A German TV news show segment on YouTube is racing around the blogosphere. Why? Because it is absolute proof that Hezbullah manipulates the media for their benefit.
Watch it, and be horrified, as you see “Green Helmet Guy” direct the taking of pictures of the victims of Qana.
The mainstream media insist they are far too savvy to fall for crude manipulation like this. And yet, proof keeps coming up that that is exactly what is happening: The media are falling utterly for all of the images coming out of Lebanon, and their critical thinking abilities aren’t even in gear. Lame excuses are offered for serious breaches of editorial oversight.
When even the pictures of bodies being taken out of the rubble are turned into propaganda victories for Hezbullah, you have to wonder—how many pieces of rocket launchers and other evidence were removed from the sites of such bombings?
This is standard operating procedure in the jihadi manuals. That is not rhetoric. We have their manuals on record, and there are whole sections that discuss the manipulation of the media. And our media plays along, always.
A few days ago, the world press accused Israel of killing a child while going after terrorists. Surprise—the palestinians lied.
Also Thursday, doctors said that a 5-year-old Palestinian girl initially believed to have been killed by an Israeli military strike Wednesday apparently died after sustaining head injuries during a fall from a swing.
The girl suffered a fractured skull and there were no signs of shrapnel, said Kazim Abu Libda, a doctor at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital.
Yasser Arafat learned his lesson well, and taught it to his successors. He learned it at the feet of the Russians, who also had a field day manipulating world opinion against America and her allies whenever the choice was between them and the Soviet Union.
And they have the advantage in the fact that the average person does not like to engage critical thinking. Skepticism is not incumbent on intelligence. Some of the smartest people I know are absolutely unable to see beyond the surface of a situation that does not fit their worldview. One of my closest friends falls for virtually all of the lies the palestinians have uttered, and when the truth contradicts her worldview, she simply shunts aside the facts for something that fits more closely to how she thinks the situation should be.
If I were to show her this video, no doubt her response would be, “So? Israel still killed civilians.”
Yes, she did. By accident. The bombs that dropped on that building in Qana were meant for Hezbullah rocket launchers that are threatening the civilian population of Israel. Israeli civilians are dying, too, and yet there is no outrage from the UN. I have been waiting daily to hear Kofi Annan express his profound sorrow at the deaths of innocent civilians in Israel. He has finally broken his silence—to condemn civilian deaths in Gaza.
The message is clear. Jewish lives have never counted for much in the history of the world, except to Jews. Israeli lives—even Israeli Arab lives, apparently—don’t muster a whit of sympathy from the world. Part of it is due to the losses in the propaganda war. Part of it is due to the hatred of Jews the world cannot seem to abandon.
But the effects would be lessened, I think, if the media did their jobs more thoroughly, and stopped playing into the enemy’s hands by publishing their propaganda so readily, and so uncritically.
The Jihadis don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. They have threatened journalists in Lebanon on more than one occasion. I don’t think they’d hesitate to kill reporters, and if they did, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they then put the body in a site hit by Israeli shelling. And get Green Helmet Guy to direct the video.
This war has many fronts, and the propaganda front is not the least of them.
The Jihadis are winning.
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Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people… so the jihadis have a good shot at making this work.
Looks like we bloggers are going to have do what we can to save civilization.
Amazing. Manual Trackback, if the ping didn’t go through.
Had it been an Israeli or American who had done such a thing, you would never hear the end of it.
(* And they have the advantage in the fact that the average person does not like to engage critical thinking. Skepticism is not incumbent on intelligence. Some of the smartest people I know are absolutely unable to see beyond the surface of a situation that does not fit their worldview. *)
I wish I knew what it would take for someone to wake up at make the crossing from one perspective to another.
I know many people made tht crossing during 9-11. But how did it get that way in the first place?
How have so many people become blind to certain things (from the 500,000 killed in Rwanda to the 100,000,000 killed from the various communist regimes) and yet scream holy murder when a handfull of Lebanese are killed because they were human sheilds.
A perpsective is built on many facts. Yet… the glue that sticks it all together is based on faith. I don’t care what any aetheist believes, it is _faith_ that gives them that final blow to not believe in God. But I digress…
Many peoples perspectives on particular things start from childhood. They really don’t get a big picture view of how the world works until much later in life.
