Gotcha ya. 20:15 CET on BBC2 over here. Cheers!
This is done frequently in the news. I recall once when (then) President Reagan came to Oklahoma. Myself and some friends went to watch him speak. The crowd was not that large and I was suprised to see that basically ‘applause’ signs were being used. At that time Ron had a slogan of “America, Go for it!” When he said this the aids with the applause signs screwed up and didn’t hold up the signs. So he did another take and the signs went up and the ‘crowd’ went wild.
Guess what was on the news?
TwistofFate
My guess would be that they special forces would want to study the film later to see several things. One would be to make sure that the troops were doing what they were supposed to do. Also if things did go badly to study the film to see how the operation could be improved.
Then of course there is that whole propaganda film thing.
Just like the New York Times, right?
Was anyone here on the ground when we landed on the moon?
I guess we don’t know for certain that it happened.
Well, yes thats correct, whatami - of course we don’t know for absolute certain. But, in the case of the moon landing, there is enough evidence IMO to prove that it did happen.
I don’t know if the Lynch story is the whole truth or not - I’m simply keeping an open mind.
The Toronto Star already ran a story on this as well.
I’ll agree with that… I don’t really think it was staged, but I suppose anything is possible.
At least with the moon landings, we brought back stuff that was verified to be non-terrestrial in origin.
I’m with Zoe here – given all the other lies and propaganda we’ve been given by the Administration about this war, the notion that Lynch’s rescue was exaggerated/overplayed “for dramatic effect” would be par for the course.
Well, we brought back “stuff,” that would be Jessica Lynch, from this little outing as well.
Who very conveniently has no recolletction of the incident…
Damn that amnesia, aint she a bitch?
Sam
Way convenient. Now we have reports that she was treated like ‘one of the family’ after it’s pretty certain she won’t say otherwise.
Why would the Saddam Fedayeen (the Iraqi lawyer and his wife who told troops where Lynch was described seeing Fedayeen guarding her) that were there let the Iraqi doctors be nice to Lynch?
This is one of those little tidbits of conspiracy theory floating around the net that makes less and less sense the more you think about it. I mean really, do people really think that someone went around Baghdad that day handing out flyers from the local Kinkos saying “Saddam statue destruction at 2:00”? The people of Baghdad had a lot on their minds at the time, namely staying out of firefights and tracking down food and water. This wasn’t Woodstock – it was a small, and quite possibly even mostly spontaneous tearing down of a statue.
I think people confuse cause and effect – the event played good on TV (I watched the original on Webcam) so it got a lot of play and became iconic which is just as easy to believe as someone saying “We need something iconic that will play good on TV, let’s tear down a statue.”
As you note, it would be interesting for the media to know not to provide context – unless they were the ones making the framing decision a) because it makes for better TV and b) because a wide angle shot doesn’t have any detail. (Take a look at the pictures in the web page cited to see what I mean.)
OK, I saw the documentary on the BBC. While not presenting things as dead-on facts, it was pretty damn convincing in that the Jessica Lynch rescue was staged. An advance team had visited the town a day before, making enquiries if there were any Fedayeen left in the hospital. They were repeatedly told that there weren’t. They had indeed used blanks when they entered the hospital.
It was interesting to see how a journalist at the media camp in Quatar (I think it’s in Quatar, anyway, could be Kuwait?) got banned from asking any more questions after he asked what the purpose of being there was if all they were fed were spin.
They went into the issue about the capitulation of various cities as well: often, the cities were reported “under control” days, even weeks before this was actually the case. As excuses, “civil uprisings” were used, where in fact these uprisings never took place before they were announced. Of course, if you yell hard enough that there has been a civil uprising against Saddam in Basra, it turns out that people will actually leave their houses and, well, revolt. The sequence of events then becomes less relevant: after all, you got the images to prove your claim, right?
It stinks to high heaven.
Oh, and one Aussie commentator actually said “Savaing Private Ryan”, when referring to the rescue of Lynch. It was unintentional, but it was a hoot nonetheless. In a rather ironic way.
The movie “Wag the Dog” gets a whole new meaning, let me tell you that.
How interesting, Coldie. I wonder if there’ll be even more evidence forthcoming.
Good God. I see that there are some seriously drooling morons here, willing to believe that the rescue was ‘staged’ (Meaning that the rescue wasn’t needed, and was a pure PR stunt).
You fools will believe anything, won’t you? As long as there is enough of a Anti-BUsh/America slant to the story, and it comes from a ‘reliable’ source like the BBC (or NYT?), you idiots eat it, hook, line, and sinker.
You blindly accept that because some fool Iraqi said the US forces were using blanks, then by God, they were using blanks. Some Iraqi said, ‘It’s all clear, come on in!’, so the Americans should have lowered their weapons and sauntered on in. :rolleyes:
Dipshit morons, the lot of you.
This observer argues that the story about the rifles being loaded with blanks is false, which casts doubt on other aspects reported by the witnesses. He also says that BBC should have realized that the story about the blanks was incorrect. Does anyone know enough about weapons to confirm or refute his point?
I had hoped that the airing of this report on TV would clear up some things.
Now we have the great debate thread in which the viewers state that the show proved nothing: “Nothing to see here, move on” and Coldfire’s take that the show contains damming evidence. 
Anyways, I’ll need better proof than the word of a couple of defeated Iraquis before I swallow any conspiracy theories on this one.
If december’s technical information about firing blanks in these weapons is correct, that would be another reason to question the BBC’s sources. (Not that I doubt december, it’s simply something I don’t know myself.)