Qana What Really Happened There? Merged with Invalid Children

[Annie]

For the past few days, the story gets stranger and stranger:

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3284627,00.html

Lebanon: We will sue Israel in Hague

Lebanon is planning to file a lawsuit against Israel in the International Criminal Court. Tuesday, Lebanese Minister of Justice Charles Rizk made a written petition to the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, asking him to bring up the issue in the next meeting of the Lebanese cabinet, so that the prime minister will be able to collect witnesses in preparation before filing of the complaint.

The minister wrote to the prime minister: "The repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon, on its infrastructure, its citizens, women and children, since July 12 are a grave breech of international law and international agreements. As such, they clearly constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity."

War in Lebanon
Lebanese PM: This is deliberate Israeli operation / Ali Waked
Fouad Siniora explains in press conference following IAF air strike on village of Qana: 'This was no mistake, this is event that repeats itself.' He calls for immediate ceasefire and international inquiry into events
Full Story


"In preparation for the pursuit of the Israeli enemy in the relevant international courts, and in a bid to punish these crimes and to bring them to justice, the Lebanese government must prepare a comprehensive case that will include and detail all the attacks and crimes committed. This is with the intent that Israel pay restitution on all the physical and moral damages that she caused Lebanon and her citizens," he wrote.

"Accordingly, I request of you to present the issue in the cabinet meeting so that the decision can be made to assign the mission of performing a comprehensive survey of damage caused and of gathering proof of crimes committed to the Defense Ministry or the Ministry of the Interior. This will be done with legal oversight so that it may be passed on at the right moment in order to go after the perpetrators of these crimes," he added.

In addition, Minister Rizk expressed his regret that the "Qana massacre did not horrify the conscience and did not bring about a UN decision for a ceasefire.

The Red Cross published that 28 corpses were evacuated from Qana, 19 of which were children. The report clashes with the Lebanese report that 57 people were killed.

http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/188571.php

Links and some quite damning pictures at site:

Were the Qana Bodies Staged?

These questions and others are beginning to mount as the discrepancies in Hezbollah’s versions of events start to fall apart:

On the morning of July 30, according to the IDF, the air force came in three waves. In the first, between midnight and one in the morning, there was a strike at or near the building that eventually collapsed. There was a second strike at other targets far from the collapse building several hours later, and a third strike at around 7:30 in the morning. There too the nearest hit was some 460 meters away, according to the IDF. But first reports of a building collapse came only around 8 am.

Thus there was an unexplained 7 to 8 hour gap between the time of the helicopter strike and the building collapse. Brigadier General Amir Eshel, Head of the Air Force Headquarters, in a press briefing, told journalists that "the attack on the structure in the Qana village took place between midnight and one in the morning. The gap between the timing of the collapse of the building and the time of the strike on it is unclear."

Gen. Eshel appeared genuinely mystified by the gap in time. He "I’m saying this very carefully, because at this time I don’t have a clue as to what the explanation could be for this gap," he added.

The army’s only explanation was that somehow there was unexploded Hezbollah ordnance in the building that only detonated much later.
"It could be that inside the building, things that could eventually cause an explosion were being housed, things that we could not blow up in the attack, and maybe remained there, Brigadier General Eshel said.

Eshel reported that as recently as two days ago, military intelligence reported the building area had been used by the terrorists for storage or firing of weapons. It was a bad place to cram dozens of women and children.

There are other mysteries. The roof of the building was intact. Journalist Ben Wedeman of CNN noted that there was a larger crater next to the building, but observed that the building appeared not to have collapsed as a result of the Israeli strike.

Why would the civilians who had supposedly taken shelter in the basement of the building not leave after the post-midnight attack? They just went back to sleep and had the bad luck to wait for the building to collapse in the morning?

What we do know is that sometime after dawn a call went hour to journalists and rescue workers to come to the scene. And come they did.

While Hezbollah and its apologists have been claiming that civilians could not freely flee the scene due to Israeli destruction of bridges and roads, the journalists and rescue teams from nearby Tyre had no problem getting there.

