Who Can You Trust?

[SWJED]

Wretchard at the Belmont Club blog - Who Can You Trust?.

In the last few days I completely missed this classic photographic analysis of a news story by Zombietime. It describes possible fraud in depicting an ambulance allegedly struck during the Israeli-Lebanon conflict. Michelle Malkin is on target when she says, "If there were Pulitzers for Internet posts, this one would win hands down." (Hat tip: Tim Blair)

"The Israeli missiles had pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pious use the cross as their aiming point?" -- Robert Fisk

One poster at Samizdata had some thoughts on the ambulance picture which bear thinking about.

(1) There is no air-to-ground missile small enough that it could strike an unarmored vehicle and not destroy it through shear mass alone. If the missile detonated it would have destroyed the vehicle utterly. If it did not, remains of the missile should be easily visible inside the vehicle. Heat from the missile's rocket should have set the vehicle ablaze. An actual missile did not strike this vehicle.

(2) The supposed entry hole for the missile is normal i.e. at a 90% angle to the roof. The missile would have had to strike straight down. Only armor piercing anti-rockets fly such trajectories. We know that can't be the type of missile used because (a) they're to big and (b) they do not carry a fragmentation warhead.

(3) The large hole in the roof has an obvious flange around it. It is clearly a manufactured hole and not the result of a missile strike. Only the smaller rusted holes could have come from a fragmentation warhead.

(4) The windshield glass bends inward indicating that any blast occurred outside the vehicle. However, the front of the vehicle shows no holes or scratches. Likewise, if a fragmentation warhead detonated within the vehicle we should see a spherical hole pattern with exit holes in the sides and bottom of the vehicle. There should be visible scorching everywhere inside.

(5) The only possible scenario is that a fragmentation round detonated directly above the vehicle and at some height. In that case, there should large numbers of through-and-through holes traveling from the roof, through the seats and out through the bottom. The tires should be flat. The side door should be intact etc. The witness testimony directly contradicts this scenario.

I think someone ripped off the ventilation unit or siren from the top of the ambulance. Then stood on the roof and shot holes in it. Then they went inside and pulled down the other materials.

[Jedburgh]

HRW, Dec 06: The Hoax That Wasn't: The July 23 Qana Ambulance Attack

During the Israel-Hezbollah war, Israel was accused by Human Rights Watch and numerous local and international media outlets of attacking two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances in Qana on July 23, 2006. Following these accusations, some websites claimed that the attack on the ambulances “never happened” and was a Hezbollah orchestrated “hoax,” a charge picked up by conservative commentators such as Oliver North. These claims attracted renewed attention when the Australian foreign minister stated that “it is beyond serious dispute that this episode has all the makings of a hoax.”

In response, Human Rights Watch researchers carried out a more in-depth investigation of the Qana ambulance attacks. Our investigation involved detailed interviews with four of the six ambulance staff and the three wounded people in the ambulance, on-site visits to the Tibnine and Tyre Red Cross offices from which the ambulances originated to review their records and meet with supervisors, an examination of the ambulances that were struck, an on-site visit to the Qana site where the attack took place, and interviews with others such as international officials with the International Committee of the Red Cross who were involved in responding to the attack on the night it happened.

On the basis of this investigation, we conclude that the attack on the ambulances was not a hoax: Israeli forces attacked two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances that night in Qana, almost certainly with missiles fired from an Israeli drone flying overhead. The physical and testimonial evidence collected by Human Rights Watch disproves the allegations of a “hoax,” made by persons who never visited Lebanon and had no opportunity to assess the evidence first-hand. Those claiming a hoax relied on faulty conjectures based on a limited number of photographs of one of the ambulances....

(full 23 page report at the link)

[120mm]

It's instructive to know that at least HRW is working as hard as possible to ensure that Hezbollah's IO campaign succeeds.

Any word on their extensive investigation into the purposeful launching of however many missiles into Israel with the INTENT of killing Israeli civilians?

[Jedburgh]

...Any word on their extensive investigation into the purposeful launching of however many missiles into Israel with the INTENT of killing Israeli civilians?

19 Oct 06: Lebanon/Israel: Hezbollah Hit Israel with Cluster Munitions During Conflict

...Hezbollah launched cluster attacks that were at best indiscriminate, i.e., they violated the principle of distinction by using unguided and highly inaccurate cluster munition models against populated areas. At worst, Hezbollah deliberately attacked civilian areas with these weapons....

