The time of truth has arrived. The world will quake...I love it.

The bottom photos depict the staged, faux revolutionary spectacle of the April 9, 2003 toppling of the statute of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square. It was but one of somewhere between 50 to 60 stories the Pentagon made up from whole cloth.

What looked like a spontaneous uprising by thousands of Iraqis was but a few members of Ahmed Chalabi's private army. The Marines had sealed off the entire square in order to stage the event.

The smaller photo reflects what the corporate media displayed. The larger photo of the nearly empty square was a Reuters photo that reflected the reality.

Then there was the concocted story about the blond-haired, blue-eyed girl next door, Jessica Lynch, portrayed in the media as the wounded hero who went down shooting, “fighting to the death” at the time of her capture.

As Norman Solomon observed in War Made Easy, “Typical was a big story put together by Los Angeles Times reporters in Doha….Hailing the rescue as ‘a triumphant moment for U.S. forces,’ the front-page April 3 [2003] article reported that special operations troops ‘landed a Black Hawk helicopter in the courtyard of the hospital, shot their way into the building under heavy fire and moved to the room where Lynch lay…Once inside, the US forces grabbed Lynch, strapped her to a stretcher and—again, under fire—carted her to the waiting chopper.’"

It was a wonderful, made for TV heroic tale. It was also patently false, another instance of military propaganda that was exposed not by the American media but instead by John Kampfner of the BBC. Lynch had not been wounded in combat; had not gone down shooting, but instead was injured when her jeep crashed. She was well-treated by Iraqi doctors, who had sought themselves to take her back to the Americans only to turn back when U.S. soldiers fired on their approaching ambulance. The Americans did not face a hail of gunfire. It was a staged event in which the Americans brought their cameras along. All of this was confirmed by Lynch herself.

Such is the state of "journalism" of the corporate-owned media.

Brilliant! Thanks, Brad.

Two pictures say it all. Hard hitting contrast!

"This is Mubarak's work," one wounded stone-thrower said to me. "He has managed to turn Egyptian against Egyptian for just nine more months of power. He is mad. Are you in the West mad, too?" I can't remember how I replied to this question. But how could I forget watching – just a few hours earlier – as the Middle East "expert" Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, was asked if Mubarak was a dictator. No, he said, he was "a monarch-type figure". Robert Fisk: Blood and fear in Cairo's streets as Mubarak's men crack down on protests

Thursday, 3 February 2011

It's just too good a comparison to pass up, wasn't it Brad? Inserting a shot of the statue being pulled down over another shot that doesn't appear to have anything pulling the statue down doesn't constitute a truthful alternative to the corporate media, now, does it? Especially sad, because the comparison is valid.

The New Yorker covered the story of the Iranian statue very well a few weeks ago. Corporate media, but honest.

Hey. What's a q between friends?

No Thanks @6 said "The New Yorker covered the story of the Iranian statue very well a few weeks ago."

You know, NT, no one here would have known how badly misinformed you are if you hadn't added your posts.

The statue depicted in both of the lower two photos was not an "Iranian statue." Both photos were taken the same day, April 9, 2003. Both depict the same event--the faux revolutionary spectacle in which a Saddam Hussein statue was pulled down in Baghdad's Firdos Square.

A little geography lesson, NT. Firdos Square and Baghdad are located in Iraq; not Iran.

If you look a little more closely you will see that both photos depict the same statue and the same crowd. The photos were not taken by the same camera and not at the same precise time.

The smaller photo was shot at ground level after the statue was partially toppled; the larger one shortly before. The larger one is an aerial photo taken by Reuters.

The scam was not first exposed by The New Yorker a few weeks ago. It was exposed back in 2003. You will find an extended discussion of the Firdos square faux revolutionary charade in Mark Crispin Miller's Cruel and Unusual.

Brad's comparison is valid. Your comments, on the other hand, are inane and misinformed.

Ah, good old earnest Ernest. See my second comment, sent three minutes after the first. But, oh, it IS the same statue in both photos. Excellent point, earnest.