Lebanese rescue teams did not start evacuating the building until the morning and only after the camera crews came. The absence of a real rescue effort was explained by saying that equipment was lacking. There were no scenes of live or injured people being extracted.

There was little blood, CNN’s Wedeman noted: all the victims, he concluded, appeared to have died while as they were sleeping — sleeping, apparently, through thunderous Israeli air attacks. Rescue workers equipped with cameras were removing the bodies from the same opening in the collapsed structure. Journalists were not allowed near the collapsed building.

Rescue workers filmed as they went carried the victims on the stretchers, occasionally flipping up the blankets so that cameras could show the faces and bodies of the dead.

But Israelis steeled to scenes of carnage from Palestinian suicide bombings and Hezbollah rocket attack could not help but notice that these victims did not look like our victims. Their faces were ashen gray. Their limbs appeared to have stiffened, from rigor mortis. Neither were effects that would have resulted from an Israeli attack hours before. These were bodies that looked like they had been dead for days.

Viewers can judge for themselves. But the accumulating evidence suggests another explanation for what happened at Kana. The scenario would be a setup in which the time between the initial Israeli bombing near the building and morning reports of its collapse would have been used to "plant" bodies killed in previous fighting — reports in previous days indicated that nearby Tyre was used as a temporary morgue — place them in the basement, and then engineer a "controlled demolition" to fake another Israeli attack.

The well-documented use by Palestinians of this kind of faked footage — from the alleged shooting of Mohammed Dura in Gaza, scenes from Jenin of "dead" victims falling off gurneys and then climbing back on — have merited the creation of a new film genre called "Palliwood."

Assuredly, Hezbollah's supporters will accuse those questioning the Qana attacks as conspiracy theorists, so I simply advise that viewers view the evidence with their own eyes, and draw their own conclusions from there.

The photographic evidence below the fold includes images of the dead, and is not for the squeamish.
afp_01

The child in the photo reputedly died when a concrete building weighting thousands of pounds collapsed upon her. There no visible blood or abrasions consistent with a building collapse. Neither the child nor the man carrying her show any signs of dust or debris one would expect in a building collapse. As a nation that watched the World Trade Center towers fall, beleive me, we know something about concrete dust.
pic2

The child in this photo also shows no signs of injuries—no blood, no disfigurement or crushing wounds consistent with a building collapse. The two men, one of which has been thoroughly reported on—show no signs of having been digging in rubble. Their clothes are unbelievably clean, especially the black fatigues that would so easily shown concrete dust. The sole role of the second man, "The Baby Carrier" in other photos captured by the assembled media has been to hold up dead children for the television cameras over a multi-hour period.
pic6

In a picture that hits the wires just one hour (9:06 AM) after the building collapse, a Lebanese Red cross member sits with bodies already displaying significant rigor mortis. According to Wikipedia:

Assuming mild temperatures, rigour usually sets in about 3-4 hours after clinical death, with full rigour being in effect at about 12 hours, and eventually subsiding to relaxation at about 36 hours.

About.com puts the timing of maximum stiffness at about 12-24 hours after death. These people were supposed to have died with one hour of these photos being taken.
pic3

A later photo of the bodies above, now under sheets. Again, no blood seeps through the sheets as one might expect from the crushing wounds of a building collapse, and the exposed bodies show no signs of appreciable dust. Note in particular the body on the far left, which has its hands thrust in the air, presumably because of the severe rigor mortis mentioned above.
pic4

Perhaps the most damning evidence of Hezbollah staging this event with bodies from a morgue. This young victim is again relatively clean and displays no evidence of the expected crush injuries. In fact, he displays no injuries at all, and no blood. Note there is no sign of dust whatsoever in his hair. Note the discoloration of the lower face and arm. This would seem to be consistent with the natural affect of decomposition on a body several days after death. Once more, the rescuers are clean as a whistle, not even having dust on their gloves.
pic5

"The Baby Carrier" with the only victim that actually appears authentic. Not that the child is heavily coated in concrete dust, unlike all the other victims shown. He is also the only victim in any photo that has concrete dust in his hair.

