Conffederate
Confederate

August 15, 2006

Watching Zohra

Yesterday I quipped that I found Gatorade's new energy Drink "self-Propel," after discovering a series of three pictures by Reuters photographer Zohra Bensemra. In those photos, a mysteriously mobile bottle of water appears and disappears beside an elderly injured woman that Bensemra said was waiting to be rescued, and was made to appear utterly alone.

The moving bottle and other suspicious elements in the photos lead me to believe that this series of photos, like so many already discovered coming from Arab Muslim stringers in Lebanon, were quite likely staged.

The curious composition of Bensemra's photos continued today, as this one was, err, unearthed in Yahoo's Photostream:

zohra1

I have no doubt at all that Lebanese Red Cross members are unearthing bodies from the rubble of Israeli air strikes, and will continue to do so for days weeks, and even months to come. But the damaged structure in question would seems to offer a very narrow opening, and with two rescuers already inside the cramped space (you can see the reflective stripes on the sleeve of another rescuer further in), it would seem strange to bag a body in the narrow confines of unstable rubble, when it would be both safer and easier for the rescuers to do so in the open.

Of course that is making the assumption that this is indeed a cramped space.

zohra2

Another photo, which I have enlarged and then cropped to show the relevant area, indicates that the external area of the structure in question is only several yards wide, and no more than a couple of yards high. Note the expansive open area in the left side of the frame, and edge of the structure over the shoulder of the second man from the right. This structure these men were emerging from is far too narrow to be a residential building. It seems doubtful that a normal residential dwelling would have such a narrow profile, a concrete roof, walls a foot or more thick, or space for two or more live adults to body bag the undefined deceased inside, before bringing him out.

Victim, or target? House, or bunker? Perhaps the Israelis were able to kill someone other than old women and children after all.

I cannot prove that Zohra Bensemra is complicit in staging photos in Lebanon, but at the very least I can feel comfortable of accusing Bensemra of writing misleading captions that alter the context of how the picture is viewed. A caption reading "Lebanese Red Cross personnel remove the body of a person who died during an Israeli air raid during the conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbollah, at Tayba in south Lebanon August 15, 2006" may be entirely accurate, but a caption reading "The body of a Hezbollah fighter is removed from a bunker near Tayba" would tell quite a different story, if that is indeed what happened.


Is Reuters photographer Zohra Bensemra a journalist, or propagandist? I'll leave that for you to decide, Myself, I tend to judge people by the company they choose to keep.

zohra3
Posted by Confederate Yankee at August 15, 2006 02:08 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Linked at Old War Dogs >> Yet More Fauxtography


Posted by: Bill Faith at August 15, 2006 03:52 PM

It seems like they are using the tarps to pull the bodies out of a small passageway.

What is the conspiracy here? That on the other side of the hole is a ballroom and underground waterpark, where the rescue workers have ample room to wrap the bodies before sliding them out of the hole, but not before they enjoy a 12 course meal?

I mean, get a life. These men, for whatever reason, are hauling bodies out of rubble. I'm certain that there are plenty of bombed out places filled with corpses in Lebanon. You should be happy that they aren't showing pictures of burned, mutilated children without faces or flies feeding on dead senior citizens.

At least these photos are reasonably mild. I'm sure if there was a vast-left-wing conspiracy to produce doctored photos, there would be pictures of a burning doll or a child with a missing foot or something at least half as moving as a "feed the orphans" advertisement.

Posted by: Grizzly at August 15, 2006 06:23 PM

"It seems doubtful that a normal residential dwelling would have such a narrow profile, a concrete roof, walls a foot or more thick, or space for two or more live adults to body bag the undefined deceased inside, before bringing him out."

Narrow house, concrete roof! Icky! They deserve to be crushed under the rubble. Poor people are so tacky! Barf!

Now if it were one of those maaaarvelous little bungalows that they have in the Hollywood Hills, with a Mini Cooper in the driveway, that would be another story. (Especially if he had nice abs! Meow!)

Posted by: Grizzly at August 15, 2006 06:32 PM

Looks like a mast and an antenna on the left of the picture stretching toward the right. There's a wire dangling from the antenna. Is this for TV or is this some sort of shortwave rig?

Posted by: Jim at August 15, 2006 07:04 PM

Good thing nobody gets killed in wars. These are all photo ops done on a sound stsge in Burbank. Camera tricks. Maybe all you pro war activists will enlist, now that we all know nobody gets hurt in war. Neat uniforms, real laser tag guns that shoot real lasers that ring a bell when you hit your TARGET. Full coverage with dental and they even pay you. No real dead bodies to stink up the neighborhood, just camera tricks.

Posted by: Mike Meyer at August 15, 2006 08:02 PM

In the top photo, the man is pointing. If you draw a straight line to the spot where he is pointing, you are directed to the vertex of a right angle. The slightly wavy wire forms the hypoteneuse of a right triangle. The message here is clear. While most look at the cave and the body coming out of it, the photographer says that we should be looking at the right triangle, a symbol of the gnostic cult of Pythagoras. In this context, then the image of the dead body being removed from the tomb by men wearing crosses, the photographer seems to be suggesting that the Resurrection was a hoax.

