The New York Times Wrong Again

This is pathetic.

Whatever is happening in the U.S. shadow war in Pakistan it is clear that this photo gets it all wrong.

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What is identified as the "remains of a missile" is quite clearly an artillery shell. Here's a 155mm round for comparison.

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The warheads of missiles do not typically survive impact. Some tail pieces might. Also notice how the old man and young boy are featured in the shot. Accidental or are they implicated targets?

Bad, bad deal all around.

Comments

Rimfax | January 14, 2006, 2:36pm | #

Are you suggesting that the media *ever* gets military materiel identification correct? It may not even be a NATO shell.

SR | January 14, 2006, 2:54pm | #

Yes, I'm always irritated at the utter unwillingness of any part of the MSM (including Fox News, it should be pointed out) to apparently do any, even rudimentary, education of their editors and reporters about what various weapons/ammunition look like. Reporters and photo editors who do captions routinely confuse revolvers and automatics, rifles and shotguns, and use the term "machinegun" to describe just about anything other than a derringer.

Seth | January 14, 2006, 2:54pm | #

Well, technically an artillery round is a missile.

science | January 14, 2006, 3:00pm | #

"The warheads of missiles do not typically survive impact."

Except when they do, and, well Seth already said it.

I hear the main stream media is also tryin' to put mind controlling messges from international corporations into their new shows on regular intervals.

The Owner's Manual | January 14, 2006, 3:12pm | #

What's an 'implicated target.' One that hasn't been convicted yet?

stan | January 14, 2006, 3:41pm | #

it is strange that the cia can drop a bomb and then claim they have to sift thru the bodies to see who they killed...shouldn't they have to know who they are going to kill ahead of killing them? or can the cia now kill indiscriminately?

JAT | January 14, 2006, 3:54pm | #

Hed for the story:

"Airstrike by U.S. Draws Protests From Pakistanis"

Now unless the claim is that an AC-130 lobbed unexploded 105mm shells on the site, arty ain't the missile they have in mind.

Further confusion: "the Arabs were pulled from the rubble," which is a helluva scoop for this Pashtun region. Or is the Times saying they really were al Qaeda?

I don't know -- and neither does the Times.

PapayaSF | January 14, 2006, 4:01pm | #

My all-time fave, from the November 16, 2001 San Francisco Chronicle:

"I will hand over my guns when they ask me to," said 19-year-old Khusrow, who like many Afghans goes by one name. A 300mm pistol protruded underneath his leather jacket.

That's one tough Afghan, carrying a pistol with the calibre of a battleship gun!

Larry A | January 14, 2006, 4:57pm | #

And I've lost count of the "7.62 cal" rifles I've seen reported.

TheRev | January 14, 2006, 5:00pm | #

If you read the article, they say the strike was believed to be carried out by CIA Predator UAVs. According to the trusty internet, the only armament the Predator can be equipped with is the AGM-114 Hellfire missle. Looks like this: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/longbowhellfire1.jpg

Just for clarification, Hellfire missles don't look much like the first Google image search result: http://www.bi.org.au/culture/live/images/hellfire/hellfire%20013.jpg

I think it's a stock picture they had that thought would fit the story, sloppy journalism. Still the imagery of the picture isn't necessarily that misleading, reportedly a number of children and civilians were killed. To say that the photo misrepresented what happened (other than which weapon was used) I think is incorrect.

Martin | January 14, 2006, 5:03pm | #

Actually I saw this picture at the nytimes site earlier and had quite a different reaction from yours. First, as I sometimes still do when surfing the internet, I found quite extraordinary that a photograph taken in a remote village halfway across the world would appear on my computer screen, a few hours after a news event had taken place there. And then I found the picture in itself quite extraordinary - with the generations of villagers represented in the photo, and the alien "artillery shell" in the middle, and the rubble in the foreground. I don't understand how the pic "gets it all wrong". And I really wonder how someone could miss what seems to me so compelling about this photograph and instead focus on some obscure technicality.

Jon Bristow | January 14, 2006, 5:20pm | #

Well, technically an artillery round is a missile.
Yes, but it's a ballistic missile. By that logic, we can call a drive-by shooting in Compton a "missile attack."

James | January 14, 2006, 5:27pm | #

In the common usage "missile" refers to a guided rocket-propelled warhead, "rocket" refers to an unguided rocket-propelled warhead, and "shell" refers to a warhead accelerated down a tube by an offboard explosion. However, technically, as was said above, all are "missiles," as is a spitwad, a rock, and an arrow.

The AC-130 does, in fact, carry a 105mm howitzer, but that does not appear to be a 105mm shell. It clearly is an artillery shell, however; you can tell both by the general shape and the "rotating band" at the bottom, which engages in the rifling in the barrel to generate spin.

The Predator does not carry any kind of gun, as far as I know. 155mm guns have ranges up to 40km. The warheads of guided missiles often do survive impact if they don't explode, by the way. When the USS Stark was hit only one of the two missiles fired at it exploded. The other was found buried in the ship.

madpad | January 14, 2006, 5:33pm | #

Artillery Shell - Not a missile? Implied target? Pathetic.

Come on, Jeff. Your bias is showing. This is a tempest in a teacup and your milking it for anti-msm sentiments.

The caption writer made a mistake. Woopie. Jeez...go find a real story.

Yellow | January 14, 2006, 5:40pm | #

Martin, the caption reads
"Pakistani men with the remains of a missile fired at a house in the Bajur tribal zone near the Afghan border."
Given that this photo is obviously not what the caption is describing, it is more than "some obscure technicality." It's an outright lie presented as evidence of what occurred.

Larry A | January 14, 2006, 5:54pm | #

The caption writer made a mistake. Woopie. Jeez...go find a real story.

Think of this as a symptom. MSM reporters hired to write stories about wars routinely make such obvious errors.

Journalism is a profession whose sole purpose is getting the facts and presenting them as news. Is it too much to ask that at least one person in the bureau have the knowledge to say, "That's an artillery shell?" Or have a wall chart? Or a handbook? Or a computer database? It's not rocket science.

Well, okay. In this case it is rocket science. But it's RS101.

TheRev | January 14, 2006, 6:12pm | #

perhaps the real tragedy here is that there was a missle attack recently in which innocent civilians and children were killed, as the story indicates; and that there was a seperate event in which a town was apparently shelled as well, as the photo indicates. Granted we have no information as to why mystery town was shelled, but still...

io1029 | January 14, 2006, 6:25pm | #

For some reason I find the old man comical. I imagine him slowly rising from behind that wall, then looking side-to-side in an odd, shifty manner.

And why don't these folks have sense enough not to play with unexploded ordinance? Shit like that gets those cute, sad looking children killed. Be thankful it didn't blow you to bits on impact and leave it the hell alone.

