Right-Wing Bloggers' Fake Sgrena Car Photo -with help from AP

[BreakForNews]

Right-Wing Bloggers' Fake
Sgrena Car Photo

AP Linked to Disinfo on Shooting

by Fintan Dunne, Editor
BreakForNews.com March 6th, 2005
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/03/right-wing-bloggers-fake-sgrena-car.html

Right-wing bloggers are circulating a photo purportedly showing the car in which Sgrena Guiliani was wounded and her rescuer Nicola Calipari was fatally shot. The photo is being used to discredit Sgrena's account of the shooting.

It shows a four-door sedan which has only the driver's side window broken and no overt bullet damage to the bodywork. That contradicts the "hail of bullets" described by Sgrena and others. And it boosts the US military's case that the incident was just a "mishap."



At first glance the picture seems legitimate. Captions which accompany the photo on blogs say it's a still frame taken from an Associated Press video about the shooting at Baghdad Airport......

They make comments like:

"I ask you, does the car above look like it was “riddled with bullets? Either our soldiers are terrible shots or some people are being pretty loose with the facts in this story." (source)

But if you are suspicious that the car seems far too little damaged, you might -as I did- check major search engines for such a high-profile photo. On the second page of a Yahoo News Photo search -I quickly found the same vehicle photographed from another angle. This time with an Iraqi man standing beside the vehicle.

Tracking back the "car photo" story through blogs --which credited each other as the tale passed around, the feeding chain included thepoliticalteen.net, sayanythingblog.com, and the source of it all littlegreenfootballs.com.....

Here, even as the story continued to ooze across the blogsphere, the source of it all had already retracted their claim it was Sgrena's car.

And they were blaming Associated Press for it all, because in the AP video, the car clip from the February 5th, kidnapping was misleading synchronized with the voice-over describing the Baghdad airport shooting of Sgrena:

Full Story: http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/03/right-wing-bloggers-fake-sgrena-car.html

[Up2Late]

1. Outrageous!

The cars missing about 400 Bullet holes!:mad:

Yesterday, I saw an AP Headline that said "Free Hostage Doubts U.S. Shooting Account"

[FogerRox]

8. Roj gets his drill--chucks a bit runs over and starts to drill holes--one

after the other, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Man this is going to look cool when I'm done--

8, 9, 10,

[Up2Late]

13. I hope they don't forget the holes in the windshield

They should just Photoshop out the People from this photo, and clone about another 200 holes.

<>


This one just happened a few minutes ago.

<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050307/481/bag11703072137>

[BreakForNews]

28. StopPress : Real Car on it's way to Italy for forensics

Sgrena's car is coming back home.
Details in our latest story here:

Sgrena : Americans Knew in Advance and Arranged Ambush
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/03/sgrena-americans-knew-in-advance-and.html

[FreedomAngel82]

38. I wonder

if they can trust it though. How did the car get "lost"?

[Walt Starr]

2. Right Wing Bloggers just make shit up

How is this news? They've been doing it since the late 90's when they started the shit rumors about Clinton.

[bloom]

3. And most people will hear and believe the "official" version

and never hear about the retraction....

[Up2Late]

20. Good thing the * WH has a reputation for NEVER lying about...

..."Unfortunat Accidents" like this.
NOT!

[Ms. Clio]

4. OMFG

That's the car that she was kidnapped out of--the AP video certainly does not make that clear at all.

That is one sorry ass piece of journalism.

[mimitabby]

5. The italian press said their car is being shipped to rome

[Ms. Clio]

6. Thanks for the info, Mimi

Would you happen to have a link to that?

[mimitabby]

10. front page

http://www.corriere.it
headline near top of the page
"l'auto colpita presto in Italia"
"stricken car quickly in Italy"

[Ms. Clio]

11. Maybe we'll see a REAL photo of it soon, then!

Thanks again, Mimi!

:yourock:

[mimitabby]

12. i'll keep checking the italian news.

hopefully they'll show it.
at least it turned up. it would have been worse if it had disappeared!

