War Porn

“The Qana Massacre Hoax.”
The first hint of this meme that I noticed was a Powerline post about the Condoleeza Rice banner, the one with text referring to the Qana incident, the one that appeared with such suspicious rapidity on the streets of Beirut.


The banner was certainly very timely — it was hung on the morning after the “massacre”, just a couple of hours after the death of the victims in Qana.

And then it turned out that the Israeli airstrike that damaged the building had actually occurred some seven or eight hours prior to the building’s collapse. Curiouser and curiouser.

[Warning: some of the images in posts linked below are graphic.]
 
Israel Matzav, EU Referendum, and Confederate Yankee have followed up with analyses of the timing of the banner and the sequencing of the Qana photographs. EU Referendum has focused on the suspicious and mysterious “Green Helmet” and “T-shirt”, the two supposed rescue workers who changed clothes and positions so many times carrying the same two miraculously clean and un-bloody bodies to the waiting ambulance.


The “massacre” at Qana may well have been staged. This is not to say that Lebanese children did not die in Israeli airstrikes; they certainly did. This is not to say that the parents of these children do not mourn; I believe that they do.

But this is all very reminscent of Mohammed al-Dura, the boy whose “murder by Israeli fire” had been conclusively shown to be a hoax arranged by the Palestinians, with the complicity of the France 2 television network. Mohammed al-Dura may have been accidentally killed by Palestinian fire, or he may have been deliberately killed for propaganda purposes, or even not killed at all, but he was most definitely not killed by the Israelis.

Yet his murder attained an iconic “truth” which had transcended and outlived the mere facts of the situation. He was a visual proof of Israeli (and, by implication, Western) brutality and indifference towards Muslims. He was even been made into a postage stamp in Tunisia.


So the truth doesn’t really matter.

Qana was the latest in a long series of iconic images, an extensive collection of photos and video that might have been entitled The West Always Commits Atrocities Against the Fuzzy-Wuzzies. The first in the series was Eddie Adams’ famous photo of the the summary execution of Nguyen Van Lem during the Tet offensive in February of 1968. The uses to which the photo was put ignored all context — namely, that it was taken in the middle of an enemy offensive in a brutal war, and the victim was identifiably an enemy soldier, and an officer of the Viet Cong. The image was eventually enshrined as the visual symbol of America’s guilt towards the “brown people” of Vietnam, and was soon joined by other familiar icons such as Kent State and My Lai.


Eddie Adams’ photo was very disturbing. The newsreel footage of the same incident — which I saw in British images of the late 1960's, when it was aired by the nascently anti-American BBC — was even more disturbing. But the film was suppressed in this country for many years, because graphic atrocity images were generally not shown in the media.

Times have changed. The mainstream media are nowadays all too ready to show graphic images. Provided, of course, that they illustrate the dominant paradigm: America, Israel, and other Western nations always behave in a barbaric fashion towards the Third World and people of color.

For guilt-ridden liberal Westerners, looking at such images is a form masochistic voyeurism. “Oh, look at that! We’re so bad! We’re so awful! We deserve whatever we get!”


With a ready market like that, the brutal culture of the Arab world has plenty of supply to satisfy the demand. Muslims are the “brown people”, the victims of the moment, and they obligingly supply the forbidden images that we are so hungry to see.

And doing so suits the strategy of the Islamists, so there is a perfect synergy of effort: We want to hang ourselves; they hand us the rope. What could be better?

Staged or real, the prurient images of victimization are a precision-guided missile that strikes the target perfectly.


The dead bodies of children are props; the “rescue workers” are actors and stagehands. And the directors of the drama seem to be the media, who have lately become knowingly complicit.

Take a look at the Qana photo at right (to dampen the voyeuristic aspects, I have cropped out the most disturbing parts). See that guy crouching in the background?

He’s not a rescue worker. He’s another photographer. The photographer who took the this photo was not careful enough to keep his colleague out of the picture. Or maybe it didn’t matter to him — the Potemkin process is so far along that no one really minds if the secret is revealed.


Qana and other similar incidents are, regardless of authenticity, primarily media events. They are managed and delivered as weapons by the enemies of Western Civilization, with the connivance of our own media.