Ah, but I bet some photo-"journalist" rounded them up for the "money shot". Fan-fucking-tastic.

io1029 | January 14, 2006, 6:33pm | #

"perhaps the real tragedy here is that there was a missle attack recently in which innocent civilians and children were killed, as the story indicates;"

TheRev:

I think the biggest tragedy is the lack of perspective and info leading to ignorant violance. The article states that hundreds of Pakistanis then went around smashing up aid organizations and torching them, as well as raiding some non-US owned infrastructure. WTF does that accomplish?

I'll bet those civilians didn't know who/what/why/where things got blown up, but they took it as an opportunity to get out some pent up frustrations. Kinda like attacks against Arabs in the US, even though those being attacked had nothing to do with the attacks. Idiotic!

stan | January 14, 2006, 6:34pm | #

we are now the country that uses our drones to bomb houses then sift thru the bodies to see if we hit anything important...

TheRev | January 14, 2006, 6:55pm | #

io1029,
I agree, it was a horrible response that will probably prove counter-productive. Bonus points to the protesters who attacked the Italian NGO because you know...the Italians...are just like Americans...yeah.
The whole war on terror thing puts me in an annoying position: I strongly dislike all sides. I don't think any of them has particularly maliciouis intentions, they just tend to act and respond to everything in really dumb ways.

Eddy | January 14, 2006, 7:04pm | #

we are now the country that uses our drones to bomb houses then sift thru the bodies to see if we hit anything important...

That's the way it all works now. Tap wires, bomb houses, search and seize, whatever... All's fair in love of war.

What's your war on?

nerdnam | January 14, 2006, 7:09pm | #

What would Americans do if one of our villages was hit by missiles?

After 9/11, we went around invading countries and smashing them up. What did that accomplish?

It gets harder and harder to see why we have any complaint about 9/11, if this is how we treat other people.

Jennifer | January 14, 2006, 7:15pm | #

I guess our official defense strategy is "Kill 'em all and let the CIA sort them out."

Law | January 14, 2006, 7:24pm | #

It was probably some kids from a neighboring village lobbing a shell at the kid with the goofy sweater. You know had bad this bullying has gotten these days.

thoreau | January 14, 2006, 7:25pm | #

You know, I realize that when you're chasing somebody in the tribal areas of Pakistan you can't exactly get warrants and do an arrest. Aside from logistics, there's the simple fact that the local authorities are weak and/or corrupt and/or incompetent and/or sympathetic to the bad guys.

That said, even though there's no way for us to do any formal due process in rural Pakistan, I would like to hope that our gov't is pretty damn sure that the bad guy is there before sending in the bomb. Yeah, I know, the standard of "pretty damn sure" still leaves room for error. And a certain amount of collateral damage will be inevitable (and maybe even excusable).

But "pretty damn sure" is still a higher standard than "bomb first and sort 'em out later."

Why adhere to such a high standard? Well,

1) Moral reasons: Killing civilians is bad. But I know that argument won't go over too well with a lot of people.

2) Practical reasons: Killing civilians without hitting the bad guys just makes it even harder to get cooperation from the locals in the future.

I have no definitive way of proving that our standard is "bomb first and sort 'em out later" instead of "pretty damn sure." But I have a hunch, given the number of times we've read of missile strikes that failed to get the bad guys. And I'm not just talking about the Bush administration. This goes all the way back to Clinton's response to the embassy bombings. Or the time the US government couldn't find the Chinese embassy on a map of Belgrade.

So, since I'm not sure but I have a hunch, by the CIA's standards that would be good enough to draw conclusions and take action :) Fortunately, I have higher standards than the CIA.

Chad | January 14, 2006, 7:27pm | #

Nerdham: What would Americans do if groups of our radicals were sneaking across the Canadian border regularly to slaughter innocent Canadians and destabilize its government?

I am serious. You know darned well that our police and military would squash these people.

nerdnam | January 14, 2006, 7:37pm | #

I live near Detroit, which has the highest concentration of Arabs in the world outside the Middle East.

What if some Al Qaeda were holed up in Dearborn Heights? Would it be OK to attack Dearborn Heights with missiles if some Al Qaeda were there and some of the citizens were protecting them? Would we be OK with the loss of a few dozen or so innocent Americans in the neighborhood, men, women and children? After all, it's war and all's fair in war, right?

In fact, it's NOT war. We're NOT dealing with another nation armed against us, we're dealing with a relatively tiny criminal organization not much different from the mafia or Timothy McVeigh. And just like the mafia or nuts like McVeigh, they can hang out in towns with most of the citizens having no knowledge of their presence. It seems outrageous that we can attack them and bitch when they complain.

If we heard of another Timothy McVeigh plotting an attack, why wouldn't we be justified in destroying whatever American town he was hiding in--if we're justified in attacking Pakistani villages? After all, if it's good for the Pakistanis, and it protects us, why shouldn't we take a few losses as well?

nerdnam | January 14, 2006, 7:45pm | #

If I'm understanding Chad's thought example correctly, if Canadian radicals came over the border and attacked Americans, and we blew up Ottawa in retaliation, there would and should be hell to pay.

But Canadians are white like us, aren't they? We just don't treat white people the way we treat Arabs.

nerdnam | January 14, 2006, 8:13pm | #

Furthermore...

If I were a Canadian radical bent on killing Americans, and the Americans were crazy enough to attack Canadian towns in a attempt to kill me, I think I would be spending 90 percent of my days trying to get the Americans to think I'm someplace where I am not, so that they would bomb that place.

The more I can get the Americans to bomb innocent Canadians, the better my chances of getting regular Canadians on my side and eventually the rest of the world on my side. And as long as I can do this, I can always hope to win in the end.

IOW, bombing innocent villages is completely self defeating and I don't believe there's any other way to understand this.

Bitchslap | January 14, 2006, 8:23pm | #

nerdnam,

They're not @#$^ing Arabs, damn it. Not Arabs. In that area, they're probably Pashtun. Not Arabs. If you're gonna get all umpty about Americans' insensitivity to other cultures, then at least know what you're talking about.

I think the "furor" over the caption suffers from the same problem as the initial attack on the village: not enough information to even be sure what you're attacking over. Did somebody in the NYT editorial office or layout department get one of the pictures coming in from the reporter or photographer and mislabel it? Was it just a mistake (most people working for the NYT are not munitions experts nor, as noted earlier, are most people working in the media, even amongst the war-boosting Foxies)? Was it egregious misrepresentation?

I tend to believe it was a mistake: what precisely does the paper gain from this "misrepresentation"? Not a lick. The attack happened. This isn't the Gulf of Tonkin or the U.S.S. Maine: there's no need to manufacture the event itself. Surely another picture could have also represented the damage of the attack, but compositionally this is a nice shot. So someone put it in and said, oh look, a piece of missile! and wrote a caption.

But since "MSM" bashing, and especially NYT bashing, is so en vogue nowadays, why miss a chance to get in on the action?

Ken Shultz | January 14, 2006, 8:31pm | #

Regarding the idea that a shell is a missile in the same way that a spit-wad is a missile, surely, at best, the caption is irresponsibly misleading.

