Snapped Shot

The United States Army has detained a Reuters photographer, according to Reuters.

Far be it from me to suggest that coordinating with local "militants" might be seen as somewhat "prejudicial" in the eyes of the U.S. Army.

Seeing how the same have a tendency to bomb said Army.

(Incidentally, I'm getting nothing searching for his byline on the wire feed. He must not have been that productive for Reuters.)

... get fleas.

And boy, what ugly (yet oddly well-connected) fleas they are!

(Incidentally, the curious alignment of the cartoon terrorist's RPG is quite... Serendipitous. I have no doubts that Ismail Zaydah, propagandist extraordinaire, planned that shot to a "T.")

The photo news wires are filled with pictures of another 200 or so Palestinian prisoners who have been freed from Israeli jails as a "goodwill" measure towards the Palestinian Authority. As others have pointed out, these guys aren't exactly innocent bystanders who were rounded up by a military state; but rather, most of them were incarcerated in the process of planning and carrying out terrorist attacks.

How does our "impartial" press choose to represent them?

You guessed it: As heroes.

[ AP/Muhammed Muheisen 2, AP/Mohammed (The Coward) Ballas, Reuters/Fadi Arouri, Reuters/Mohamad Torokman ]

If we can't trust the press to tell us truthfully about murderous thugs in the Middle East, why do we think they'll be more honest about any other topic?

Update: A loving embrace. Thankfully, the AP actually provides some details on this one:

A released Palestinian prisoner Said al-Atba kisses his mother as he arrives at her home in the west bank city of Nablus, Monday, Aug. 25, 2008. Among the 198 Palestinians freed by Israel was Said al-Atba, who served 31 years of a life sentence for masterminding a 1977 market bombing that killed one woman and wounded dozens of others in central Israel. Al-Atba, 57, was the longest serving Palestinian inmate in Israel and is widely seen by Palestinians as a symbol of all the prisoners. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)

So as far as we can tell, he was not wrongfully convicted, and he did have a hand in killing Jews.

Notice that this fact doesn't stop the AP from running with this glowing portrait as "news."

Update: Soccer Dad has more background on why attempts like this are utterly futile.

I swear, everybody's doing it these days.

Heck, this photo even made it to the front page of DayLife!

I miss out on all the fun, I tell ya...

... Won't it gome back soon?

Well, while evil dictator Pervez Musharraf didn't face impeaghment, he did resign, so I'm sure that radical Islamists such as these, who insist on continuing to butcher the English language, will certainly be looking at good times.

Good times. With nukes.

Quite a delightful Monday thought.

Update: The brothers Tanveer strike again. One wonders how long the editors at both wire agencies will continue to put up with such wanton duplication of their intellectual property (even if only via family ties).

Prior Performances: Imperealist, Bycott Bycott Bycott.

Even though Reuters seems to be using the term "protest" in captions [like this one], I'm still pretty sure that what we're looking at would more formally be described as a "riot."

Indian policemen clash with Kashmiri [Ed.:—Muslim, in this case.] protesters during a protest in Srinagar August 7, 2008. The Indian army is deploying around 10,000 extra soldiers in Kashmir to quell weeks of protests over land for a Hindu shrine that had sparked some of the state's worst religious riots in two decades. REUTERS/Danish Ismail (INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR)

There's still quite a bit of that old-fashioned "civil unrest" going on. And, as far as I've always known, it continues to be the duty of the government to quell such unrest.

So why is it that we're trying to downplay the actions of the rioters, thus undermining the Indian government's duty to end the violence?

Could it be that Reuters is so in love with the mythology of protesting for "social justice" that it can't recognize a genuine riot when it sees one?

Or does it think that newsreaders around the world won't know the difference?

The artistic entrepreneurs over at Reuters know how to do ironic juxtaposition, too!

[Photo—Daylife link pending]

Yeah... reporting the "news" is so 1990's. What we really need is more photographers making cute "statements."