This is War Pornography, delivered to the greedy and guilt-ridden consumers of the West by our ruthless opponents. The couch potatoes of our intelligentsia are sitting here, sweating in a darkened room, with a raincoat over the engorged self-righteousness in their laps.
I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it.

Since the aim of Imperialistic Islam is to win the Total War, the sacrifice of any member of the Ummah to further its goal only transforms them into glorious "martyrs", no matter who kills them. (Even if it is their co-"religious" cousins making Machiavelli look like Mother Teresa by comparison.)


Has anyone in the media checked to see whether these might have been Sunni kids, killed by Shiite Hezbollah, as a way to get rid of an internal enemy and use their p.r. deaths injure an external one?

Two birds with one (or a dozen) crippled kid(s)?

"War is deceit" as the pedophile "prophet" put it.

Quote: "It's hard to imagine how someone sitting in an air-conditioned office or broadcast studio many thousands of miles from the scene can decide what occurred on the ground with any degree of accuracy."


Yes. It is. And that is exactly what they are relying on when piecing these photsessions together.

These same western liberals seem to sleep easy when in fact the civilian human sheilds being killed are being sacrificed for them. For their pity, outrage; these terrorists have no moral right on their side, they can only create false propaganda for the ignorant, guilt-ridden Western liberals, who just want to hate themselves. (Is there a pyschological disorder here?)


If this is all true does a culture that allows itself to indulge in this masochistic effete angst, really deserve to survive?

I know the 'enemy' is grotesque, but if what you say about 'our' culture is even moderately true, frankly we do not seem to be much of an improvement.

A culture this decayed, has no claim upon survival on the merits, and certainly none on the basis of effort.

But that mysterious little voice keeps telling me that you have pretty much summed up the situation.

What a sad state of affairs.

Multicultural Outreach from the Swedish Police

A reader has translated an article from an edition of Metro International in Sweden:


AINA Will Attract Suburban “Kids”

Aina is Turkish-Swedish slang, and is an abbreviation of the Turkish slang expression aynasiz that means “without mirror”. The word hints at the police with the meaning that a police officer has no sense of shame and decency and consequently would not dare to look in a mirror. (Source: Z. Adami, Gringo)

A police car with the slang word for police “AINA” is supposed to tempt suburban “kids” to join the police corps. “The police believe they can reclaim the word and undramatize or defuse it. By using the same word as the kids in the immigrant suburbs you are creating a feeling of nearness,” says Zanyar Adami, editor in chief of the paper Gringo.


During the youth festival “Young 10 “ the police unveiled the renamed police car. The objective is to tempt youngsters with different ethnic backgrounds to join the corps for police education.

It is also part of the fight against juvenile delinquency, by investing in tempting new groups to join the police force. “Too many young people are drawn into gang criminality and we must all engage in trying to stop this. On way could be to get more police officers with experience from the suburbs,” says Chief Commissioner Carin Götblad to the Swedish News Agency TT.

Adami believes that the car will draw the attention of the “kids” and create a dialogue between them and the police.

“Is it enough to only show up a car with the word ‘AINA’ to reach suburb youngsters? — No, one PR campaign is not enough, but it shows that the police are receptive. I believe that it can tempt some to enlist,” says Adami.

Photo caption: Chief Commissioner Carin Götblad demonstrates the new police car that will tempt suburban “kids” to qualify as future police. Photo: Land Earthy/Scanpix

The Vision Thing

There was an interesting read in one of the editions of Washington Post by former CIA Officer John Brennan, former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Mr. Brennan noted that Osama bin Laden's days are probably numbered, but his "vision" will likely live on after his demise. He argues that the U.S. should re-double its efforts to "get" the Al Qaeda leader, to destroy the myth of his invincibility. Brennan also observes that the U.S. and its allies have no real plan for countering bin Laden's vision, which has attracted followers across the Muslim world.


Further he observes that Bin Laden is "securely hibernating" somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan border, deriving warmth from such developments as Hamas's recent victory in the Palestinian elections, Islamist violence in Europe, and the recent cartoon riots around the globe. According to Brennan, this proves that Bin Laden is advancing his dream of global domination by an Islamic caliphate.