Regarding the suggestion that the caption writer made a mistake, I think it more likely that the person who selected the photo made the mistake. From the story Jeff linked, "American and Pakistani officials have said the American airstrike, on the village of Damadola, was believed to have been carried out in the early morning hours on Friday by a remotely piloted Predator aircraft armed with missiles."

...Unless Predator aircraft are now armed with some kind of artillery rounds (please don't misconstrue "artillery" here to mean missile launchers), that picture doesn't look like it shows anything fired from a Predator aircraft.

In regards to Jeff's bias, I'm not sure what sort of bias is being suggested here. Is it bias against the Afghanistan War? ...'cause I don't know Jeff to harbor any particular bias against that war; indeed, he could be all for it as far as I know.

Maybe you're talking about his bias against the mainstream media? ...as if criticizing an apparent misrepresentation of events could in some way indicate such a bias. He could be accused of bias against misrepresentation I suppose, but surely no one is criticizing him for that.

Ruthless | January 14, 2006, 8:33pm | #

nerdnam,
You are right on.
I would only add that Antiwar.com has been predicting Bush's War on Terror would retreat to the air.

If air doesn't work, and ground doesn't work, and assuming sea doesn't apply in many parts of the world, then we must conclude the War on Terror has been lost as surely as has the War on Drugs.
Unfortunately, the folks with the expensive weapons will be the last to get the message.

Who said, "Even Superman doesn't spit into the wind"?

happyjuggler0 | January 14, 2006, 9:03pm | #

Or the time the US government couldn't find the Chinese embassy on a map of Belgrade

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Chinese+embassy+on+a+map+of+Belgrade

You can be forgiven for believing that the Chinese embassy bombing was an accident, since the US media chose to ignore the international story that we deliberately targeted it.

Google rocks.

Rich Ard | January 14, 2006, 9:16pm | #

Who said, "Even Superman doesn't spit into the wind"?

Jim Croce?

"You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off that ole' lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with Jim."

liberal-tarian | January 14, 2006, 9:18pm | #

I don't think we have any right to target anyone at all. It doesn't make any difference if this picture is true or not. The US uses military force to try to kill people it can't even identify.

We deserve to be blown up by "terrorists" No matter what they do to us, it's more or less justified anyway, but if we're going to go after them for killing innocents, the only way we should do it is through the UN.

Ruthless | January 14, 2006, 9:19pm | #

happyjuggler0,
I didn't link to what you offered, but there is no doubt that having a fancy weapon like the drone with rockets is similar to the tricks we used to see in western movies with the twirling of the pistols and the plinking of objects thrown into the air, not to mention the quick-drawing.

I'm convinced the right to bear arms should extend all the way up to nuclear weapons, but, at the same time, I acknowledge the urge to actually fire them can get to be overwhelming. (I know this from personal experience as well as having been a veteran of VN.)

The US needs to take up another hobby.

Ruthless | January 14, 2006, 9:26pm | #

liberal-tarian,
Killing innocent men, women and children in order to miss Number 2 ought to give Padilla a useful defense in his case, eh?

Rich Ard,
Thanks. By simple extrapolation, it's a given Superman didn't spit into the wind.

happyjuggler0 | January 14, 2006, 9:30pm | #

The link was not actually in response to the original post in the thread. It was replying to someone's repeating the apparant outright lie that we bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999 by accident.

The link was for a google search. The following two links is the text of the first two entries.


First link

10/22/99

(Click here for an update on this story)

A detailed investigative article in the October 17 London Observer reported that NATO deliberately bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade last May, after discovering that the embassy was relaying Yugoslav military radio signals.

The report contradicted the public assurances of NATO leaders that the missile attack had been an accident. The Observer's sources included "a flight controller operating in Naples, an intelligence officer monitoring Yugoslav radio traffic from Macedonia and a senior [NATO] headquarters officer in Brussels."

So far, the reaction in the mainstream U.S. media has been a deafening silence. To date, none of America's three major network evening news programs has mentioned the Observer's findings. Neither has the New York Times or USA Today, even though the story was covered by AP, Reuters and other major wires. The Washington Post relegated the story to a 90-word news brief in its "World Briefing" (10/18/99), under the headline "NATO Denies Story on Embassy Bombing."

By contrast, the story appeared in England not only in the Observer and its sister paper, the Guardian (10/17/99), but also in their leading rival, the Times of London, which ran a follow-up article on the official reaction the next day (10/18/99). The Globe and Mail, Canada's most prestigious paper, ran the full Reuters account prominently in its international section (10/18/99). So did the Times of India, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Irish Times (all 10/18/99). The prominent Danish daily Politiken, which collaborated with the Observer on the investigation, was on strike, but ran the story on its website.

The difference in perspective with which American journalists have greeted this story can be observed by comparing the headlines over several international news agencies' dispatches about the Observer exposé:

Reuters (U.K.): "NATO Bombed Chinese Embassy Deliberately--UK Paper" (10/18/99).

Agence France Presse (France): "NATO Bombed Chinese Embassy Deliberately: Report" (10/18/99).

Deutche Presse-Agentur (Germany): "NATO Bombed Chinese Embassy Deliberately, Observer Claims" (10/18/99).

Associated Press (U.S.): "NATO Denies Deliberate Embassy Hit."

The U.S. media may today be uninterested in evidence that the attack was deliberate, but they had no trouble last May accepting NATO's explanation that the bombing was a mistake. Even before U.S. officials emerged with a full account of how the embassy could have been "mistakenly" targeted--an "outdated map" of Belgrade played a prominent role in the official explanation--the U.S. media began regularly referring, without evidence, to the "accidental bombing" of the embassy.

When Chinese officials disputed the U.S. account, protesting that the attack could not have been a mistake, establishment journalists immediately took sides in this debate. New York Times diplomatic correspondent Jane Perlez (5/10/99) referred to "the accidental bombing, portrayed in China as deliberate." A Washington Post editorial (5/17/99) that discussed China's reaction to "NATO's unintentional bombing of China's embassy" was indignant that the official Chinese press was "milking the bombing for propaganda value" by reporting that the missile strike had been intentional. USA Today continues to refer to the "accidental bombing" of the embassy (10/20/99).

Since the New York Times hasn't published the new information about the embassy attack, it's unclear whether the paper stands by its earlier reporting. Since May 7, the Times has referred to the "accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy" a total of 20 times. The last reference was in its October 17 edition--the day the Observer published its report. Since then, the Times has run an AP article on the Chinese president's visit to London (10/19/99), which mentioned only that "China broke off talks with Washington and the European Union after NATO bombed the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia"--taking no stand on the intention behind the attack.

Even before the Observer's expose, there was no lack of evidence that China's suspicions were correct. A few days after the bombing, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder took the highly unusual step of publicly questioning NATO's explanation of the attack. "The explanation given by NATO on the tragic incident so far is far from enough and the Chinese government has every reason to demand a comprehensive, thorough, and in-depth investigation into the incident and affix the responsibility for it," Schroeder said in Beijing (AFP, 5/12/99).