[Ms. Clio]

14. Alta Vista translation

The car comes controlled from Italian agents in order to avoid eventual manomissioni. The examination of the car is indispensable in order to reconstruct dynamics of the shooting: in particular, the number of projects shoots them to you and their trajectory.

[alfredo]

19. I did a google translation and found that the

Americans also took their phones after the shooting. Italy is trying to get them back.

[Ms. Clio]

22. Why wouldn't they return the phones? Any thoughts?

[Up2Late]

27. If the cell phone still works, It would prove the story from AFP...

...that they were indeed on the phone with Rome, at the time. At least that's how mine works (records the time a call is made, and how long the call lasted).

They are probably going to get the phones back, as soon as they erase the "calls list.":grr:

[Ms. Clio]

33. Interesting

I almost never use mine, so I wouldn't have thought of that.

[The Doctor.]

37. That will be nearly impossible...

"erasing the calls list" would require overt control over the company in question.

If the service company was American based, then the BFEE might have some influence. But unless I am mistaken, the call also leaves a 'trace' to the destination. (calls received)

No way anyone in Italy would let such a nice piece of info disappear 'cause we said so.

[Up2Late]

47. No, I'm only talking about the call list IN the Phone memory card

On mine, you just go to the "Calls" list, find the call record you want to delete, highlight it, press the Clear button, it asks "Delete?" Then you press "Yes," that calls gone.

There are other ways to keep the other records out of investgators hands

[The Doctor.]

55. Of course it would be simple to erase the unit memory...

But I Don't believe it would be so easy to convince the Vatican to "make their records disappear".

The Vatican will not relinquish for destruction such powerful evidence without some very serious impetus.

[Up2Late]

26. This was in "The Guardian"

<http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1431436,00.html>

Italian reconstruction of the incident is significantly different. Sgrena told colleagues the vehicle was not travelling fast and had already passed several checkpoints on its way to the airport. The Americans shone a flashlight at the car and then fired between 300 and 400 bullets at if from an armoured vehicle. Rather than calling immediately for assistance for the wounded Italians, the soldiers' first move was to confiscate their weapons and mobile phones and they were prevented from resuming contact with Rome for more than an hour. :grr:

[FreedomAngel82]

39. Simply amazing

Why would they do this? This is just beyond bizzare.

[lala_rawraw]

7. Okay, let us

Ask "who these particular bloggers are" and who gave them marching orders to do this? Dig Dig Dig.

[WoodrowFan]

9. little green snotballs lied?

THERE'S a shocker.

seriously, thanks for this info.

[BreakForNews]

21. Something stinks about the LGF version of events

They say that someone tipped them off that Sgrena's car
was in the AP video. So they went -grabbed the photo of
the car and hey presto - a littlegreenfootballs scoop:
the undamaged car in which Sgrena was shot.

Buuuuuuuuut.....

A real pic of that car would be one of the Top Ten Photos world-wide.
Pure gold dust. If AP realy had the car in a video then there would
be no need to extract it from some video. AP and Yaho would have it
online immediately as a featured top photo.

Anybody would just go and search first to see.
Like I did.

Did they really think they scooped the AP photo editors,
and Yahoo's news photos people?

I don't buy it.

[FreedomAngel82]

40. Anything

to cover up a$$. Could you imagine what they'd be doing if this was happening in a democratic president's term? Outrage I tell you.

[rzemanfl]

15. About this "lost" car. Why isn't anyone asking the normal

questions, (e.g., What make was it? What color was it? What year was it? What kind of license plate did it have? Who owned it? How many miles were on it? Are you sure you remember where you parked it?)

SOMEBODY must know this stuff.

I think probably whatever it was, it has been "smushed" by an Abrams tank and hauled away in pieces to six different Iraqi scrapyards by now (or buried in the sand with the WMD's) but someone ought to be asking this stuff. Anyone following the Italian press?