It is this perspective, or opinion, or viewpoint either gives them sight or blindness to various different events in life.
To change that perspective would have to change the way they see the world. This is where I lay the chief blame on our education system.
Like the media, it has been hijacked by idealogues who want to force a change in the culture through manipulation of our books and what we learn in school. How we think.
This gross form of manipulation occurs quite often in totalitarion states and they are good at it. A good example is how the muslims in the mideast have been spoon fed their hatred of Jews.
So how do you change the course of someones mind? How do you change their perspective that has been fostered through the papers, television and education system? I don’t know, the mold is set for many people when they certain age. It takes something horrific to break the perspective that has been molded in them. Unfortunately the next 9-11 will probably be bigger. Much bigger.
I do know how to get at the root of the problem, though: it is that the people take back the education system. Simplify it. Bring it back to the fundamentals. Reading, writing and Arithmetic. History that mattered … to us. From OUR perspective – not from our adversaries.
Have a course on critical thinking and critical reading so that they can make up their own minds not not be sheeple following some idealogue. Note: the only critical reading education I EVER received was from this website and I am still amazed how a choice placed word or phrase can change the entire perspective I get from the article…
Thats where this problem has got to be solved when people are young and impressionable. Establish the critical thinking and reading at a young age. At important junctures in their development, let _them_ choose their faith that binds all their facts together – don’t let the Idealogues warp their minds. let them choose.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t help with the situation we have today with some very blind and wrong headed ‘thinkers’.
Geez… Second time this week I’ve written a treastise, Meryl. If I keep this up, I may have to start a Blog…
jgc
Funny how after so many instances of such staged propaganda, the mainstream media still insist on taking these people at their word, all the while bashing Bush for not being as smart as themselves …
I think that the enemy is winning the propoganda war, but not for the reason you say. Its not because the media is not being careful enough or being “manipulated”. The reason why the enemy is winning because the media is in their camp.
As Bill Keller exlained the reason why he published state secrets . . .:
“I would say if you’re under the impression that the press is neutral in this war on terror, or that we’re agnostic–and you could get that impression from some of the criticism–that couldn’t be more wrong.”
I.e., he admits that the New York Times is on the side of the Islamonazis.
The media is the enemy.
Meanwhile, the lie about Bush using a plastic turkey lives on in the MSM, as Tim Blair has documented. Yes, it’s still being cited as a fact.
God bless our media. Or forgive them, anyway.
Looks like we bloggers are going to have do what we can to save civilization.
Not for nothing… civilization began in the land that is now ravaged by war.
Civilization is not only your cozy little house with your computer and your cold drink and your air conditioning.
IF you want to save civilization, get on a plane and come on over.
I am in NYC now and heading to Tel Aviv next week. I’d glady show your around Haifa where I will be working.
But, I am sure it makes you feel better that your typing is doing SOMETHING, right?
Right.
>Jewish lives have never counted for much in the history of the world, except to Jews. Israeli lives—even Israeli Arab lives, apparently—don’t muster a whit of sympathy from the world. Part of it is due to the losses in the propaganda war. Part of it is due to the hatred of Jews
Just a little sidebar observation, Al Jazeera’s english language website hasn’t even mentioned the London bomb plots. If that’s the only place you looked for news, you’d have no idea a massive terrorist murder plot had been foiled.
The media master template is “dog bites man”, is not news. But “Man bites dog”, is news. When we defeat a major Iraqi army under Saddam, that’s not news, because it was expected. But when an American puts underwear on the head of a prisoner, that is news, because a civilized organization did the unexpected.
When a ragtag bunch of thugs manages to kill a few members of the US military, they’ve “won”, because it is unexpected that they could succeed. While when we kill those same terrorists while they’re engaged in beheading civilians, it’s not news because the western military is expected to kill bad guys.
This underlying bias will direct the constant spin in favor of the “underdog” jihadis, and against the “powerful” western powers, until the media turns the spin into reality.
It’s no different than rooting for the underdog in a ball game. It draws emotional interest to the media’s show. And putting on a good show is all the media really cares about.