The London Daily Telegraph reported in June (6/27/99) that NATO's precision-guided missiles "carefully singled out the most sensitive section of the embassy complex for attack"--the intelligence directorate. "That's exactly why they don't buy our explanation," a Pentagon official was quoted as saying.

In July, CIA director George Tenet testified in Congress that out of the 900 targets struck by NATO during the three-month bombing campaign, only one was developed by the CIA: the Chinese Embassy (AP, 7/22/99).

What is perhaps most baffling about the major news outlets' indifference to the Chinese embassy story is that the same outlets regularly devote a great deal of attention to other stories concerning China and its relations with the U.S. Elite media report extensively on China's possible entry into the World Trade Organization, the political struggle between its "reformers" and conservatives, and allegations of Chinese nuclear spying and electoral influence-buying in the U.S. The op-ed pages abound with debates about China's intentions toward America: Is the country a threat to be contained or an opportunity for trade and investment?

The Times of London noted in an October 21 book review that "the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade might yet turn out to be an important episode in a new Cold War." One might think that a well-sourced investigative article in a respected foreign newspaper providing evidence that the bombing was deliberate would be viewed by editors in the United States with the same interest they have shown in other aspects of China's relations with the West.

Second entry:

December 29, 2005
Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy November-December 2005


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Highly-placed NATO sources have confirmed the reason behind the US air strike - with three Tomahawk cruise missiles - against the Embassy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Belgrade, (then) Yugoslavia, on May 7, 1999. The then-Clinton Government of the United States said at the time that the strike was accidental, due to faulty maps and intelligence, but this has been disproven by the NATO sources.

The NATO sources told Defense & Foreign Affairs that the attack was based on intelligence that then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was to have been in the Embassy at the time of the attack. The attack, then, was deliberately planned as a "decapitation" attack, intended to kill Milosevic.

The London Observer, on October 19, 1999, had said that the attack had been deliberate, noting: "... Politiken newspaper in Denmark and Ed Vulliamy cites senior military and intelligence sources in Europe and the US stating that the embassy was bombed after its NATO electronic intelligence (ELINT) discovered it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.

"Supportive evidence is provided by three other NATO officers - a flight controller operating in Naples, an intelligence officer monitoring Yugoslav radio traffic from Macedonia and a senior headquarters officer in Brussels.

"All three say they knew in April that the Chinese embassy was acting as a "rebro" (rebroadcast) station for the Yugoslav army. The embassy was also suspected of monitoring NATO's cruise missile attacks on Belgrade, with a view to developing effective countermeasures."

The Clinton Administration blamed the attack on inaccurate intelligence information provided by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), alleging that the three missiles, which landed in one corner of the PRC embassy block, had been meant to target the Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement (FDSP). US Defence secretary William Cohen said at the time: "One of our planes attacked the wrong target because the bombing instructions were based on an outdated map." Sources within the US National Imagery and Mapping Agency reacted with anger at the allegation that their mapping had been at fault.

Moreover, it was clear that Clinton appointee George Tenet, the CIA Director at the time, was involved in the deception operation built around the failed assassination attack.

There was widespread disbelief of the US Clinton Administration claim that the attack was "accidental", but no accurate background information as to why the attack against the Embassy was scheduled. The rationale cited by The Observer was not the true cause of the targeting.

In July 1999, then-CIA Director Tenet testified in Congress that out of the 900 targets struck by NATO during the three-month bombing campaign, only one was developed by the CIA: the PRC Embassy.

Ruthless | January 14, 2006, 9:48pm | #

happyjuggler0,
Shock and awe takes many forms.

The most important question going forward is, "What will be the effect on Wal*Mart prices?"

How is US foreign policy like genital mutilation?
Let me count the ways.

stan | January 14, 2006, 10:25pm | #

right now the fbi is sifting thru the dead bodies of children that the cia killed - they are looking for an excuse - if you want to know what it feels like to lose your liberty - you are living it -

thoreau | January 14, 2006, 10:34pm | #

happyjuggler-

Food for thought. I'll take a look at it later.

I used to be active in juggling, nowadays I do it once a month or so. What kind of juggling do you like? I mostly liked simple tricks (behind the back, under the legs, bounce off the head or knees), and juggling while unicycling. I didn't learn too many complicated patterns, and I found that when I did learn a complicated pattern the non-jugglers weren't all that impressed. They'd rather see me eat an apple while juggling it, or toss a bean bag under my legs while juggling it, or put an extra twirl on my clubs.

Ruthless | January 14, 2006, 10:44pm | #

thoreau,
Will you and Mrs. t kindly hit the sack?
Don't abuse your brain. It belongs to all of us.

There used to be a legally blind juggler (of clubs) unicycling through our apartment complex. He was a stitch. I would strew tacks in his path.

Ken Shultz | January 14, 2006, 11:20pm | #

Let me pipe up that--no joke--I used to be able to ride a unicycle and juggle at the same time too. I can still juggle, and I can still ride a unicycle. I don't know if I can still do both at the same time.

Juggling can be like meditation for me or, anyway, sometimes it makes it easy for me to concentrate.

...Have we had this conversation before, or is this just you know what all over again?

Khouri bin Dalu | January 14, 2006, 11:34pm | #

We just don't treat white people the way we treat Arabs.

We're not white? Shit, I want in on some of that Affirmative Action.

Max Cady | January 15, 2006, 12:07am | #

That bombing was win win because even if he's not yet dead, that just means that Mr. al-Zawahiri's miserable life is extended for a little while.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1560834.stm

"Zawahiri's wife and children were reportedly killed in a US air strike in Afghanistan in late November or early December 2001."

It's a book between Esther and Pslams, Mr. al-Zawahiri. I suggest you take a look. We are going to take everything that you have, everything that you hold dear -- your precious country, your family, your creed. And finally, your life. Yes, YOU GONNA LEARN ABOUT LOSS, Mr. al-Zawahiri. I'm Vergil and I'm guiding you through the gates of hell. On behalf of the People of the United States of America, and with the power vested in me by the kingdom of God, I sentence you to the th Circle of hell! Now you will learn about loss! Loss of freedom! Loss of humanity! And you better think twice next time you fuck with the United States of America.

Walter E. Wallis | January 15, 2006, 12:37am | #

If Canada was allowing someone to attack the United States from Canada and doing nothing to stop them, then you damn betcha I would blow up Ottawa. It is an obligation of sovreignty to not allow your country to be used as a base for attacks on another country.

tt | January 15, 2006, 2:13am | #

"Well, technically an artillery round is a missile."

A missile is self-propelled. It has a solid or liquid fuel burner .

James | January 15, 2006, 2:49am | #

tt: the term "missile" predates rocketry.

From something called the "Online Etymology Dictionary," an analysis of the English word "missile:"

1611 (adj.) "capable of being thrown," chiefly in phrase missile weapon, from Fr. missile, from L. missile "weapon that can be thrown," from missus, pp. of mittere "to send." The noun meaning "thing thrown or discharged as a weapon" is from 1656. Sense of "self-propelled rocket or bomb" is first recorded 1738; the modern remote guidance projectile so called from 1945.