So, who do you trust? Do you trust the accounts of what happened as journalists parrot them from Hezbollah's statement of what happened, or do your eyes tell you something different.

I, for one, see clear evidence of a most revolting Hezbollah fraud.

Update: Followed up with Qana's Unanswered Questions.

 

[Annie]

More to the point, with fewer words and links:


http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=5726

The curious Qana body count

Something is very, very wrong with the reporting on Qana, for the moment, the worldwide symbol of Hezbollah’s media offensive. It is already reasonably clear that major media photographers were willingly made into tools of propaganda, accomplices in the hideous desecration of corpses of children. The timing of the building collapse hours after the actual air attack raises very awkward questions. Why were women and children kept inside the building for so long? Were they murdered?

Now, the previously-announced toll of 57 appears to be as phony as the picture of the dust-covered baby with a sparking clean pacifier. Haaretz reports:

... the number of fatalities in the incident appeared to be much lower than originally published. The Red Cross announced yesterday that 28 bodies, including those of 19 children, had been found at the site. Additional bodies are expected to be found over the coming days.​

The timing is once again in question:

None of the survivors said that the building only collapsed several hours later. [....]

Ibrahim Shalhoub described how he and his cousin had left to find help following the strike on the building. “It was dark and there was lots of smoke,” he said. “No one could do anything until morning. I could not stop crying; I couldn’t help them.” The fact that the Red Cross in Tyre was informed of the incident only in the morning is another reason why assistance was late in arriving. The director of the Red Cross office in the city, Sami Yazbek, said that he received word of the incident only at 7 A.M.​

Do NOT expect the world’s media to be the least bit curious about all the inconsistencies. They’ve got their story, and they’re sticking to it.

Thomas Lifson 8 01 06

 

[dilloduck]

More to the point, with fewer words and links:


http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=5726

Straddling the fence ?

 

[CSM]

To paraphrase one of our more illustrious (infamous?) board members "Kana...not the first and won't be the last!" It is truly ironic that terrorist propaganda falls apart once the evidence is examined...they are much better propagandists when the pictures are not shown ... yet the media jumps right on it and presents it as fact.

 

[Annie]

To paraphrase one of our more illustrious (infamous?) board members "Kana...not the first and won't be the last!" It is truly ironic that terrorist propaganda falls apart once the evidence is examined...they are much better propagandists when the pictures are not shown ... yet the media jumps right on it and presents it as fact.

Exactly.

 

[dilloduck]

To paraphrase one of our more illustrious (infamous?) board members "Kana...not the first and won't be the last!" It is truly ironic that terrorist propaganda falls apart once the evidence is examined...they are much better propagandists when the pictures are not shown ... yet the media jumps right on it and presents it as fact.

There is something really uncivilized about cramming photos of dead people into peoples faces and saying " Look what you did to us ". Staged or real I find it disgustingly irreverant of ones' own dead. It never stops anyone from doing anything anyway.

 

[Denton]

This is not a bit surprising as Arab fighters often use such tactics for propaganda both against the U.S. as well as Israel, but here is an article explaining how Hezbollah placed invalid children in the building in Qana and then made it a target by placing a launcher on top of it so that Israel would strike it.

Remember the huge number of casualties from that strike that was reported, and how the number is coming down considerably? Israel is losing the PR war because the world would rather believe allegations against Israel than have to face the facts about the real enemy, the enemy that also has cells in this country, that wants to defeat Western Civilization.

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Diplomacy/9011.htm

 

[dilloduck]

This is not a bit surprising as Arab fighters often use such tactics for propaganda both against the U.S. as well as Israel, but here is an article explaining how Hezbollah placed invalid children in the building in Qana and then made it a target by placing a launcher on top of it so that Israel would strike it.