A lot of folks have been saying for years that this is mostly a media war, dressed up as a conventional ground conflict. For all the yelling and screaming and posturing, the actual total body counts of the last few years in all theatres (USA, UK, Europe, Afghanistan, Iraq, India, Indonesia, Israel) still does not match a single week of WWII stats (all theatres). The media – whether they realize it or not – have taken sides, and chosen poorly. Much of the best blogging of the last few years has been a chronicle of the decline of the western media edifice that was built up so carefully in the post-WWII years. The only people who don’t quite get it yet are the investors who have untold millions in Reuters, AP, the newspapers, etc. The investors still have time to get out. Unless of course the Iranians actually get a couple of nukes. And history will record which western dupe the Bringer of the Hidden Imam chatted with last: Wallace the Octagenarian.
(* How about the fact that the israelis keep making their numerous “mistakes†while 1000 Lebanese civilians have died in the last month? *)
Sebastian, Hezbollah captured 2 Israeli soldiers on July 12th, starting this war. It has now been 30 days of war with ~1000 Lebanese civilians dying.
“In 1994, the Hutu majority in Rwanda organized and implemented the mass slaughter of the Tutsi minority. In just 100 days, 800,000 Tutsi were slaughtered.” ***
That means the Hutus _slaughtered_ 240,000 Tutsis in only 30 days.
The Tutsis had Guns, & Machetes
The Israelis have Guns, Smart Bombs, jet Fighters, Bunker Busters, Missiles, Sea Going Gun Platforms, etc.
1000 civilians in 30 days vs 240,000 in 30 days.
Simple math and a little critical thinking Sebastian. Please try to get some perspective
If the Israelis REALLY wanted to hurt civilians, south Lebanon would be devoid of life by now…
*** http://history1900s.about.com/od/rwandangenocide/
The above comment would make more sense if you could read the comment I deleted.
Sometimes, the garbage manages to make it through the nets.
This conflict, from New York to London to Baghdad to Bali to Jakarta to Tehran to Beruit is all part of the global war. It is a war of the Enlightened Free World (EFW) against the Islamo-Fascist Alliance (IFA). The media can not conceive of the “oppressed” IFA acting in such a barbaric manner. And yet in all of their actions (suicide bombers, indiscriminate targeting of civilians, and the torture and murder of prisoners) they validate their willingness to use extreme measures to further their cause.
The war is real, it is lethal and it must be won…by our side.
Maybe I’m too optimistic but I think the MSM is destroying itself and hence the terrorists are not going to win in the longer term.
I don’t see this as a win for the enemy. I see this as them overplaying their hand and exposing themselves unintentionally.
Or what about this…
leave open the possibility that Reuters is playing a game of doing what they have to in order to get access to these areas controlled by Hizb’allah and still tipping us to the fact that the narrative is completely staged and phony. That photoshop job was horrid. Come on. Surely seasoned manipulators of public opinon such as the editors at Reuters picked up on it.
So they get the access, we get the pictures and the video footage, we have the bloggers and they uncover the story. Reuters can shrug to Hizb’allah that “hey, we tried,” and still maintain their access.
I’m not saying it’s true, it’s just a possibility.
if it bleeds, it leads. and the one that whines loudest is the underdog. not to say that the Israeli butcher bill is as long as the Lebanese, but Israel hasn’t been proposing obliterating the Lebanese state and pushing all the Lebanese into the sea, either…
you know, we may like it in the dar al islam. no more bitches in hr. no more women drivers, talking on cell phone or not. no more whining about the death penalty (if it isn’t unusual, it isn’t cruel). tgif will be celebrated at the mosque, but we really WILL thank God, or Allah anyway… the Party for Pre-Emptive Surrender says it’s easy. simply say “there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet”. then bring on the burkas. oh, can all CA divorce law… a text message on her cell phone is adequate notice (precedent: a case adjudicated in the Emirates).
On a completely different note, “yes, *she* did?”
“But, I am sure it makes you feel better that your typing is doing SOMETHING, right?”
In a propaganda war, the weapons are words. Our typing is the counter to the MSM’s, and the blogosphere has actually devastated enemy armies (Reutergate) and even taken out the enemy commanders (Rathergate).
I don’t buy the claim that we’re losing the propaganda war just yet. The real measure of success is not the size of the army, but their effectiveness at swaying public opinion. The MSM is becoming more blatant in its embrace of terrorists and anti-semites, true, but I see that more as a sign of their desperation than of their confidence. Public trust in the MSM is at an all-time low, and will only get lower the more they make common cause with Hezbollah.
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