My Own Side

September 11th, to most Americans, is a time to remember the horrible events of that day, honor the dead who were killed, renew our resolve to fight, and appreciate again what it is to be an American. Unfortunately, the ‘Without End’ demonstration in Seattle at Westlake Mall struck out on all four counts.

But it did have masks.

And a drummer or two (he was actually pretty good with that circular metal hibachi thingy).

And a healing/meditating circle.

Any flags were a little hard to find, which is a little odd on September 11th. But I did finally manage to find a little one. A Palestinian one. On a button that says “We Are All Palestinians“. Worn alongside a keffiyah. Funny, what I remember about the Palestinians and 9/11 was the footage of them dancing in the streets and passing out candy, to the immense distress of Yassar Arafat. Distress that the video got out, that is.

They never take their own side in a fight, as somebody once quipped.

I have to say, I found the whole thing just plain sad and depressing. There was nothing about the events of September 11th. The only dead they wanted to remember were those on the other side. They wanted us to stop fighting back, and they were plainly ashamed of America’s role in the world.

And did I mention the awful poetry?

The dead are not a call to arms

Our fallen brothers are not bullets

Our fallen sisters are not bombs

Our children lying in the earth

Our mothers and fathers, our friends

are not rallying cries

What a swell attitude to have remembering 9/11. They would just roll over and die and save Al-Qaeda the trouble of beheading them.

This September 11th, let’s remember American heroes like Todd Beamer. When he said “Let’s Roll!” he didn’t mean “over“.

The full gallery of pictures is here.

The buzz of the blogosphere lately has been the use of altered and staged photos of the war in Lebanon. Little Green Footballs, Michelle Malkin and EU Referendum (a new blog I recently discovered) have been all over this. Just google “Reutersgate” for even more. This kind of scrutiny is long overdue, and I believe that the shudders it is sending through the news outlets is going to be healthy.

“Trust but verify” is a very appropriate attitude to have towards news. I am heartened that the verifying part has become much more possible due to the pajamahadeen. The pressure to be first in news, combined with the dangerous nature of reporting from a war zone controlled by vicious thugs like Hezbollah, has created a situation where news agencies are increasingly relying upon “stringers” to get them photographs and reports. These stringers may get the job done, but it has not been lost on the terrorists that the pressures of world opinion can accomplish more for their cause than any military victory that they can achieve. They will control the news whenever possible.

The old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” is true, but the thousand words that a picture generates in a person’s mind is going to vary from person to person, depending on their prejudices. In other words, the story written beneath the photo depends on the author. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but words accurately describing the context and facts surrounding a photo are crucial to the correct understanding of the event depicted. Or alternately, they can be a powerful means of distorting the event, if not ethically reported.

One of the iconic photos of the Vietnam war showed a scrawny Vietnamese man kneeling down and being executed by a U.S. commander with a gun to his head. This photo helped turn public opinion against the war. It was used by the left as proof that the U.S. troops were committing atrocities against the poor, defenseless Viet Cong. If there had been even a few dozen words to go along with the photo, it would have been nice to have mentioned that the poor, defenseless Viet Cong being executed had just snuck into a home and murdered an entire family, including the mother and her children.

The reason that a photograph can be misunderstood so easily is that it is by nature a very short slice of time. A long exposure in daylight is still nearly always less than a 10th of a second. You can capture any expression you could ask for in that moment of time. A sneeze can become a cry of pain, or a look of pure rage. A brief smile in greeting at a solemn event can be captured and portrayed as proof of a politicians careless indifference to suffering. A propogandists brief show of faked anguish can be dutifully captured and broadcast worldwide, causing a potent reaction in world opinion. Or a horse can be shown as levitating off the ground.

I recently photographed a Renaissance Faire in Gig Harbor, Washington. One of my captures was the following levitating horse.

It really did levitate. At least for 1/2000th of a second.

With the recent Lebanon offensive, much is being said about Israel using “smart” bombs. Boiled down, the argument goes that since Israel is using sophisticated smart bombs, therefore any civilian casualties must have been deliberately targeted by Israel.

This is a simplistic view of a chaotic war. However, it has traction, especially when it confirms the stereotype of Israel as a brutal oppressor of an innocent Arab population. That Israel would deliberately target civilians is a claim that is to be expected from her enemies. They are militarily weak, and have become very adept at manipulating the media to use international opinion as a weapon against Israel. However, it is deeply offensive that the Secretary General of the U.N. would immediately blame Israel, as he did when a U.N. outpost was hit while surrounded by Hezbollah fighters and rocket launchers.

It should be unnecessary to even say it, but the policy of Israel, like America, is to NOT deliberately target civilians in a war. In contrast, it is the explicit policy of Hezbollah and Hamas to target civilians, even children. When asked about a machine gun attack on an Israeli school bus, a Hamas leader had a chillingly simple answer “Little Israelis grow up to be big Israelis.”

It should be noted that Hamas does have in it’s arsenal the ultimate smart bomb, and it has been used with devastating effectiveness against targets in Israel for years. They call them the Shaheed. In the West, it is known as the suicide bomber. The Shaheed are the ultimate smart bombs. They are stealthy and able to evade interception on their way to their intended target. They control the exact time and position of their detonation to produce the maximum effect, even intelligently changing the parameters of their own mission on the fly if necessary.

And they have been deployed almost exclusively against the innocent.

When an Israeli smart bomb is dropped on a building, it is based on the best intelligence that Israel has that it is a military target, but they cannot see through walls. The Hamas/Hezbollah smart bomb doesn’t have to see through walls. When it detonates, it can see the faces of it’s targets.