[mimitabby]

23. i wrote to "ilmanifesto"

I wrote to Giuliana's website/news source ilmanifesto.it
and asked for details and sent them a link to the Yahoo news article
with the photo in it.
if they respond, i'll let you know

[rzemanfl]

25. Sounds from some of the posts above that the car has been

"found." I suspect they had to wait for the paint to dry on the bodywork they did. How the hell do you "lose" a car? The keys, that I'd believe, but the whole car?

[Up2Late]

16. Here is the original AFP report, and what is NOW being...

...supressed and revised by the AP and the U.S. Government (same people?)
<http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=38029>

"...They were 700 meters (yards) from the airport, which means that they had passed all checkpoints."

The shooting late Friday was witnessed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's office which was on the phone with one of the secret service agents, said Scolari. "Then the US military silenced the cellphones," he charged.

"Giuliana had information, and the US military did not want her to survive," he added..."

[Frederik]

17. Take an aspirin...

"Edward Luttwak, an American military commentator interviewed yesterday in La Repubblica, said Mr Calipari's death was "the sort of thing that happens all the time in a war", and he advised Italy to "take an aspirin and go to bed, you'll feel better in the morning". But for many Italians the secret agent's death exposed a gulf of mistrust and loathing."

Contrast those callous remarks with the gravitas surrounding the state funeral Calipari received in Rome, just a day after his death. How condescending can you be?

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=617569

The anger is seething in Italy it seems...

"Gianni Alemanno, the Minister for Agriculture, said: "We need to see the guilty punished and an apology from the Americans. We are trustworthy allies but we must not give the impression of being subordinates."

Romano Prodi, the opposition leader, said: "What is required is a precise analysis of the events, beginning with the testimony of the American unit that fired."

Mr Berlusconi has long competed with Tony Blair for the title of most loyal ally of America, but now he is struggling to contain a rising tide of anti-Americanism which poses the critical question: if Italy, with the third biggest military contingent in Iraq after Britain's, is the esteemed ally that Berlusconi claims it to be, why should US soldiers fire on the car taking the released hostage to Baghdad airport - and then seek to palm Italy off with an obviously mendacious explanation?"

[Ms. Clio]

18. Yes, just imagine if some foreign official had said something like that

When the Nick Berg video came out. All the rightwingnut bloggers would still be screeching themselves hoarse.

That is a very good article--Sgrena also claims that she had to wait as long as 20 minutes before she was even treated for her wounds. But of course, she's just a lying communist, so why should we believe her?

[Frederik]

32. If you're willing to believe her

here's a question from a short interview she did with Le Monde today (http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3218,36-400627,0.html), where she reiterates her version of events. A tentative translation:

The Americans say that you were speeding through a checkpoint. What is your version?

Everything was normal, we had been assured a safe passage to the airport, we were not speeding but cruising rather slowly in a car from the Italian embassy. (...) Then suddenly a hail of bullets were unleashed on us....

She also said she was worried upon leaving for the airport, because "the time of release is alwayas a delicate moment", whatever that may mean.

She says she will not be returning to Iraq, because the insurgents had made it clear that they did not want journalists there, and that made working conditions too difficult.

[Ms. Clio]

34. So another voice for the truth is effectively silenced

I really do worry about Dahr Jamail.

[LynnTheDem]

45. "Pat Tillman's death is what happens in a war. America, take an aspirin

and go to bed, you'll feel better in the morning".

Now had a military offical from Italy said that, no one in America would have shrieked in outrage. Especially not the rightwingers.

Nope, America would simply have nodded in agreement, taken an aspirin, and gone to bed.

Now, what price had we agreed upon for those dozen bridges I have for sale?

[Ms. Clio]

48. I thought it was 10,000,000 of these?

[LynnTheDem]

49. Sold!

Pat doesn't need em any more.

...what was that shrieking sound?

[Ms. Clio]

50. The sound of freeper heads exploding in outrage

[LynnTheDem]

51. I suspected as much; & bet it isn't coz of the "Italy take an aspirin"

:D

[FreedomAngel82]

41. Somehow I personally

don't think a secret service agent dies in a situation like this very often. They're hiding something and trying to cover their butts. If this happened "all the time" why did they take cut off their cellphones, take them and their weapons and the car disappeared?

