Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Real photo-fakers

Difficile dargli torto...
Namib
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http://www.counterpunch.org/cook08162006.html
August 16, 2006
Real Photo Fakers
Real War Crimes
By JONATHAN COOK
Nazareth.
During Israel's war against the people of Lebanon, our media,
politicians and diplomats have colluded with the aggressors by
distracting us with irrelevancies, by concocting controversies, and by
framing the language of diplomacy. In the fragile truce that is
currently holding while Lebanon waits for Israel to withdraw, we are
simply getting more of the same.
One example of the many distractions during the war that neatly reveals
their true purpose is the "faked Reuters photograph" affair. The
supposed scandal of a Lebanese photographer tampering with a picture to
add and darken smoke from an Israeli missile attack -- to little or no
effect, it should be noted -- has not only been decried by activists on
Zionist websites but amplified by mainstream commentators into a debate
about whether we can trust the images of this war.
Who benefits from these doubts? If we cannot be sure that this one
photograph is genuine, then maybe many more that purportedly show some
of the 1,000 Lebanese civilians killed by Israel's bombardment are fake
too. Maybe the dead have been airbrushed in as easily as a puff of
smoke. Maybe too, were the smoke removed, we would still be able to see
that Israel has "the most moral army in the world".
The far worse photography scandal, which is not talked about, is that
the images of the war we saw over the past month in our Western media
were constantly doctored, day in, day out. Not by ordinary
photographers who risk their lives, and hope to make their fortunes,
conveying the reality of war, but by the senior executives of
newspapers and TV stations who ensure we are never presented with that
reality. Pictures were binned or cropped if they hinted at what
suffering and death truly looked like. Western audiences were not shown
the row of charred corpses lying in the street, or the agony of a son
pressing a scrap of cloth to the severed arm of his mother as she bled
to death, or the crushed baby pulled from the rubble.
Our news and picture editors say this is about good taste. They justify
their decisions on the grounds that we should not exploit the victims
of war by showing pornographic images of their death -- a useful excuse
as we can never know what the dead would have chosen. More
significantly, however, the exclusion of meaningful images of the human
cost of war protects us from understanding the appalling consequences
of Israel's military actions, an onslaught sanctioned and supported by
our Western media, politicians and diplomats, and indirectly by our
taxes.
How long would Israel's war have been allowed to continue if American
audiences had seen those charred bodies or dead babies? How long would
most Western viewers have remained silent if they were exposed to the
kind of images shown daily on the Arabic satellite channels? Might we
then start to understand why they hate us -- and more usefully why we
should hate ourselves?
Much the same purpose has been satisfied in the diplomatic arena by the
endless debates about whether Israel's offensive was "disproportionate"
-- a word that raises a yawn almost the second it is uttered -- rather
than whether it was necessary. And by the controversy initiated by the
United Nations' Jan Egeland about the "cowardly blending" of Hizbullah
fighters among Lebanese civilians, a comment he made while in
Jerusalem, not Beirut, based on evidence he has never divulged. It is
truly astonishing that the world's representative on humanitarian
affairs made most impact in this war -- one in which more than 1,000
Lebanese were killed and in which hundreds of thousands more were made
homeless -- trying to hold Hizbullah to account for the thousands of
Israeli air strikes on civilian areas of Lebanon. Such is the
upside-down logic and morality of our leaders.
And we are in the same territory again with the current discussions
about how Lebanon and Israel will be rebuilt after the fighting.
Reconstruction -- another word that provokes instant boredom -- fits
the bill perfectly: both nations, we are told, will need billions of
dollars to repair the damage done to their infrastructure. The story of
astronomical losses conveys reassuringly to us a sense both of
technical problems that will eventually be solved and of the ultimate
symmetry and justice in the suffering of these two nations. Both
peoples face a terrible financial burden imposed by war, both are
equally deserving of our sympathy.
But let us pause. How precisely are these two nations' material losses
equivalent? Israel's derive mostly from the enormous costs of its
attacks on Lebanon, the tens of thousands of missiles fired into its
towns and villages, that killed mostly civilians, and damage to the
tanks, helicopters and warships that were the machinery needed to
invade another sovereign country. Most of the rest of the cost will
follow from losses in tourism revenue and investment, the consequences
of a fall in confidence caused by Israel waging an unnecessary war for
the return of two soldiers captured by Hizbullah rather than engage in
negotiations. A small share of Israel's lost billions has been
inflicted by the aggression of Hizbullah.
The material damage done to Lebanon is in a different category
altogether. The bombed roads and bridges, the tens of thousands of
homes in ruins, the destroyed power stations, factories and petrol
stations, the oil slick across much of the Lebanese coast are the
direct result of Israel's campaign of precision bombing of Lebanese
civilian infrastructure.
Think of how your local court might consider the respective claims of
these two nations if this were a domestic dispute between neighbors.
Would a judge view with any sympathy a claim from a man demanding
compensation from his neighbour for the damage done to his expensive
sledgehammer after a destructive rampage through the neighbor's home,
as well as for the loss of his reputation that followed the attack, as
he found himself cast as the neighborhood pariah? Would it make any
difference if it could be proved that his neighbor had sworn
provocatively at him before he went on his rampage?
Incredibly, a similar claim may yet be heard -- and possibly
sympathetically -- by the US civil courts if Israeli lawyers succeed in
bringing a case for damages against the Lebanese government.
But all of this, like the "faked photograph affair", is another layer
of distraction. The real issue that should be the most pressing matter
at the top of the world's agenda is not an assessment of the mutual
crimes against property but the mostly one-sided crimes against human
beings -- the massive Israeli war crimes that have been committed
throughout the past month in Lebanon, whose effects will continue as
cluster bombs blow up returning refugees, and are still being committed
every day against the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank.
This urgent moral case is being quietly overlooked in favor of the
material damages story, and for reasons not hard to discern. Because if
we concentrated on the tally of war crimes, Israel would come out the
undoubted winner in both Lebanon and Gaza.
[Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel.]