Remember the huge number of casualties from that strike that was reported, and how the number is coming down considerably? Israel is losing the PR war because the world would rather believe allegations against Israel than have to face the facts about the real enemy, the enemy that also has cells in this country, that wants to defeat Western Civilization.

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Diplomacy/9011.htm

It wouldn't surprise me in the least--If nothing else we gotta keep the war of words going so the historians can get it right.

 

[Annie]

Circling the wagons:


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060801/ap_on_re_us/mideast_photos

News agencies stand by Lebanon photos

By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 17 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Three news agencies on Tuesday rejected challenges to the veracity of photographs of bodies taken in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon, strongly denying that the images were staged.

Photographers from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse all covered rescue operations Sunday in Qana, where 56 Lebanese were killed. Many of their photos depicted rescue workers carrying dead children.Though the International Red Cross has less than 30 bodies accounted for.

A British Web site, the EU Referendum blog, built an argument that chicanery may have been involved by citing time stamps that went with captions of the photographs.

For example, the Web site draws attention to a photo by AP's Lefteris Pitarakis time stamped 7:21 a.m., showing a dead girl in an ambulance. Another picture, stamped 10:25 a.m. and taken by AP's Mohammed Zaatari, shows the same girl being loaded onto the ambulance. In a third, by AP photographer Nasser Nasser and stamped 10:44 a.m., a rescue worker carries the girl with no ambulance nearby.

The site suggests these events were staged for effect, a criticism echoed by talk show host Rush Limbaugh when he directed listeners to the blog on Monday.

"These photographers are obviously willing to participate in propaganda," Limbaugh said. "They know exactly what's being done, all these photos, bringing the bodies out of the rubble, posing them for the cameras, it's all staged. Every bit of it is staged and the still photographers know it."

The AP said information from its photo editors showed the events were not staged, and that the time stamps could be misleading for several reasons, including that web sites can use such stamps to show when pictures are posted, not taken. An AFP executive said he was stunned to be questioned about it. Reuters, in a statement, said it categorically rejects any such suggestion.

"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," said Kathleen Carroll, AP's senior vice president and executive editor. Then again, they could be right, AP never says.

Carroll said in addition to personally speaking with photo editors, "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." Right, journalists never spin, we all know that.

Photographers are experienced in recognizing when someone is trying to stage something for their benefit, she said. And they appreciate those that help propogate their message.

"Do you really think these people would risk their lives under Israeli shelling to set up a digging ceremony for dead Lebanese kids?" asked Patrick Baz, Mideast photo director for AFP. "I'm totally stunned by first the question, and I can't imagine that somebody would think something like that would have happened."Stunned you may be, yes many believe they would do just that. Anything to hurt the war effort and bring ridicule to GW and Israel. Yes, most definately.

The AP had three different photographers there who weren't always aware of what the others were doing, and filed their images to editors separately, said Santiago Lyon, director of photography.

There are also several reasons not to draw conclusions from time stamps, Lyon said. Following a news event like this, the AP does not distribute pictures sequentially; photos are moved based on news value and how quickly they are available for an editor to transmit. Again, very easy for AP to prove. No one, even the most cynical, would doubt their word if they open up what they have. And they do 'have' the proof.

The AP indicates to its members when they are sent on the wire, and member Web sites sometimes use a different time stamp to show when they are posted.

Ok, first they can provide the 'true' timestamps' to show how the timetable makes sense, no biggie. They can also explain how Mr. Super Rescue worker keeps showing up for photo ops, in different scenes of different 'tragedies':

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/07/who-is-this-man.html

But the great tragedy for Qana, of which we are constantly reminded by the media, is that this is history apparently repeating itself. On 18 April 1996, the village was also visited by death and destruction. re-visiting the photographs of the time, however, who do we see at the centre of the action? Why, "Green Helmet" of course. This is a younger man, without his glasses, but recognisably the same man, in his now classic pose of handling a victim of an Israeli "atrocity".

and again:

This time, according to Reuter's Zohra Bensemra, "Green Helmet" is a Lebanese rescue worker, watching "while a bulldozers clears away the rubble of a building demolished by an Israeli air strike in Sreefa, 18 miles (30km) south east of the port-city of Tyre(Soure)". The dateline is 31 July, 2006, at 10:37 am.

