Thursday, May 15, 2008

Another AP Photographer, a Magic Bullet and the Sandy Knoll   [Steve Schippert]

Bob Owens calls it the Bloodless Bullets of Baghdad. Indeed, bloodless. But it's more than that. In an AP image proffered as a bullet wound, a rather pristine bullet is shown in a conveniently perfect photograph somehow lodged - breech first - just into the upper layer of a woman's skin on her arm. The photo, supposedly taken in the middle of emergency care, is better than textbook quality - everything positioned perfectly for the camera. Is this another bit of "fauxtography," another managed stage show in the ongoing screenplay of this information-warfare battlefield? It appears so. The image was not doctored, but the stage appears quite managed.

Let's examine. First, one must wonder just how a ball round rifle projectile can come to lodge itself only partially beneath the epidermis. Strange things can happen in ballistics. However, a seemingly pristine round has somehow managed to partially lodge itself. In order for this type of limited entry, the round, if fired from a rifle, must have lost almost all of its kinetic energy. In an urban environment such as densely packed Sadr City, the only logical way for this to happen is through ricochet, with kinetic energy sapped from the round with each deflecting high-speed impact. If you have ever seen a spent round after ricochet, you know that it almost always looks like an over-sized tooth filling that has fallen out of someone's mouth. Each impact deforms the round into an almost unrecognizable shape of semi-random dimensions.

What we have here is not only a pristine or near-pristine spent round, but one that has managed to gently crawl beneath a layer of skin blunt back end first. The laws of physics cry near impossible in the given urban environment, and the rule of logic dictates the conclusion of staged manual insertion with photographer at the ready for treatment.

Is it possible that such a wound genuinely happened? Yes. Possible. But combine the very, very remote likelihood with the track record of staged photography and altered "fauxtography" in the information war engaged to date, and the conclusion begs otherwise.

What we have here is another Magic Bullet, perhaps fired from the Sandy Knoll.

What we have here appears to be yet another AP photographer just aligned enough to play along, and an AP editor(s) just dumb enough to buy it.

Last time, full rounds complete with their full metal jacket were latched onto by AFP photographers as those which struck some poor old lady's house. (I suppose some bush-league American with a major-league arm threw them really, really hard.)

Perhaps the misinformation warriors learned from their mistake and removed the jacket this time. Not quite smart enough though, unless they are playing to the Warren Commission. Next time, ever learning, perhaps they will beat up the unfired round for yet another degree of believability. Unfortunately for them, we will probably be able to match smash marks with a particular brand of hammer used to create the effect.

05/15 10:44 AMShare