There's only one problem with that scenario. Bin Laden moved into seclusion because he had to; his once-secure compounds in Afghanistan are now under control of the U.S. military or Afghan security forces. The increasing isolation of the Al Qaeda leader has forced the organization to adopt a de-centralized approach to Jihad, with local cells assuming a far greater role in planning and conducting attacks. While this approach has produced some tactical victories (notably the transit bombings in London and Madrid), it is not likely to replicate the success of 9/11. As we've argued in the past, Bin Laden must, at some point, prove capable of staging another "spectacular" to ensure continued financial support for his cause. Over the past year, there has been some grumbling within Al Qaeda ranks that the movement is losing steam, and that the organization must mount another large-scale operation to keep the base energized and expanding. Shuttling between caves and mud huts makes that process infinitely more difficult.

Additionally, the security of Bin Laden's hiberation site is increasingly in jeopardy. Recent drone attacks that killed senior Al Qaida operatives are evidence that the intelligence net is slowly tightening around bin Laden, and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. A respected British security firm recently predicted that Bin Laden, Zawahiri (or both) will be killed or captured. Bin Laden's "hibernation" is clearly a sign of success in the War on Terror.

 Democracy in Afghanistan has been a success, despite a slight resurgence by the Taliban. Bin Laden's former hosts have been largely reduced to mounting IED attacks against Afghan government and NATO troops, because their other military and political strategies have failed miserably.

In Iraq, the insurgency remains a serious problem, and the wave of sectarian violence revealed problems with Iraqi police and Interior Ministry security teams. But the new Iraqi Army performed well, and the overwhelming majority of the populace resisted calls for civil war, obeyed the curfews, and rode out the crisis. Iraq's political and religious leaders also demonstrated a willingness to work together, although some of those relationships are contentious at best.

As demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a viable alterntative to Bin Laden's 8th century social and political model. But communicating that vision is often as imporatant as all the humanitarian aid and infrastructure projects funding across the Middle East. The inability to communicate messages of democracy and opportunity gives hope to Bin Laden, who has little trouble in articulating his brand of Islamofacism.

With attitudes changing, Companies prefer to hire Non-smokers

JEDDAH, 27 May 2010 — Work attitudes are seemingly shifting in the Kingdom with many companies that previously sought competencies in English and computer literacy are preferring nonsmoking workers over smokers, according to a report published by Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. Job seekers need to brace themselves in ticking the nonsmoking boxes in job applications.


A company executive, who preferred to remain anonymous, said the shift in attitudes was due to a growing concern in the quality of working environments in the Kingdom.

Managers are now less enthusiastic about employing smokers because of the dangerous health hazards that smoking may pose to co-workers. The official said, “This is an internationally applied principle not just a local one. Studies prove that nonsmokers are far more qualified than smokers.”

A recent study conducted by European researchers found that the level of work done by workers that smoke was far less than that done by non-smokers. The study also showed that on average a smoking employee costs a company 2,890 euros (about SR14,000) a year in cigarette breaks.

The study further stated that employees at companies that operated under a nonsmoking policy would generally waste time in going to “smoker’s corners” and that people that smoked have negative effects on their co-workers and generally go on sick leave far more than nonsmokers. Interestingly smokers also cost companies huge bills in ventilation maintenance.

 In fact some companies have already begun applying some of these conditions and prefer employing nonsmokers to smokers. “Companies have the right to prevent and ban smoking within their own premises. As long as an employee is hardworking and does a good job companies should continue employing them.”

Abu Harba makes an interesting point saying that most people smoke because of the stress related to searching for jobs.

Statistics deduced from national records at the Ministry of Health has revealed that the number of smokers in Saudi Arabia has dramatically increased and that the Kingdom has been ranked as the world’s fourth largest cigarette importer.

In spite of various programs educating the public about the harms associated with cigarettes the number of smokers in Saudi Arabia continue to grow, especially among young people. The records also show that an alarming number of Saudi women also smoke. Their number, currently at six percent, is said to be increasing.