Of course, the NYT caption writer can be presumed to use it in the modern context, especially since he calls it the "remains" of a missile when it is clearly an intact shell. It really is astonishing how ignorant reporters are of military hardware when they get so excited at the thought of covering a conflict. I mean, nobody in journalism school dreams of covering city council meetings, do they? You'd think they would spend an afternoon reading up on things before they start typing. This stuff is all over the internet.

Eric the .5b | January 15, 2006, 2:56am | #

Just as a note, not to justify or attack the policy in this case...But if the attack was an airstrike, it definitely didn't leave an artillery shell in that village.

Which would suggest that the shell is a prop in a staged picture. How staged (ie, did someone throw in the shell to spice up a picture of a wrecked building and some villagers, or were the "bystanders" people who didn't live anywhere near the area of the attack)? No way to know.

I'd think that would be something people would react to, though.

Levi Rizetnikof | January 15, 2006, 3:06am | #

Did you ever stop to think that the old guy is standing next to a shell that was in the building _before_ it was bombed? Since obviously it didn't come from a Predator. And why should we believe _anything_ the Pakis tell us, anyway? As if they haven't been the people who created and still maintain the Taleban. At the moment, we don't really know what happened -- at all. And likely never will. There's a war going on. Next.

kwais | January 15, 2006, 4:56am | #

Back when I had a Jeep Cherokee, there was a sign that said; "A small child that has not been properly buckled in can become a Missile in the event of collision".

How do we know that something like that didn't happen in that little village in Pakistan?

I was just in Pakistan about 7 or 8 weeks ago and I didn't see too many kids wearing seatbelts.

amazingdrx | January 15, 2006, 5:11am | #

According to news reports, 30 hellfire missles were fired. Does one predator carry 30 hellfires?

Gun camera footage (shown on teevee)of one hellfire,fired from a predator by CIA operatives, used on a vehicle in front of a building purportedly containing fleeing taliban or quaeda during the invasion of Afghanistan showed the devestation from ONE hellfire.

30 would be overkill..which is fine if one knew that al queada was actually the target. As it turned out the attack was on civilians instead. Did qeada setup that village for propaganda purposes against the US friendly puppet regime in Pakistan?

A cell or sat phone, a tape recording of a qeada leader, and voice print analysis by NSA would confirm the target, and the CIA would fall into the trap. Attacking the wrong village.

An AC-130 might have been used, but they are very vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. So maybe the military saw the hellfire report and said good, the stupidity of the media is covering the use of the gunship with unintentional misinformation?

They might want to keep using the gunship, which of course does use the "missle" in the photo. The gunship is noisy and vulnerable, misinformation that a predator was used instead would protect the the AC-130 for future attacks?

At least in the minds of military intelligence (an oxymoron), the same brain trust that would fall for a simple trick like planting a voice to "print" in that village.

Until our military establishment hires man trackers who think like their target, how are these attempts going to succeed in defeating qeada?

A real hunter, actually more akin to a trapper, would bait his traps and neutralize these fellers group by group. A trapper thinks like his prey.

People who think like qeada end up getting the boot from the intelligence establishment, usually during basic training. FBI screening is designed to bounce these kind of individuals before they get started on a government career.

Groups like qeada seek these kind of people out. not as suicide bombers, but as the operatives that use human bombs.

The government ought to go out and hire a mob "collector" or a bounty humter to go after these guys. But that doesn't fit the institutional modus operandi. Which is probably a good thing in the long run.

A police state employing proffessional outlaws would be too dangerous to liberty. But then how to get qeada? It's a conundrum. Think of the movie "The Dirty Dozen", it's in that vein.

joe | January 15, 2006, 11:58am | #

If it's any condolance, reporters never get the details right when they write about planning or wetlands issues, either.

I don't think this is an EmmEssEmm conspiracy to sabotagae efforts to protect wetlands. I just think reporters are experts on reporting, and have a job which often puts them in a situation where they're writing about subjects they don't know anything about.

Ken Shultz | January 15, 2006, 12:28pm | #

If it's any condolance, reporters never get the details right when they write about planning or wetlands issues, either.

I haven't seen 'em get that stuff a hundred percent right either, joe. ...but if someone printed a picture of a bald eagle in the middle of a swamp, and put it in a story about the EIR on my barren infill project, just 'cause reporters are affected by the same misconceptions as the general public, well, I'd still call bullshit.

...and the larger point here is a good one. Always question authority. Question it from the government, the company you work for, question the authority of your church, question the authority of the Bible, question your professor and the institution he works for, question the authority of your doctor, the hospital you're in, question the authority of your lawyer, your judge, your stock broker, your accountant and the institutions they represent, question your architect--for goodness' sake question your architect!

...and question the authority of the reporter you get your news from and the institution that publishes or broadcasts that news. ...and question the pertinent facts.

The wed RINO | January 15, 2006, 12:29pm | #

I just think reporters are experts on reporting, and have a job which often puts them in a situation where they're writing about subjects they don't know anything about.

Jeezus Joe, where's the fun in that.

happyjuggler0 | January 15, 2006, 12:49pm | #

amazingdrx,

Don't despair. We have a bunch of bomb loving lunatics of our own in the special forces arms of our military branches. This is why they are there in Afghanistan in the first place instead of gobs of regular army personel.

Mushroom | January 15, 2006, 1:10pm | #

happyjuggler0,
"This is why [special forces] are there in Afghanistan in the first place instead of gobs of regular army personel."
Umm, there are plenty of regular army personnel there- the 101st, 82nd, 173rd, and 10th have all been there at one time or another. Get your facts straight.

JD | January 15, 2006, 1:12pm | #

Well, at least we can still bash reporters for knowing absolutely jack about pretty much everything. In their defense, they have a tough job: they're supposed to report on everything, but you can't be an expert on everything. Still, there should be some kind of editor who knows something about any given topic, no? The individual reporter can be forgiven, but why does the whole process so routinely turn out howlers? Given what I read in the papers about topics I do know about, I assume everything else is of the same factual quality: shite. (ps: My favorite weapons-related gaffe was the ".9 mm pistol" one newspaper mentioned.)

Shannon Love | January 15, 2006, 1:41pm | #

I find it interesting that most commentators on this thread assume that the reports that there were no military targets in the village is absolutely true even though the second paragraph states:

"But the senior Pakistani official who spoke of Mr. Zawahiri suggested that the death toll was higher, and he said that at least 11 militants had been killed in the attack. Seven of the dead were Arab fighters, and another four were Pakistani militants from Punjab Province, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the news media."

I would point out that by international law and convention it is the responsibility of combatants subject to attack to see to the safety of non-combatants in their vicinity. If combatants cohabitant with non-combatants and the non-combatants are harmed as a result, then the moral and legal responsibility falls on the combatants who were targeted. Adopting any other standard simply creates an incentive to use non-combatants as shields.

