August 07, 2006

Lebanon Admits Only One Dead, Still Called 'Massacre'

When does the death of one person become a massacre? Whenever a Jew does the killing, of course!

CNN:

Lebanon's prime minister said Monday an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Houla left 40 people dead.

"An hour ago, there was a horrific massacre in the village of Houla in which more than 40 martyrs were victims of deliberate bombing," Fouad Siniora told Arab foreign ministers in Beirut.

Then, hours later:
“The massacre in Houla, it turned out that there was one person killed,”
From 40 dead to one and it's still called a massacre.

Can I engage in a moment of what is probably way-off-the-mark blogosphere triumphalism?

Allow me, for a moment, to speculate that if inflated number of 40 dead in this 'deliberate' 'massacre' had been alleged yesterday, then no one would have paid attention.

That, yesterday, if Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora had made the accusation it would have been followed up with an on-the-ground tour by a Hizbollah media liason showing reporters a few dead bodies as 'proof' that the 'massacre' happened. The MSM would have circulated the photos. The U.N. Security Council would have called an emergency meeting. Israel would be roundly condemned.

Today? Not so much.

Self-promoting triumphalism? Maybe. Then again, perhaps the MSM will be more cautious about repeating the claims of Hizbollah because those claims are backed up with photographic evidence.

Photos do lie. Even those that aren't doctored. Context is everything.

A photo of a dead child may tell two different stories depending on the context. In one story, a child is the victim of Hizbollah's deliberate violations of the Geneva Conventions prohibitions on hiding among civilians. In the other story, the child is the victim of deliberate Israeli aggression and state-sponsored terrorism.

One picture, two stories. Which story you believe says less about the honesty of the picture and more about how honest the reporter is and, ultimately, how honest you are.

Confederate Yankee is all over this one.

If you came looking for the original photo debunking story go here.

By Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at 01:56 PM | |