[media-dakwah] Is the Zarqawi video a hoax?

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 20:49:05 -0700


http://musliminsuffer.blogspot.com/

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful


=== News Update ===




Is the Zarqawi video a hoax?

People still snicker whenever anyone suggests that the American
intelligence community has, in the past, manipulated the American press.
Yet nobody laughed at
<http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/18/rumsfeld-limbaugh/>Donald Rumsfeld
when he claimed that :
"The terrorists, Zarqawi and bin Laden and Zawahiri, those people have
media committees. They are actively out there trying to manipulate the
press in the United States."

Rumsfeld did not point to a single story in the U.S. media influenced by
the putative Zarqawi "media committee." How could he? His assertion is
inane on its face; a couple of criminals despised by all Americans could
never "spin" CBS or the New York Times.


Emacs!

Picture 1 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi himself a manipulation? As we discussed in a recent
post, the Washington Post revealed that the "threat" posed by this alleged
Al Qaeda leader was largely the creation of a
<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002921913_zarqawi10.html>military
PSYOPS unit. The propaganda campaign targeted both the foreign press and
the U.S. "home audience." Also targeted were our troops: When they
unleashed "Whiskey Pete" on civilians in Fallujah, they did so in the
belief that they were fighting Zarqawi.

On the same day the Post story appeared, Bush -- in a speech -- cited as
genuine a Zarqawi letter now known to be
<http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/04/zarqawi-gate-more-important-than-you.html>fake.

Journalist Robert Fisk feels that Zarqawi may have died years ago. The
Jordanian has not been seen in years; he did not communicate with his
family when his mother died; he has made no attempt to help his wife.

Fisk is hardly the only skeptic to make such a claim -- see, for example,
<http://planetquo.net/References/AlZarqawiHarryHoudiniMeetsSuperman.htm>this
page of links. (Note: A number of the links go to pages I consider less
than credible.)

There are numerous mysteries surrounding this alleged Al Qaeda mastermind:
The many reported deaths...the leg that either was or was not
amputated...his alleged presence in the questioned Nick Berg decapitaion
video...and more.

I cannot discuss all of these matters here -- although I should note in
passing that, if memory serves, we never did receive official confirmation
that Zarqawi's voice was heard on the Berg video. One would think that the
CIA possesses the ability to nail that sort of idenitifaction.

Emacs!

Picture 2 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Now we have a new video featuring Zarqawi -- a man who has died many a
death, a man claimed by the august Washington Post to be largely a
PSYOPS-driven myth. The timing of this video release, so soon after the
Post story, seems rather convenient. A copy of the Zarqawi video can be
found
<http://www.powerlineblognews.com/video/?clipId=1093_PLN022&channel=Powerline%20News>here.
(I can't help noting that one of the jihadist fighting songs sounds an
awful lot like an old WWI ditty:
"Skitta-marink-a-dink-a-dink-a-parlez-vous...")

If you're well-read in the lore of intelligence operations, you may have
come across accounts of faked videos involving look-a-like actors. I will
discuss one notorious example in a future post. For now, let us note in
passing that we do have one confirmed incident of a faked
<http://english.people.com.cn/200408/08/eng20040808_152221.html>beheading
video put together by a young hoaxer named Benjamin Vanderford, who seems
to have operated out of bizarre personal motives. If a mere civilian can
create such a thing, a military psychological operations unit could surely
do a more professional job.

All of which means that we have good reason to ask: Is the man in the new
video Zarqawi?

Please note that, as of this writing, the CIA has not offered a public
confirmation of the authenticity of this video. Neither has the
intelligence service of any other nation. (Update: Fox News did quote an
unnamed "intelligence official" as saying that technical analysis had
identied the voice as Zarqawi's. Since Fox would not identify the agency
employing this source, we have no idea if the assertion is credible.)

Forgive me if what follows seems a little too "grassy knoll" for some of
you, but I thought I would try my hand at some rudimentary photographic
analysis. Very rudimentary. I have not tracked the origin point of the most
commonly-reproduced "Zarqawi" photos, and I am forced to work with very low
quality jpg images. What follows is only a start; all conclusions must be
very tentative. I hope that, in the future, photographic professionals will
have a go at continuing this work, and that they will be in a position to
use better raw materials.

Emacs!


Picture 3 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi : First, let us arrange our Zarqawi images.

The image I have labeled "Z1" -- reproduced toward the beginning of this
post -- appears on many web sites. It allegedly shows Zarqawi before he
became a jihadist.

Z2 (above), another commonly-seen picture, allegedly shows the man after he
joined the fight; for some reason, most web sites flip this image
horizontally. (You can tell by the blemish on his right cheek.)

I believe Z1 and Z2 to be authentic, but I may be wrong.

Z3, which should appear to the left of these words or just above (depending
on your browser settings) was taken from the questioned video.

Z4 appears below; this image comes from the same video.

Emacs!

Picture 4 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi : Comparison


All right. Now let's start to look a little closer. What identifying marks
can we find on Z1, the earliest image, and the one least open to question?

Emacs!

Picture 5 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi : Comparison


There are also noteworthy features on his chin -- a mole and a scar. In
later photos, a beard covers these identifing marks, so they are now of
little use to us. The blemish on the right cheek appears in all of these
photos; it is also easily faked with a daub of make-up. We need not pay any
further attention to it.

Let's get in as close as we can to the mouth (remembering, as always, that
we are dealing with poor materials). The question mark indicates that the
image comes from the questioned video.

Emacs!

Picture 6 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi : Comparison

<http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7065/364/1600/z%20mouth.jpg>
[]
The sharply defined, rather off-center V-shaped indentation in the upper
lip, visible in the early photos, seems to have gone missing in the stills
captured from the video. Zarqawi also seems to have developed a
Cheney-esque sneer, in which the lower lip slides to one side.

Now let's peer into Zarqawi's eyes:

Emacs!

Picture 7 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi : Comparison

<http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7065/364/1600/z%20eye%20comp.jpg>
[]
The shape of the eyebrow is very similar in both instances. However, the
eyebrow does seem thicker in the earlier photo. In the video, Zarqawi's
eyes droop -- frankly, he looks stoned. Perhaps one can blame fatigue and
poor diet.

Emacs!

Picture 8 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi : Comparison

<http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7065/364/1600/z%20ear%20comp.0.jpg>
[]
When the FBI and the intelligence community do this sort of work, they try
to acquire clear shots of the ears, since they are almost as identifiable
as fingerprints. In this case, the ear angles are far from ideal. Even so,
the close-to-the-head ears of "video Zarqawi" seem to differ markedly from
the bat-like protruding ears we see in the earlier images. (I flipped a
detail from Z1 in this instance; you can do your own comparisons using all
these images, plus any others you dig up.) So far, the ears offer the
strongest evidence that this video carries the odor of fish.

Does the same man appear in all four of these pictures? Frankly, I am not
sure; the poor raw materials disallow certainty. Although I lean toward the
view that the video Zarqawi is a "ringer," I can be talked out of the idea.
The apparent differences do strike me as sufficiently noteworthy to merit
further study. (Incidentally, there are those who say that Zarqawi was
captured and turned; thus, even if the man in the video is genuine, the
video itself could be fictional.)

Readers must come to their own conclusions.

source:
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/04/is-zarqawi-video-hoax.html

===


-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW 

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