The Passion Of The Toys, Part II: The Pooh Strikes Back

Clean and pristine toys seem to be littered on the ground at every Israeli airstrike.

Are the Israelis dropping bombs with submuntions consisting of adorable plushies? Cluster-Poohs, maybe?

These photos do not appear to me as dubious as the ones found by Slublog.

Nevertheless, there is a certain rule that seems to be in effect for photographers in Lebanon:

If an Israeli bomb hits and you can't produce a corpse, at least produce a toy.

I'm pretty sure that Israeli children who've been in and out of bomb shelters for the past two weeks have lost a lot of toys, too. Yet I don't recall a lot of maudlin pictures of clown-dolls left upon the streets of Haifa as a family rushed to take shelter from the incoming rockets.

These photos -- unlike Slublog's somewhat more unlikely ones -- may not be staged at all. So it's hard to call a real picture "propaganda." Nevertheless, when so many pixels are given over to showing the misery of war on the Lebanese side of the border, and so few to the same misery on the Israeli side, there is bias.

Thanks to MC Warden. Wait, I mean, just "Warden." He's no MC anymore. He's all gangsta 'n shit now.

He says he's still on the hunt for more maudlin shots of stuffed animals.

I'm sure he'll succeed. The MSM seem to believe that manipulating public opinion is child's play.

By The Way: Do we have any firm idea of what Lebanese casualties really are? Seems to me that whenever big numbers are offered up, the media scrutiny intensifies, and suddenly the numbers are greatly reduced when there are not as many dead as first claimed.

But not every bombing gets that kind of scrutiny.

The caption that ran with the Winnie the Pooh photo:

A Lebanese civil defense rescuer, throws a toy found in the rubble, as they work to recover the bodies of citizens believed to be trapped under debris and concrete of the destroyed buildings, attacked late Monday by Israeli forces, in the southern Beirut suburb of Chiah, Lebanon, Tuesday Aug. 8, 2006. The raid on the Muslim southern suburb next to a Christian neighborhood killed at least 15 people, police officials said. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Police officials said. This is not exactly firm evidence as to the actual casualty figure.

Given Gateway Pundit's finding of what seems to be a well-nigh-certain fake "casualty of war" -- with Western media connivance! -- what do we really know at all?

The whole charge of "disproportionate response" relies upon demonstrating -- or "demonstrating" -- Lebanese casualties greatly in excess of Israeli casualties.

Of course there are many Lebanese casuatlies.

But do we know with any kind of certainty what that number really is?

It seems to me the Lebanese government, as well as the Hezbollah apparatus controlling southern Lebanon, have a major incentive to inflate these casualty figures as high as plausibilty will allow.

And it also seems that the MSM has little interest in getting to the truth of the matter.

"Police officials said." All right, that's what they said. What's the actual truth of it?

CNN Sells "Disproportionate Response: At Prices So Low They're Practically Giving it All Away.

How can they afford to sell at such deep discounts? Three words: Volume, volume, volume.

PHOTO HEADLINE: BLOODSHED AND DESPAIR

CAPTION:

The Israel Defense Forces said this apartment building was used as base by a Hezbollah cell that launched rockets into Israel. Israeli ground troops led an assault on the building in Tyre, and killed "everyone we wanted to kill."

Is that really what Israeli forces said?

Were they fluent in English? Did they mean to say something like, "We took out all the hostiles we were targeting in this mission" ?

"Everyone we wanted to kill."

Nuance.

Thanks to... well, I don't know. It's a couple of those strange Hebraic squiggles and don't know how to reproduce on my computer.

I'll hat tip "E" as that's the first name in the email address.

posted by Ace at 07:23 PM

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