Thursday, August 10, 2006

Liars!

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 photographs at Qana, written by staff hack David Bauder, still stands. It is Carroll who claims that she has personally spoken with photo editors and, she says, "I also know from 30 years of experience in this business that you can't get competitive journalists to participate in the kind of (staging) experience that is being described." Photographers are experienced in recognizing when someone is trying to stage something for their benefit, she claims.

She is supported by Tim Fadek, who is said to have been working in Qana for picture press agency Polaris. He claims he did not see evidence of staging. Well, if he did not, he was either blind or, like Carroll, is a liar. Nick Blanford, working in Lebanon for twelve years for The Times and Time, and one of the first on the spot, also denies any staging. He too must either be blind or a liar.

In normal times I am uneasy about making such a direct accusations, but the quality of my own work, my own motivation and my good faith has been questioned, and even mocked by that patronising little slime Shane Richmond while his employers in The Daily Hezbollagraph have studiously avoided reporting on the Reuters photographs withdrawal. Meanwhile, the bulk of the US and UK media has gone into denial mode, hoping the issue will go away.

Even up to press, with my latest piece, setting out how the the photographs were staged, and merited an honest re-appraisal of the Qana footage by the agencies and their media customers. Now, however, with the publication by the German Zapp video magazine of raw footage taken at Qana on 30 July, the evidence of staging is now indisputable. Against the claims made by "Green Helmet" in the Stern magazine, it also brands him as a pathological liar and the editors of the magazine as fools or worse.

Here, the uncut video footage, taken by the NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) agency, clearly shows "Green Helmet" giving directions to the camera, a circular motion with his finger instricting the team to "keep on filming", and so conscious of his own deceit is the man that he attempts to disguise the signal as an adjustment to his glasses. Later, we see this ghoul stage the unnessesary shipping of a child's body out of the ambulance in which it has been put, its transfer to another litter and then Green Helmet obligingly clears the way for the film crew and then exposes the corpse for a close-up view.

This, as "Zapp" quite rightly observes in its subtitles, is the abuse of the body of a dead child. But the "abusers" included the camera crew, who willingly went on with the charade (although someone along the line has a conscience and has released the footage) but it especially includes the likes of AP's Kathleen Carroll. Her and her ilk must have known what was going on. They have access to the raw footage of countless videos, they have access to vastly more photographs than we bloggers have been able to collect, and they have the time stamps which would help piece the story of the "abuse" together.

But instead, they sit on their dunghill crowing, denigrating us bloggers and branding us "conspiracy theorists" and worse, covering up what we now know to be widespread malpractice that has been going on for a long, long time. Do they think we are all that stupid?

Kathleen Carroll - AP liar-in-chiefSo, what about it Kathleen Carroll? I have called you a liar. I will do it again. You are a liar. That is a direct challenge. Deliver the evidence to me to prove I am wrong (my e-mail link is on this site) or withdraw your rebuttal and admit - like Reuters - that there are problems in your agency, and start cleaning it up. The same applies to AFP and all the others who conspire to stage photographs and abuse the bodies of dead children. You are liars all, and we are sick of your lies.

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