 photograph is genuine, then maybe many more/cut/
Stupendo.
Ci sono una quantità imbrazzante di falsi certificati e circolano sui nostri 
giornali quantità di staged news vergognose.
Come reagire? Col buon vecchio "a chi giova"?
Si accusa del falso, chi ne ha subito le conseguenze propagandistiche.
Hanno falsificato male, sono stati beccati.
Ora accusano "il nemico" della loro figura di merda.
Che schifo, Namib, francamente a sto punto credevo potesse arrivare solo Torrieri.
Tb
-- 
Diario di guerra
www.tonibaruch.blogspot.com

 Che schifo, Namib, francamente a sto punto credevo potesse arrivare solo
Torrieri.
Non ci casco. Io non ho fonti "proibite", e, se un ragionamento mi convince,
lo appoggio. Se non convince te, confutalo, ma senza insultare
(preventivamente e sostitutivamente) chi lo posta, chi lo scrive e chi lo
ospita, e chi credi somigli a chi lo posta, a chi lo scrive e a chi lo
ospita.
Namib

the massive Israeli war crimes that have been committed
E dei quali l'*IDIOTA* ha le prove ma non le vuole mostrare al mondo per
non rendersi ridicolo piu' di quanto gia' non faccia.
-Stefano

>the massive Israeli war crimes that have been committed
Crimini, nel peggiore dei casi, discutibilissimi e tutti da provare.
Al contrario di quelli di Hezbollah, che ha agito in modo criminale sparando dai 
villaggi e usando i civili come scudi umani, in modo criminale usando munizioni 
proibite, in modo criminale sparando su aree civili indiscriminatamente.
Ma il demente jihadista che ha scritto questo pezzo lo ha dimenticato.
Quando si cerca in siti di merda, di solito si trova merda.
E questo articolo ne è la piena conferma.
Tanto dovevo a Namib per l'analisi dell'intreressantissimo scritto.


 Tanto dovevo a Namib per l'analisi dell'intreressantissimo scritto.
Tanto dovevi a De Cesari. A taluni basta.
Namib

Namib wrote:

No, sei tu che volevi commenti sullo scritto, oltre che sul meraviglioso sito 
dove sei andato a pescarlo.
Quanto a De Cesari, duole dire che dice verità elementari che tu stai cercando 
di negare, come il fatto che Israele sia stata attaccata. Altri commenti che ho 
conservato su quel ridicolo pezzo sono altrettanto incontrovertibili e altri ne 
ho aggiunti io.
E roba di una grossolanità penosa, a partire dall' "a chi giova" fino alla 
violenza del linguaggio, se non bastasse la disonestà con cui sono descritti i 
fatti, ignorando ogni responsabilità di Hezbollah e criminalizzando Israele (che 
se ne stava dietro il suo confine senza minacciare nessuno, prima dei noti 
fatti, ricordo). Non so come possa esserti venuto in mente di passarlo.
Amico o "equivicino", di solito sei più intelligente. Saranno i danni 
collaterali della guerra.


Tanto dovevi a De Cesari.
Certo, certo...
*pat pat*
-Stefano

 Non ci casco. Io non ho fonti "proibite",
Non è (solo) una questione di fonti, come vedi altrove.
Certo, uno si domanda cosa si va a cercare su counterpunch.


 collaterali della guerra.
Ok. E ora vogliamo entrare nel merito?
Namib

non lo sono state.
Davvero? Quante foto di morti israeliani sei in grado di mostrarci, caro
*FESSO* di un Namib?
Bah...
-Stefano