As an added affront to Christians, the men with crosses are wearing orange life jackets. Orange is widely known to be the color of the "Hermes" corporation of France, which takes its name from the pagan god who is most closely associated with the hermetic (pagan/gnostic) tradition. The lifevests themeselves are a reference to the Bible story in which Jesus walks on water. Notice the men who bear crosses do not leave their fate up to Christ, rather, they wear life vests.

Zohra obviously has an axe to grind with these photos. Clearly these photos are encoded with gnostic imagery. If you read the larger picture, my guess is that Zohra would scoff at the idea that this war is part of a larger plan and that he is subconsciously trying to program children to believe in his gnostic wordlview.

I suppose we'll see who gets Left Behind. When he's out there fiddling with dead terrorists to make his little point, we'll be up in heaven hawkin' burning angel loogies on his heathen ass.

Posted by: Grizzly at August 15, 2006 08:48 PM

Grizzly, are you daft? Most likely, you're not, you just don't know stuff about concrete and steel and construction. Fortunately for you I'm not a computer geek, I'm kind of a construction geek. I have a red plaid flannel shirt to prove it, so sit back and Learn.

Low, wide opening, concrete slab roof, BRUSH ON TOP- that's a bunker, not a home! Did it sink home that the concrete roof did not break up even when the walls did? You think a peasant chooses building materials like that?

Poor people do not build homes that are only 8 feet wide, rise 3 feet off the ground, have high strength concrete slab roofs, and camoflauge. They have corrugated metal roofs, or tile roofs, or mud roofs that wouldn't look at all like that.

Check out the wall- see the way the blocks on the right have shifted, but remain in place? See the broken ones? No cavities, right? Those are not the simple hollow concrete masonry units most people would use (yes, even there) nor are they merely grouted solid. Nor are they bricks- any of those are much cheaper options- yes they have bricks in the middle east, they frikkin invented them there. So why these big solid pre-cast concrete? Why would a peasant build with that kind of weight? And time, and money. And it's NOT easy- those puppies weigh in at 145 LB per cubic foot. And they are NOT cast in place, or we wouldn't see blocks, we'd see irregular pieces.

And they are concrete, not stone, because the construction stone in that part of the world is in the tan-gold-beige range. If those are stone, our peasant is using imported limestone!

How do we know it wasn't taller? Because A) the vegetation overgrowing it, unless you think in Lebanon shrubs grow a few feet between a bombing and a casualty removal, B) if it was tall, the slab would have broken in the fall, and C) unless you think Lebanese peasants use cantilevered construction, that heavy roof slab would be wall-supported, and there just isn't enough wall debris to have been a taller stucture. Try to mentally reconstruct it.

And you can clearly see that the rubble does not continue to the right or left of that

You will never find a picture of a home in Lebanon with construction consistent with the rubble you see in that pic. Go try. Knock yourself out.

And just to show that I'm a fair minded guy, the dust free blanket and pillows in the second photo set mean nothing. Who's to say a neighbor didn't bring them over? I can show you pictures from the day after 9-11, with spotless T shirts in sight, and 4 days after, absolutely clean brand new spit and polished Volvo trucks. (Volvo America donated them on Sept 13, pulling 3 right out of the showroom)


Ben

Posted by: Ben at August 15, 2006 09:27 PM

PS:

In the original photo at Yahoo I do believe I see some rebar.

One heck of a peasant dwelling, there.

Ben

Posted by: Ben at August 15, 2006 09:30 PM

Wow. Since the last time I've read your blog you seem to have accumulated some lefty trolls

Posted by: Chase Bradstreet at August 15, 2006 11:57 PM

I thought it looked like a wall that had fallen over sideways, actually. I've been to other third world countries and you see all kinds of garbage arranged in ways that don't make sense. But to be fair, the Yahoo story says nothing about it being a body from a house. It's possible that it was a bunker or bomb shelter or some other structure. I don't see why this should distract us from the gnostic imagery.

Posted by: Grizzly at August 16, 2006 12:05 AM

The bottom photo is totally fake. Look at how big the guy with the green helmet is. Look at how small the bulldozer is. I think the bulldozer is really a Tonka with some G.I. Joes on it.

Plus, he is wearing a Cal Trans vest over his army clothes, which means he probably got a DUI. You can't trust drunk dopehead Vietnam vets who still wear their fatigues around even though they got discharged for going AWOL. Proof of a fake.

Posted by: Grizzly at August 16, 2006 01:16 PM

Plus, all those "arabs" look like illegals, to me. Either they have the same anchor baby infestation we've got here, or this is just a Hurricane Katrina photo. How much more proof do you need! The war in Lebanon is a hoax, but don't expect to hear that in the New York Times.

Posted by: Grizzly at August 16, 2006 01:20 PM

I revise my earlier estimate, Grizzley, You are Daft! Much fun to read. Tonka truck. Hee.

BTW, Re: Katrina. Some of those photos got a bit loopy too. Ever ask why we heard over and over again, they were trapped because they were too poor to own cars, and in photo after photo, you see drowned, submerged cars? Why is it no one's willing to admit that in any American city, there will be stubborn people who in the face of any disaster will say "I ain't leavin and you ain't gonna make me."? But hey, that's really off topic, and don't ask these things, they can get you in trouble.

Posted by: Ben at August 16, 2006 04:42 PM