If there were legitimate military targets in the village then the moral responsibility for civilian deaths lays on them.

Ken Shultz | January 15, 2006, 1:59pm | #

If there were legitimate military targets in the village then the moral responsibility for civilian deaths lays on them.

I think it's easy to conflate "moral" and "legal" here. You may be right about it being perfectly legal, and, heck, you may even be absolutely right about the morality of this.

...actually, I don't have much of a problem with goin' after this guy. I think this was a function of the legitimate War on Terror in Afghanistan; I think it was done in self-defense against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces that attacked us, and I have no problems going after those enemies regardless of what side of the border they're on. I have few qualms about going after them with or without the approval of the Pakistani government too.

...but I also know that some things are both legal and immoral. Surely, the moral qualification process should weigh the value of non-combatant life. We are morally responsible for the civilians we kill, even if we're morally justified in, reluctantly, killing them.

Ken Shultz | January 15, 2006, 2:14pm | #

I find it interesting that most commentators on this thread assume that the reports that there were no military targets in the village is absolutely true...

I was going to take you to task for this, but I went back and read the comments...

Although I'm not sure it's exactly "most", many commenters assumed this. I stopped counting at six and a half commenters. (One of 'em I'm unsure of). So why do you think they did that, Shannon?

I think the people who comment here tend to be better informed, more critically minded and, indeed, more reasonable than the general population.

...Why do you think such people, without looking, seemed to assume that there was no legitimate target? Do you think it has anything to do with the bogus justifications for Iraq?

amazingdrx | January 15, 2006, 2:27pm | #

"he said that at least 11 militants had been killed in the attack. Seven of the dead were Arab fighters, and another four were Pakistani militants from Punjab Province"

In this region, every kid over 12 that can carry an ak becomes a "militant". In the rural Pakistani culture the boys go off to jihad. And that's their job for life. Everything else is considered women's work.

If no foreign infidels are around, they fight with neighboring tribes. If qeada pays them will they fight the jihad elsewhere? Enough of them will, even if only 1/10th of 1% of the muslim population, to increase the suicide bombing terror part of the jihad exponentially for decades.

An attack like this helps qaeda recruiting and fundraising. These oil wars have increased qeada's fortunes by many orders of magnitude.

The only way to win these energy wars now is by becoming independent of oil based energy.

raymond | January 15, 2006, 2:50pm | #

rogue nations

failed states

terrorists

When the end justifies the means, when the government will do "whatever it takes", that's what you end up with.

Dave Hardy | January 15, 2006, 4:40pm | #

Chuckle. Very few missile warheads display rifling engraving on the copper driving bands.

xxx | January 15, 2006, 4:43pm | #

What disturbs me is that the photographer got a kid to pose next to a potentially live artillery round.

Pat Patterson | January 15, 2006, 4:48pm | #

Years ago, as a graduate student, I went to Greece and I was offered the chance to buy the discus of one of the first athletes in the Olympic Games of antiquity. When I questioned the seller on its provenence he showed me the signature, in modern Greek, of the athlete on the discus. I had to laugh and start to walk away though the seller ran after me exclaiming that all the other tourist had bought one and why was I being difficult.

Steve | January 15, 2006, 5:02pm | #

It may be nit picking, but the darned thing is BLUE!!!. Blue is the color that we use for training, not live ordnance. It does have the markings on the bottom showing that it was fired, but I think that it was inert, fired, found and moved to this location.

Jal | January 15, 2006, 5:06pm | #

Horrible that innocents may have be killed. Maybe the village will not not hide Al Qaeda in their midst. No Al Qaeda...you're not a target.

Narniaman | January 15, 2006, 5:17pm | #

This is a staged picture. Period.

That is an artillery shell. Predator aircraft don't carry artillery shells, hence it wasn't shot by a Predator.

So where did this rather large artillery shell come from?

It must have been part of the target in the village.

In other words, the hellfire missile hit, among other things, an ammo dump.

Why would a remote Pakistan village have an ammo dump?

Since the MSM is obviously lying about this "missile", they certainly can't be trusted on any reports that children and/or civilians were killed.

packman | January 15, 2006, 5:18pm | #

If Pakistan can't govern the region, it isn't part of Pakistan.

Josh | January 15, 2006, 5:26pm | #

The MSM distorting the truth? Noooooooo, that can't be.

;)

merton | January 15, 2006, 5:37pm | #

I have never read so many stupid comments.

I guess we can't protect ourselves (USA) unless we don't hurt any non-combatants. Yeah, that will work.

Also, we either had the tacit or explicit approval of Pakistan's government, or they would be calling this an act of war.

Charles Martin | January 15, 2006, 5:40pm | #

Stan, you moron, do you think the bomb stops to check ID's before it blows up?

They blew up one house. If it'd been "indiscriminate" bombing, they would have leveled a couple of square blocks.

Dennis | January 15, 2006, 6:04pm | #

Wow. This site is great. I have no words to said more than thanx.

Chechen killer | January 15, 2006, 6:12pm | #

If we would kill 300 children in Russia for the publicity, why wouldn't we kill 8 or 9 in this crap hole and say a rocket from the United States did it. You guys will believe anything as long as it makes the US look bad.

Hank | January 15, 2006, 6:12pm | #

The artillery shell looks Swedish - of the type used by F Haubits-77A or B.

John Lederer | January 15, 2006, 6:13pm | #

NYT picture of the civilian damage and the Hellfire missile parts.

Jamie Kelly | January 15, 2006, 6:15pm | #

Any of you people remember Ruby Ridge, Idaho, where Randy Weaver's wife and son were shot to death by jackbooted federal agents? The New Joke Times described Weaver's shack in the mountains of Idaho as a "compound" and referred to his "arsenal" of weapons, which included -- gasp! -- seven rifles. I've been to the Weaver "compound." It's a fucking cabin. So don't tell me the NYT doesn't have an agenda, and that it doesn't twist language and facts deliberately.

Jamie Kelly | January 15, 2006, 6:18pm | #

BTW, seven rifles, where I come from, is a good start.

Stevo Darkly | January 15, 2006, 6:24pm | #

Never one to shy away from controversy, I will jump into this thread and state my strongly heldo opinion that Superman would spit into the wind.

The Jim Croce song says nothing to the contrary. It merely lists "don't tug on Superman's cape" and "don't spit into the wind" as two unwise things that ordinary people should not attempt.

But Superman is not and ordinary person. He has superpowers. I estimate he could expel spit at a speed of several hundred miles per hour, at least. At that velocity, he would have nothing to fear from spitting into any ordinary earthly wind.

I suggest you read a few issues of DC Comics before you embarrass yourselves further.

M. Simon | January 15, 2006, 6:30pm | #

As far as I can tell we had three good reasons and an excuse to take Iraq.

The three good reasons: location, location, location. You guys do know that position is the essence of ground warfare. You can read a map.

The excuse: Saddam was a very bad dude. At minimum he liked to violate the terms of the ceasefire. A causus belli. Did I mention the mass graves of women and children? Not a nice man.

