video by Al Qaeda,...

Yesterday evening, I received a call from my column syndicate, Creators Syndicate. The Associated Press had phoned my editor to inform her that it would be sending a response to my column yesterday about detained AP photographer Bilal Hussein. (Funny how quickly they respond now. Where have they been the past five months? Oh, right: Busy covering up the news about Hussein's April 12 capture by the military at a Ramadi apartment with an alleged al Qaeda leader and a weapons cache.) The AP last night asked my editor to supply its corporate communications office with my newspaper client list...

IT'S bad enough that friends of Hezbollah terrorists could trick so many journalists with just a tall story and a rusty Lebanese ambulance. Worse is that some of those journalists seemed so eager to believe this ambulance was indeed wickedly blown up by an Israeli missile fired straight through the big red cross on its roof -- leaving not even a scorch mark. But worst is that even now that this hoax has been exposed, none of the countless writers and commentators who fell for it have admitted to passing on as fact the propaganda of terrorists. It is this...

The media war against Israel Early in the recent Lebanon war, the blogosphere revealed the fabrication of images by Reuters, whose reputation is now in shreds among those dwindling numbers in the western mainstream media who still acknowledge there is such a thing as the truth. Since then, the nature and scale of the various frauds perpetrated by the media during that war put those doctored Reuters pictures into the shade. The western media are no longer merely producing questionable professional practices in reporting a war. They are now active participants in it — and on the wrong side of...

"This undated photo made available by the Islamic Society of North America shows Ingrid Mattson. Mattson, a Canadian convert to Islam and an Islamic law scholar at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, was elected to lead the Islamic Society of North America just ahead of its annual convention, which starts Friday, Sept. 1, 2006 in Rosemont, Ill."

International journalists discuss Lebanon war coverage; NYT bureau chief: Israel 'not interested in Lebanese deaths' A number of journalists claimed during a convention in Jerusalem Monday evening that Israel and the IDF were mostly to blame for the way the foreign media covered the Lebanon war. The panel of journalists, largely from the international media, convened to discuss their coverage of the war, at a conference arranged by the Media Line agency's Mideast Press Club. "Journalists' access to the battlefield is controlled exclusively by the IDF," said Simon McGregor-Wood, Chairman of the Foreign Press Association, and Bureau Chief of ABC...

Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir claims America's top spy agency was involved in the devastating 2002 Bali bombings. Bashir, who was convicted and imprisoned for having prior knowledge of the attacks which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, is also appealing for the lives of three convicted bombers to be spared. Bashir, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), was released from prison in June after serving nearly two years. Amrozi, Ali Ghufron - also known as Mukhlas - and Imam Samudra are awaiting execution for their part in the plot. In an interview tonight on ABC television's Foreign...

You would think that Reuters learned its lesson about publishing to the world photos doctored to create a false image. After all, they were caught with multiple false photos from Lebanon, and had to take down more than 900 images from one stringer. Reuters promised it would have "experienced editors" look at all such photos in the future.

From the remnants of Saddam's Baathists at Uruknet: What Types of Gruesome Weapons Did Israel Use in Lebanon? Nada Sayad, Global ResearchAugust 23, 2006Some doubts have been expressed regarding the use by Israel of Internationally Forbidden Weapons in its war on Lebanon.The South Medical Complex in Saida is investigating this matter. It is examining 24 samples from corps that were hit in the area of South Lebanon in a trial to discover the nature of the substances that lead to death.In a phone call done by "Assafir", the Lebanese local newspaper, Dr. Omar Morabi, the president of the Association of...

Fauxtography Defender's Faux News Turns out that Greg Mitchell, the Editor & Publisher editor who has been attacking the blogosphere like a rabid ferret for pointing out the bogus news from the Middle East, has first-hand experience with staging news. (Hat tip: Confederate Yankee.) Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back when I worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette), our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts,...

The most recent conflict taking place in southern Lebanon and in Israel is not a war between two Middle Eastern nations. It is a frustrating war between Israel and a terrorist organization that infiltrated throughout Lebanon beginning in 1982, led by Sheik Ibrahim al-Amin. It is also the same war that our nation is fighting in Iraq, and that the Western world is fighting as a whole: a war against Islamic extremism and terrorism. Hezbollah, although formed in 1982, officially began its terrorist campaign against Israel in 1985. While Hezbollah supporters believe that the terrorist group arose to protect Lebanon...

http://www.moqavemat.com - an Iran-based website run by the Hezbollah terrorist group - is running this picture (above) of what it claims is the Israeli ship it hit with a missile last month. Now look at the Royal Australian Navy’s picture below - as published by Defence Industry Daily - of its sinking of the decommissioned Australian destroyer-escort HMAS Torrens off the coast of Western Australia in 1998 . We were told at the time the Torrens was deliberately sunk by a torpedo fired by one of our own submarines, the HMAS Farncomb. Should we now think that we were...