Doesn't Hezbollah have anyone else the media can photograph?

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Wait. So you're 9/11 could have been an inside job? That's crazy, NOBODY would do that. That's just nutty to even SAY.

 

[Annie]

Wait. So you're 9/11 could have been an inside job? That's crazy, NOBODY would do that. That's just nutty to even SAY.

What are you refering to? Not that I should ask...

 

[Gunny]

For the past few days, the story gets stranger and stranger:

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3284627,00.html


http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/188571.php

Links and some quite damning pictures at site:

I'm getting beyond tired of hearing the BS the MSM is spewing forth. You would think according to them, Israel had launched an unprovoked war against all Lebanese noncombatants.

WHERE was the outrage while Israel endured daily missile attacks, killing Israeli noncombatants, week after week, month after month, year after year? I confess ... I wasn't aware Hezbollah was doing it, only that Palestine was. Wonder why THAT is? Not newsworthy, I guess.

The biggest absurdity is the mainstream willing to completely overlook the fact that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, and purposefully imbed themselves among the civilian populace because they KNOW exactly how to play on the leftist mind. I should say that is the next-to-the biggest absurdity.

The biggest is the fact that the this Islamoapologistas have been told, and KNOW, that is Hezbollah's game; yet STILL, they bleet like little sheep when Hezbollah pulls their strings.

Ridiculous.

 

[Annie]

I'm getting beyond tired of hearing the BS the MSM is spewing forth. You would think according to them, Israel had launched an unprovoked war against all Lebanese noncombatants.

WHERE was the outrage while Israel endured daily missile attacks, killing Israeli noncombatants, week after week, month after month, year after year? I confess ... I wasn't aware Hezbollah was doing it, only that Palestine was. Wonder why THAT is? Not newsworthy, I guess.

The biggest absurdity is the mainstream willing to completely overlook the fact that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, and purposefully imbed themselves among the civilian populace because they KNOW exactly how to play on the leftist mind. I should say that is the next-to-the biggest absurdity.

The biggest is the fact that the this Islamoapologistas have been told, and KNOW, that is Hezbollah's game; yet STILL, they bleet like little sheep when Hezbollah pulls their strings.

Ridiculous.

Good points Gunny.


Hizbollah, shoots off over 130 missiles per day, light injuries. Many ordnance do not explode. Israel has good civil defense, for both warnings and shelter. Few injured or dead.

Israel, shoots off far fewer missiles, all hit intended targets. If anyone is in those sites, chance of injury or death very high. Lebanon has virtually no civil defense system.

So is the proportionality that Israel should stop warning their civilians or stop responding to the attacks?

 

[Gunny]

Good points Gunny.


Hizbollah, shoots off over 130 missiles per day, light injuries. Many ordnance do not explode. Israel has good civil defense, for both warnings and shelter. Few injured or dead.

Israel, shoots off far fewer missiles, all hit intended targets. If anyone is in those sites, chance of injury or death very high. Lebanon has virtually no civil defense system.

So is the proportionality that Israel should stop warning their civilians or stop responding to the attacks?

I find the disproportional response to be a politically correct-driven, STUPID idea. You do not lob missiles at the enemy tit-for-tat to keep things "fair and square." You defeat the enemy with overwhelming force and take away his ability to wage war.

PC world opinion as parrotted in the MSM is trying to hold Israel, and the US as well, to a set of rules the enemy has no intention of adhering to.

 

[Annie]

I find the disproportional response to be a politically correct-driven, STUPID idea. You do not lob missiles at the enemy tit-for-tat to keep things "fair and square." You defeat the enemy with overwhelming force and take away his ability to wage war.

PC world opinion as parrotted in the MSM is trying to hold Israel, and the US as well, to a set of rules the enemy has no intention of adhering to.

Exactly. Which may mean the end of Israel and an isolationist US. Should be an interesting world then, no?