BTW Afghanis are about 80% favorable towards America. Quite a switch for a people that have expelled every invader for the last 3,500 years or more (our records only go back so far).

Rove thinks he can get Bush a job as President of Afghanistan after Jan 20, 2009.

So the question is: do we take the Iranian President at his word or do we treat him the way we treated a certian Austrian corporal for over a decade? No one could be that crazy and believe all that shit could they? I mean the 12th Imam rising out of a well. Islam ruling the world. The return to the caliphate. Wiping Israel off the map. Nuts isn't it? Well isn't it?

moptop | January 15, 2006, 6:32pm | #

As near as I can tell, the main defense of the picture here is a combination of "it depends on what 'is is', or a missile is" and that the picture is "fake but accurate".

Either case, it shows the news organization to be a dupe of one side in the confilict. Imagine how some of these same posters would react if the NYT printed a picture as obviously staged as this, but by the US military.

ThomasD | January 15, 2006, 6:34pm | #

"The AC-130 does, in fact, carry a 105mm howitzer, but that does not appear to be a 105mm shell. It clearly is an artillery shell, however; you can tell both by the general shape and the "rotating band" at the bottom, which engages in the rifling in the barrel to generate spin."

Yep, that sure does not look like a 105 (105mm is approximately 4" in diameter)and the driving band appears to be designed to impart its own spin, leading me to believe it was intended to be fired in a smoothbore howitzer.

My own wild-arsed-guess? It's a leftover Soviet 152mm (about 6" in diameter) howitzer round.

August Falcon | January 15, 2006, 6:34pm | #

Another thought regarding the presence of what may be an unexploded large caliber artillary round in a remote Pakistani village identifed by the CIA as containing a possible safe house for terrorist leaders is that such a round could be used to provide a layer of defense for the safe house. Such a use is right out of the urban terrorist playbook. That round is an argument for the proposition that the CIA was more likely right than wrong.

Chuck Betz | January 15, 2006, 6:48pm | #

Ya don't want to make them more mad at us than they already are. Who knows, they might try to blow up the World Trade Center or something.

Johnny | January 15, 2006, 6:53pm | #

Okay, so the NYTimes uses images from GettyImages. It looks like they also just steal the caption.

You should all get over beating the times for twisting this, instead, perhaps more focus should be given to the folks who actually wrote the caption and shot the image?

Here is a link to Getty Images.

thoreau | January 15, 2006, 7:07pm | #

I never said that I am convinced that no legitimate targets were hit.

I don't know enough about rural Pakistan to know if amazingdrx's characterization about the culture is accurate. However, I would like to know more about what constitutes a "militant" before I draw any conclusions about whether legitimate targets were hit.

And I would agree that there are instances where civilian casualties are excusable. However, I would object to simply blaming any and all civilian casualties on the bad guy hiding among them. There are responsible and irresponsible ways to deal with a bad guy hiding among civilians. The mere fact that the bad guy is hiding among civilians doesn't give the good guys license to do like the guys in "Team America: World Police" and just blow shit up indiscriminately.

DavidU | January 15, 2006, 7:10pm | #

Amazing. No one has yet pointed out that the artillery round being displayed was never fired in anger at anything, ever. If it had, it would have been totally demolished on impact, whether or not it exploded. The picture is obviously a posed fake, typical of the New York Times.

And wait a minute. Isn't that Dan Rather in the background?

matty | January 15, 2006, 7:15pm | #

Beat me to the punch, Johnny, but the photographer is an AFP stringer not a Getty staffer. It should also be noted that Getty ran a corrected caption within four hours (10 A.M. this morning, four hours before Mr. Taylor's post). Here it is:

Bajur, PAKISTAN: Pakistani tribesmen stand by a unexploded ordinance at their house which was damaged in an alleged US air strike the day before in the Bajur tribal zone near the Afghan border, 14 January 2005. Thousands of tribesmen protested against an alleged US air strike targeting Al-Qaeda's second in command that killed 18 people near the Afghan border, witnesses said.

NYT online must have missed the memo.

Don Meaker | January 15, 2006, 7:22pm | #

When you complain about civilian casualties, remember why.

Legal combatants separate themselves from civilians, use uniforms, and have a chain of command so when the battle is won, they can be told to surrender or stand down. Illegal combatants do not use uniforms, and have no chain of command. Terrorists are illegal combatants. When they hid among civilians, they make the civilians a target. When civilians accept terrorists among them, the civilians lose the protection usually awarded them.

Countries have borders. When a country controls its borders, it prevents terrorists from coming in and thereby protects it citizens from being targeted. When a country does not control its borders, terrorists can come in, and then their citizens are legally, though inadvertantly targeted by legal combatants seeking to target a terrorist.

The fault for civilian casualties in this case is the terrorists, and to a lesser extent, the Pakistani government, and to a still lesser extent the civilians who do not obviously expel any terrorists from their midst.

Rob | January 15, 2006, 7:31pm | #

Don't quote me but I belive that artilery trainuing rounds "dummy rounds" are that shade of blue with a yellow stripe.

Perfectsense | January 15, 2006, 7:36pm | #

Artillery rounds is one source of IEDs. Was this "innocent" house full of these artillery rounds?

matty | January 15, 2006, 7:38pm | #

10 A.M. this morning, four hours before Mr. Taylor's post

Correction: 10 a.m. yesterday morning, four hours before Mr. Taylor's post. The Carlotta Gall story that ran in this morning's print edition of the Times didn't include the offending picture, by the way.

Ivan | January 15, 2006, 7:39pm | #

Stevo, Superman would never spit, into the wind or in any other direction. He's a gentleman, not a redneck.

As for the picture, if this is the worst you can come up with to damn the NYT, you really are lame.

nds | January 15, 2006, 7:47pm | #

The people in the tribal areas of Pakistan welcome, hide and give aid to groups which have organized attacks that have killed thousand in the US and many countries in the Mid-East, hundreds in Bali, Madrid, and nearly a hundred in London. They seem to support those activites and cheer them on. Maybe if they stopped doing that the US government would stop bombing them.

I understand that even if they did not kill Zarahiri with the attack last week, they killed several AQ leaders. Maybe this is wrong, but I really don't care if they killed women and children along with them. Zawhiri is a dangerous man and it should be no surprise that it is dangerous to hang out with him.

adie | January 15, 2006, 8:22pm | #

I searched Gettyimages.com for Thir Khan photos. Found 6. He has another pic with artillery shells:

http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/search/details_pop.aspx?iid=55815942&cdi=0

There's a couple that look similar, except a different body color and proportion. Think it's a photoshop?

Joseph | January 15, 2006, 8:24pm | #

The shell in question is apparently a "dud" round from some previouse time. Notice the brass rotator bands have the grooves from the cannon barrel rifling showing that it has been fired. Also I would hazard to guess the round impacted in a far different area since only the fuse has apparently been damaged which is normal for a dud impacting in soft ground. It's been quite a few years now so I can't immediately recognize a 152mm (soviet) versus a 155mm (nato) from a photo though I don't remember 152's using yellow in their marking system and I also remember them having a different length aspect ratio (to lazy to search up if the Pakistani use 155 or 152).