All Your Fakes Are Belong to Us A jawa video spoof on Beirut Fauxtography.

It's the story journalistic elite would rather just go away. After Reuters' admission one of its photographers, Adnan Hajj, manipulated two war images from Lebanon after bloggers smoked out his crude Photoshop alterations, and all 920 of his Reuters photos were pulled, evidence of far more troubling photo staging and media deception in the Middle East continues to pour in. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (littlegreenfootballs.com) calls it "fauxtography." One of Mr. Hajj's photos was an iconic image of a dusty dead child with a clean blue pacifier clipped to his shirt, paraded by a corpse handler at the...

Amid the controversy over certain pictures from Lebanon, a longtime student of war photography asks, "I'm not sure if the craft I love is being murdered, committing suicide, or both." By David D. Perlmutter (August 18, 2006) -- The Israeli-Hezbollah war has left many dead bodies, ruined towns, and wobbling politicians in its wake, but the media historian of the future may also count as one more victim the profession of photojournalism. In twenty years of researching and teaching about the art and trade and doing photo-documentary work, I have never witnessed or heard of such a wave of attacks...

It's the story that the journalistic elite would rather just go away. In the aftermath of Reuters' admission that one of its photographers, Adnan Hajj, had manipulated two war images from Lebanon after bloggers smoked out his crude Photoshop alterations, and all 920 of his Reuters photos were pulled, evidence of far more troubling photo staging and media deception in the Middle East continues to pour in. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (littlegreenfootballs.com) calls it "fauxtography." Reuters on Sunday withdrew an image of smoke rising from burning buildings after an Israeli air strike on the suburbs of Beirut on...

The first Photoshop war Lebanon war's doctored photos could be harbinger of photojournalism crisis Gal Mor The photo of an apparently new Mickey Mouse doll, resting on a ruined street in the Lebanese town of Tyre following an Israeli Air Force attack, took me back to a British TV show called "Drop the Dead Monkey," which aired in Israel about 15 years ago. One of the journalists in Channel 4's satirical show used to hang around battle zones with a teddy bear in his trunk and place it at disaster zones a short time before cameras began shooting, in order...

Many of the mainstream media apologists have conceded – and they had little choice but to do so – that many of the photographs of the Israelis’ response to Hez b’Allah’s act of war, were staged. The evidence of staging and Photoshopping is too public. The media allowed itself to be used to defame Israel, stir up sympathy for Lebanon and halt the advance into Lebanon. But the concessions of wrongdoing stop short with digital alterations. Media spokesmen are still in denial about the biggest media fraud of all: the dramatic dead baby display at Qana. EUreferendum has not given...

When Reuters was forced to sever ties with free-lance photographer Adnan Hajj and remove more than 900 of his photos from its database earlier this month, long-whispered questions about the reliability of Arab stringers and freelancers came to the forefront. But while the widespread use of Arab locals in covering the Middle East raises many legitimate concerns, the Palestinian propaganda machine has enjoyed tremendous success over the years hoodwinking supposedly sophisticated Western journalists. And Hezbollah appears to have done the same over the past month. In short, almost nothing that is purported to happen in the Arab world can automatically...

Thanks to some intrepid digging from commenters Lancelot and Harris at EU Referendum, another video of the events at Qana has been found. This is one that I have never seen before and really shows what was going on that day. It is truly a must see for anyone that believes that the photos at Qana were staged. It completely debunks the "our photographers do not set up photos" and "the rescuers were not holding up the children for photos" claims. Believe it or not, it is a link from Wikipedia of all places. Here's the direct link to the...

Lebanese rescuer 'Green Helmet' injured A civil defense worker who has drawn controversy for holding up the bodies of children killed in Lebanon said Tuesday he was lightly injured fighting a weekend fire sparked by an Israeli bomb. Salam Daher, dubbed the Green Helmet for the color of his civil defense headgear, said he was hit by debris Sunday when a bomb or missile fell on a building while he was helping to battle a fire at a gas station in the port city of Tyre. "I fell over when the bomb hit, and I got some scratches from debris...

Conclusive proof that the photographs from Qana were cynically staged, as “Green Helmet” directs cameramen in a video from German TV (with English subtitles): CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO UPDATE at 8/10/06 8:18:53 am: For more on this ghoulish manipulation of the media, see Newsbusters and Hot Air. In the battle to control the information coming out of Lebanon, Hizballah has definitely got the media on its side. But for the first time, thanks to Adnan Hajj and his lack of Photoshop skill, the media are being held to account for acting as tools for a terrorist group. UPDATE at 8/10/06...