 

[Gunny]

Exactly. Which may mean the end of Israel and an isolationist US. Should be an interesting world then, no?

I seriously doubt it. In my mind, an "end" to Israel would mean an end to the Middle East because I don't see them going anywhere without a fight, nor do I see Israel going down with the US standing by.

If the US becomes ambivalent as Europe has, and we become isolationist, it will be only a matter of time before Islam overwhelms the rest of the world, followed by us.

That's how it goes when you don't give a crap and/or think you're too damned intelligent to fight for your life and freedom; which, seems to be an increasingly common trait among the intellectual left.

 

[Annie]

I seriously doubt it. In my mind, an "end" to Israel would mean an end to the Middle East because I don't see them going anywhere without a fight, nor do I see Israel going down with the US standing by.

If the US becomes ambivalent as Europe has, and we become isolationist, it will be only a matter of time before Islam overwhelms the rest of the world, followed by us.

That's how it goes when you don't give a crap and/or think you're too damned intelligent to fight for your life and freedom; which, seems to be an increasingly common trait among the intellectual left.

Seriously, I think the US has a huge inferiority complex. We figure if everyone is against us, we must be wrong. Israel doesn't suffer from the same, but they are too small to stand up to it, without the US. Truth is, US has been their only support. Now that push comes to shove, my guess, we will pull a Europe with Czechoslovakia. Same deal. Down the river for no cause, but a chimera.

 

[CockySOB]

I find the disproportional response to be a politically correct-driven, STUPID idea. You do not lob missiles at the enemy tit-for-tat to keep things "fair and square." You defeat the enemy with overwhelming force and take away his ability to wage war.

PC world opinion as parrotted in the MSM is trying to hold Israel, and the US as well, to a set of rules the enemy has no intention of adhering to.

GASP! You mean Hollywood movies aren't the template for how real wars are waged? Say it ain't so!

In war you have one driving responsibility - to protect your tribe, and to beat the crap out of any other tribe that wants to bring your tribe to harm.

(Yeah, Bill Whittle's essay "Tribes" is one of my favorites.)

 

[Annie]

More questions. In spite of the AP, Reuters, and AFP article, still raising questions. Picks and links at site:


http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/08/we-need-to-know-truth.html

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

We need to know the truth

For the agency "rebuttal", see here.

There are two wars being played out in the Middle East. One is a shooting war, where soldiers fight, where aircraft drop bombs and civilians die - on both sides.

But the other war, where no one dies, is probably more important in the grander scheme of things. That is the propaganda war, where the losses or gains of any one side can be negated by a deft photo-call and where the outcome of a campaign can be determined not by force of arms but by international politicians who can - if they so desire - impose a settlement that awards the fruits of victory to whomsoever the please.

In this second war, the shock troops are the journalists, photographers and television crews. They supply the raw material - the bullets, if you like - which shape opinions and give substance to the debate. We cannot all be there ourselves, so we rely on that information. We need it because we are not there, because we haven't smelled the death and the terror, because we have not seen the corpses with our own eyes. But, since this is the material that will shape our opinions and, through us the opinions of our politicians, we are entitled to ask whether it is accurate and unbiased. That we are not there does not disbar us from asking - it makes the asking all that more necessary.

Newsnight - frame 3And in this war, this second war, we have been offered the iconic figure of "Green Helmet" who, a number of our readers suggest, is Abu Shadi Jradi. His pain as he carries the body of a dead girl sums up the outrage of the Qana incident and conveys to us the horror of a war which all good people want to end. We are being asked to share that pain and, overtly in many cases, to condemn those whom we are told caused it.

But we, in turn, are entitled to know whether that "pain" is real and even if it is, whether it is being used to manipulate our thinking and turn our sentiment one way or another. On the other hand, no one is entitled to demand our uncritical acceptance of that which we are shown - that we should necessarily and always accept it as the unvanrished truth.