[Logansquare]

24. Let me get this straight--is this actually the car she was kidnapped from?

That image *was* included, very misleadingly, in the news report on the Italian agent's killing:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com//p/v?u=/ap_av/20050304/av_ap_wl/3969bd1456cb711006f784911e5d8c0d&cid=452&f=53746348

[Up2Late]

29. NO, that video is TOTAL BULLSHIT! Ray Bassett need to be ...

...FIRED! :mad: That is most BS report I've ever seen.

They flashed that video of an abandoned car for just over 1 second. That's almost a subliminal clip, it's so fast.

He goes on to say, "...that account (of the shooting) as reported TO the AP, is said to be in despute..." That's not an exact quote, but that's basically what he says.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the AP doesn't even have an actual reporter in Iraq.:grr:

[FreedomAngel82]

42. Right

Why would they flash it so quickly? Wouldn't they be playing this for a longer minute of time? Did any of the other talking heads talk about this tonight or are they still silent?

[Up2Late]

46. Watch it for your self, the link is in the post I responded to

It's total Bull Shit. You don't have to take my word for it.:mad:

[BreakForNews]

30. Worse. It's not even the kidnap car

It belongs to an Iraqi who was driving it when struck by the car the kidnappers were driving when they were departing the scene of the original kidnap.

http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news/?ei=ISO-8859-1&c=news_photos&p=al-Nahrain

The thumbnail listing is here.
http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news/?ei=ISO-8859-1&c=news_photos&p=al-Nahrain

The full photo has been pulled since we ran the story.
Click on the thumbnail pic and it comes up "not found"

[Ms. Clio]

31. A truly blatant and disgusting attempt by the AP to obfuscate the truth

This appears to be the kidnap car:

http://archive.wn.com/2005/02/08/1400/p/36/131561506a8507.html

[Frederik]

35. And please...

Why would Italian agents and diplomats drive an old crappy 70s car like that? How gullible are people really?

[Mr_Spock]

36. Motherfuckers

They're gonna burn in hell for LYING AGAIN!!!

WTF is wrong with telling the truth these days?

[FreedomAngel82]

43. She must

have something on them. I guess they don't wanna go to jail or whatever it is could be their punishment. I don't know but they are DESPERATE.

[paineinthearse]

44. littlegreenfootballs.com

littlegreenfootballs.com...was the blog that "broke" the story of Rep. Hinchey's recorded remarks at the Ithica town hall meeting about Dan Rather / * awol records. It was "their" member that just happened to have the tape recorder.

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3161658 from 2/22/05

"The story, including audio and transcripts, are all over the blogs. The first to break the story was "Little Green Footballs" - http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=14785"

Isn't it odd that this little blog is the foundation stone of two significant media deception stories?

[Frederik]

52. I've vistied that site

once before. It was after Rumsfeld's "you go to war with the army you've got" remark. They were all on about what a great guy Rummy was who simply says it like it is, not full of BS like all those librul politicians, and how he would make a wonderful president. They were certain that the soldier asking about lacking body armour had been planted there by evil libruls.

What's that smell? Wait... it can't be... the smell of KKKarl?

Oh, and they sell "Commies ain't cool" t-shirts.

[paineinthearse]

54. Domain registration is private

I know the admins don't like us to post domain registration with names and contact info, but I'll post a bit here and you can do the rest at networksolutions.com

Isn't it odd that the registration is BY PROXY?????

I smell Rove.

http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/results.jhtml;jsessionid=X11TDXHWMPL3ACWMEAQSFEY?whoistoken=0&_requestid=440408

Private, Registration [e-mail]
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
15111 N Hayden Rd., Suite 160
PMB353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260

[EFerrari]

53. Great Job! Please keep nailing Authorized Propaganda,

the outlet that called us "dissidents" for questioning our last stolen Federal Election. The same week their CEO was in Hollywood telling journalism students they had to compete with the internet.