Ray Robison has yet another example of staged photojournalism from Lebanon, a car with verses from the Koran strategically placed for propaganda effect: Al-AP at it again with staged photos. Ray comments: Notice this car has a wall-hanging positioned on the door. An Arabic reader tells me this board has verses from the Koran on it. Because Islam does not allow for images of the Prophet Mohammed, Muslims use verses to adorn their homes the same way some Christians use paintings of Jesus. If you want to make the argument that this wall-hanging got where it is by chance, then...

Fox is now showing the German TV video of Qana showing Green Helmet Guy posing a dead child Click here to watch the Fox News video Here is the original FR post Here is the original video on YouTube: Green Helmet the movie director [Germany's NDR busts him in the act]

The recent discovery that a Lebanese freelance photographer, Adnan Hajj, had manipulated pictures he took for Reuters has raised questions about the standards of photojournalism at a time of widespread digital photography. The case also increased pressure on news photo editors, who select and edit thousands of photographs under deadline pressure each day, to detect digital alterations. "The Soviets had to have a whole department to doctor pictures," said David Friend, an editor at Vanity Fair and a former director of photography for Life magazine. "Now all it takes is a swipe of a mouse, and the kid down the...

AP Circles the Wagons Around Green Helmet Guy It’s utterly surreal. The Associated Press does a full court press, supporting the man they now call Salam Daher with a multimedia presentation packed full of distortions and outright lies: A Grueling Task in Lebanon. Watch the AP presentation here: A Grueling Task in Lebanon

Kopel: Were front-page photos staged? Images from Qana raise issue of whether media were manipulated. If you see a news photograph of the war in Lebanon, shot from within Hezbollah territory, can you be confident the picture and caption are accurate? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Earlier this week, Reuters fired photographer Adnan Hajj and withdrew his portfolio of 920 pictures after Little Green Footballs, The Jawa Report, and many other weblogs provided evidence that Hajj had used digital editing and other techniques to fake numerous photos of the Lebanon war. On July 31, the News and Post ran the...

THE controversy this week over Reuters' distribution of digitally manipulated, falsely labeled and — probably — staged photos of the fighting in Lebanon hasn't been nearly as large as it should have been. Credit for bringing the sordid business to light goes to Charles Johnson, a musician and Los Angeles-based blogger, who operates a hard-edged right wing website unfathomably called Little Green Footballs. Last Saturday, Reuters, which is headquartered in London, transmitted two photographs by one of its regular Lebanese freelance photographers, Adnan Hajj, whose work for the agency has appeared in many American newspapers since 1993. An anonymous tipster...

TYRE, Lebanon (AP) - After hours of digging in the blistering heat, Salam Daher emerged from the wreckage with the body of a 9-month-old baby, a blue pacifier still pinned to its nightshirt. Daher, a member of the civil defense for 20 years, has been photographed with bodies of the dead in two wars now - first in 1996 and most recently with the baby on July 30 -- both times after Israeli attacks in the village of Qana six miles southeast of the city. For that reason, some Web sites have labeled him the "Green Helmet," and accused him...

1) Man arrives with suitcase full of American toys and dismantles doll in pink dress. (AP) 2) Man carries dismantled doll, minnie mouse and teletubbie for placing in dramatic poses. (Reuters) 3) Fauxtographer takes pictures when props are in position.(Reuters)

How Much Does It Cost to Buy Global TV News? The vast majority of the TV news pictures you see are produced by two TV news companies. Presented here is a case for how a large amount of money has been used to inject a clear bias into the heart of the global TV news gathering system. That this happens is not at question, whether it is by accident or design is harder to tell. You may not realize it, but if you watch any TV news broadcast on any station anywhere in the world, there is a better than...

Fauxtographers' Get Smoked by the Blogosphere By Jon Sanders August 11, 2006 This week provided yet another example of the value of the blogosphere. On Saturday, August 5, the "Little Green Footballs" weblog (LGF) highlighted a Reuters photograph which "shows blatant evidence of manipulation ... repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly caused by using the Photoshop 'clone' tool to add more smoke to the image." Untold numbers of bloggers investigated, and within hours Reuters had killed the photo. Shortly afterward, Reuters fired the photographer, Adnan Hajj, and removed all 920 images it had on file from Hajj....

DAY 2 - THIS IS OUR 'TOP' POST UNTIL WE GET A RESPONSE FROM AP Page views since posting: 10,411 - First posted: 7.25 PM 10 August 2006. New post underneath this one. They hunt in packs, they film in packs and they lie in packs. And their bosses, sitting in their air-conditioned offices, thousands of miles from the action, back up their lies. And the liar-in-chief is Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor for Associated Press. Unlike Reuters' who have at least admitted their photo-fraud and started their own internal investigation, Carroll's hastily-produced "rebuttal" of the staged...