It is in this context that we are asking: "what is the truth"? We ask it because we have done something we were not supposed to do... we have put all the separate photographs that we can find of one sequence of events. And they simply do not stack up. Some we have shown before, some are new to this blog, and the sequence starts with the first three photographs above. These purportedly show the recovery of the body of a girl from the wreckage of the building in Qana, prior to its transmission to a waiting ambulance.

Sometime in between the wreckage and the ambulance, however, we get the iconic picture, the one that has been reproduced in newspapers thoughout the world. This one, we can see, is near the wreckage of the building but, was it posed? We do not know but, in viewing hours of video footage, we have not yet seen the scenario filmed. That, in itself is possibily noteworthy, given the number of TV cameras that were around. Virtually everything on the scene was being filmed - yet no-one seems to have filmed this.

What we do see on the videos are harrowing scenes of bodies being laid outside the building and others being brought out and handed to first aid and other workers, who then convey them to the ambulances or other vehicles. There seems to be a relatively well-organised division of labour, where the rescue workers recover the bodies and then hand them on outside the building for transportation.

This might be what is happening here. "Green Helmet" is carrying the girl's body, still within sight of the wreckage, running towards a Red Cross worker. It looks as if he is about to hand over the body - it certainly looks like it, and the receiver has his arms out as if to take the load. But it could be that the Red Cross worker is simply directing "Green Helmet" to a waiting stretcher, or some other location.

Anyhow, we do not see the outcome of this scene, but what we are shown is a transfer to the hands of another worker and the body being placed on a "guerney". This is still in sight of the debris so we know it must be in close proximity to the collapsed building. We can see that it is at the bottom of the mound of debris, on a relatively flat surface and it is likely that the "gurney" itself has been wheeled to the position.

By reference to a new (to us) photograph, we see that this transfer did take place on film, but the "gurney" is used to transport the bodies of two victims, the other also the body of a girl, which looks rather like that transported by the man we call "White Tee-shirt". So far, so good. The next stop, logically, is the ambulance. There could be no other reason for loading the bodies on the gurney.

What then do we make of this photograph? "Green Helmet" is carrying the girl's body but we have no reference point and there is no sign of debris. It could be anywhere in the vicinity of the building - but it is unlikely to be that close. The area seems relatively flat and, to the bottom-left of the picture is a glimpse of a smooth, debris-free path. Where does this photograph fit into the overall sequence? Why is "Green Helmet" still carrying the body?

And if the above photograph might be anomalous, what about this one? The wrecked bulding is nowhere in sight - there is no debris and the picture shows a wide street. Again, there is no reference point - by which we can measure the distance to the collapsed building, so it is not possible to judge where we are relative to it. There is, however, no sign of an ambulance or other vehicle, and no other workers. Once again, therefore, why is "Green Helmet" carrying the body, why is he on his own, and how does this picture fit into the sequence?

To add to the puzzle, though, we see this. The man is, as far as I can tell, "Green Helmet". But gone is the helmet, the fluorescent waistcoat, the radio and the flack jacket. And he is carrying the girl's body, with no sign of the gurney or the "man in black" who was in charge of it. What is happening here? Is this really consistent with the other photographs?

Now we see the girl's body in the ambulance. There have been some perfectly sound questions about our reliance on the datelines offered by the agencies so we will not rely on the timing. We do not know for certain whether this picture was taken before or after the others. We can assume this is the last in the sequence - that would be a logical assumption, but still an assumption. We do not see the doors closed and the vehicle drive off.

Nothing here is conclusive evidence of the shots being posed. I think it is fair to say, however, that there are unanswered questions and good reason for suspicion - and this is but one sequence. We will also look in more detail at the others.

 

[dilloduck]

Seriously, I think the US has a huge inferiority complex. We figure if everyone is against us, we must be wrong. Israel doesn't suffer from the same, but they are too small to stand up to it, without the US. Truth is, US has been their only support. Now that push comes to shove, my guess, we will pull a Europe with Czechoslovakia. Same deal. Down the river for no cause, but a chimera.

It's a guilt complex, not an inferiority complex.