Ruthless | January 15, 2006, 8:32pm | #

Stevo,
Superman would not spit into the wind.
What you describe is supersonic projectile expectoration.
Spitting is a sign of trying to fit in. It's like a handshake, saying, "shucks," or talking about the weather.
We love Superman because he tried to fit in, a la Clark Kent.
I loved Captain Marvel too.
Captain Marvel was to Superman as Gene Autrey was to Roy Rogers.

Stevo Darkly | January 15, 2006, 8:35pm | #

In fact, I will go so far as to say that Superman could use his spit to deflect an incoming artillery shell or missile-warhead off-target, thereby saving lives.

Yet Superman chose not to do this. Is he not in some sense responsible for whatever it is that happened?

Les | January 15, 2006, 8:42pm | #

Maybe this is wrong, but I really don't care if they killed women and children along with them. Zawhiri is a dangerous man and it should be no surprise that it is dangerous to hang out with him.

That'll teach those kids to, uh, have parents who, uh...stupid kids.

Ruthless | January 15, 2006, 8:49pm | #

All this technical military talk reminds me of a picture I treasure that I brought back from VN. It's of the brass casing of a 122 mm artillery shell the action end of its like I was the elusive recipient of many times just at the changeover from the Johnson administration to the Nixon.
Many years afterward I happened to show the picture to one of my students of English where I was volunteering. This guy was a prince of a fellow, and as peaceful as I am. His mother was on the staff of the organization where I taught. They were from Romania. He could tell by the markings on the casing that the shell had been made just a few blocks from where he lived. He or his relatives likely worked there.

AST | January 15, 2006, 9:15pm | #

I love the old guy in the turban! Talk about local color. And the arrangement of the artillery shell and the kids amongst the rubble from the recent earthquakes is inspired.

Duke | January 15, 2006, 9:21pm | #

Perhaps being Arabs, they simply stole that missile.
What's it worth to a scrap dealer or maybe a terrorist bomber? Must be something there of value.

Look people .. we are at war with Islam (their idea) and in any war shit happens. This is just shit that happened. Nothing compare to what these head hacking suicide bomber do to thousands annually.

The US can bomb any and all if it means we might eventually beat these lunatics and drive back under the rocks they crawled out from under.

Ken Shultz | January 15, 2006, 9:27pm | #

The average temperature (or something) is dropping like a rock in here.

AnonCowherd | January 15, 2006, 9:40pm | #

As perfectsense points out, the "bad guys" in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region use caches of artillery rounds to create IED's. The are literally thousands of these stashed all over the area. When I was in Afghanistan last year, the Army would find two or three caches a day - which were either blown in place or moved to one of the demo ranges. Many Afghanis would report caches for reward money. It's quite likely the round in the photo is from one of these caches and not from a Predator (or other UAV) strike.

Matt | January 15, 2006, 9:45pm | #

What a great thread. It has everything!

Bush is evil, we deserved 9/11, this is a racist war, and my favorite, fake but accurate.

Remind me again why I used to be a libertarian?

Joan Rivers | January 15, 2006, 10:03pm | #

Matt,
Oh, grow up!

mediageek | January 15, 2006, 10:09pm | #

If reporters actually had knowledge about anything other than reporting, they wouldn't work as reporters.

Kinda makes you wonder about all that "4th Estate" stuff...

holdfast | January 15, 2006, 10:15pm | #

The point is credibility - if the arty shell pictured here is not (and clearly it was not) used in the raid at issue, it raises questions about the rest of the photo. Was it really taken at that village? Could it be a file pic from Afghanistan, where there are 30 years of shells lying around? How do we know? We are supposed to take the word of the NYTimes that it's not a fraud or forgery - but thanks to Blair, Rather, Mapes and Kelly, we know that the MSM is cerainly not above a little fraud or forgery - or maybe someone like a local stringer is perpretating a fraud on the notoriously credulous NYTimes? Basically we have to take it on faith, and every time they F something up like this, I lose a little more faith. There are a few reporters at the Times (John Burns comes to mind) who I KNOW to be accurate and fair so I tend to trust them - others, not so much.

Basically, if the nation's "newspaper of record" cannot get the little things (things that I can check) right, how can I trust them to get other things right, things that I am not in a position to check.

thoreau | January 15, 2006, 10:23pm | #

Les said:
That'll teach those kids to, uh, have parents who, uh...stupid kids.

<propaganda victim>Yeah, well, some of those kids might have grown up to become adults with a negative opinion of the US.</propaganda victim>

somebody else said:
Remind me again why I used to be a libertarian?

That was before you finally learned to love Big Brother.

kcom | January 15, 2006, 10:35pm | #

Holdfast is exactly right, it goes to credibility. It's not just a mistake in captioning. The problem is the picture doesn't match the story, whatever the caption. The story is about missiles and the picture is of an artillery shell.

In other words, the picture is not fake but accurate, but rather just plain fake, as it regards the story. The picture has nothing to do with the story. So instead of illuminating the story, it obscures and fuzzes up the story. And then one has to ask, as holdfast has, what is it a picture of? Where did it come from? Is it from that village or even from Pakistan at all?

And then furthermore, who supplied the picture? Can they prove where it came from? Can they prove it had anything to do with the story at all. And if it didn't, what of the rest of the material - the written stuff? Did it actually come from the scene? Is it any more real than the picture is?

And why is the picture posed? Should news pictures be posed? Someone put that artillery shell up on that wall. I feel fairly confident it didn't land there itself, in that position. What does that say about the "truth" of the picture?

The problem is not a simple captioning mistake, although that too is a, separate, problem. (You'd think the media could handle the difference between a missile and an artillery shell, especially if they are war reporters.) The problem is a picture that is fake and inaccurate and brings the credibility and reliability of all the rest of the story into question.

Ken Shultz | January 15, 2006, 11:39pm | #

Basically we have to take it on faith, and every time they F something up like this, I lose a little more faith.

Basically, no one should take anyone's word for anything. Authority is for suckers. ...It always has been. No one should ever accept the authority of anyone else as a definitive indication of fact.

...I think I remember hearing about a fallacy that addressed this somewhere. It went something like, "If you ever had faith in someone's authority or "credibility" as a substitute for the facts, then you're a sucker.", or something like that. If there's someone in your head, right now, who has some kind of "credibility" for you, someone whose authority is such that you accept what they say as fact, then you're a sucker.

...and you should probably only read things written by, and only listen to, only watch things broadcast by people that totally disagree with you, at least until you get better.

Ken Shultz | January 15, 2006, 11:45pm | #

If you can fill in the blank...

"I don't have to worry about the facts because I listen to __________, and he/she/it has credibility.

...then you're a sucker.

TomHynes | January 15, 2006, 11:54pm |