This one is a public condemnation of Hezballah published in both the English and Arabic versions of As-Sharq Al-Awsat on 5 Oct 06: Hezbollah Needs to Answer

...We also documented the fact that Hezbollah launched thousands of rockets on densely populated cities, towns and villages in Northern Israel, using a variety of unguided rockets, often referred to as “Katyushas,” which cannot be targeted at military objects with any degree of precision because of their limited technology. When firing these rockets into civilian areas, Hezbollah knew that the likelihood of hitting a military target was slim to none, while the likely result would be the death and injury of civilians. Such attacks were at best, indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, and at worst, direct attacks against civilians. Either way, they were serious violations of international humanitarian law and probable war crimes....

22 Sep 06: Hezbollah's Rockets and Civilian Casualties

...In a now familiar drama, partisans of each side accuse us of secretly favoring their enemy. In this latest war, we have been called, alternately, "Zionists at heart" and "anti-Semitic liars", each side pulling sentences out of context to "prove" its case. Our response to such attacks is not, as Cook claims, to shade our findings one way or the other. Rather, such accusations redouble our commitment to scrupulously objective and careful fact-finding coupled with the strictly impartial application of international human rights and humanitarian law. We hope that readers will judge our commitment to our principles and methodology based on the analysis and facts presented in our reports, all of which are publicly available on our website, http://www.hrw.org , not the selective and often deceptive snippets that some of our detractors try to highlight.

5 Aug 06: Israel/Lebanon: Hezbollah Must End Attacks on Civilians

Hezbollah must immediately stop firing rockets into civilian areas in Israel, Human Rights Watch said today. Entering the fourth week of attacks, such rockets have claimed 30 civilian lives, including six children, and wounded hundreds more.

“Lobbing rockets blindly into civilian areas is without doubt a war crime,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Nothing can justify this assault on the most fundamental standards for sparing civilians the hazards of war.”...

18 Jul 06: Lebanon: Hezbollah Rocket Attacks on Haifa Designed to Kill Civilians

...“Attacking civilian areas indiscriminately is a serious violation of international humanitarian law and can constitute a war crime,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “Hezbollah’s use of warheads that have limited military use and cause grievous suffering to the victims only makes the crime worse.”

On Monday, Human Rights Watch researchers inspected a three-story apartment building in Haifa's Bat Galim neighborhood after it was struck by a rocket around 3:00 p.m., causing extensive damage to the top two floors and wounding six residents, one of them seriously. They collected metal ball bearings that had pierced the walls of the apartment building across the street and car windshields up to one block away...

[tequila]

I'd definitely trust HRW over the "Belmont Club" bloggers. Their heart may be in the right place, and they sure know a lot of big words, but they've been wrong more often than Donald Rumsfeld --- which is saying a lot, in my book.

[Jedburgh]

A new look by HRW at Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel last year:

Civilians under Assault: Hezbollah’s Rocket Attacks on Israel in the 2006 War

During its armed conflict with Israel from July 12 until August 14, 2006, Hezbollah claimed at various times that its rockets were aimed primarily at military targets in Israel, or that its attacks on civilians were justifiable as a response to Israel’s indiscriminate fire into southern Lebanon and as a tool to draw Israel into a ground war. In fact, the former claim is refuted by the large number of rockets that hit civilian objects far removed from any military targets, whereas the latter arguments are inadmissible under international humanitarian law.

Hezbollah forces in Lebanon fired thousands of rockets into Israel, causing civilian casualties and damage to civilian structures. Hezbollah’s means of attack relied on unguided weapons that had no capacity to hit military targets with any precision. It repeatedly bombarded cities, towns, and villages without any apparent effort to distinguish between civilians and military objectives. In doing so, Hezbollah, as a party to an armed conflict governed by international humanitarian law, violated fundamental prohibitions against deliberate and indiscriminate attacks against civilians.

This report focuses on Hezbollah’s rocket attacks on Israel. It is based on on-site research and a review of documentary evidence. We have addressed other aspects of the conflict—including violations by Israel in its conduct of hostilities—in other reports. We will be addressing additional aspects of the conflict, including allegations that Hezbollah repeatedly used civilian “shields,” in a forthcoming report, Accounting for the Dead: Civilian Deaths in Lebanon during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War. At all times, we seek to measure each party’s compliance with its obligations under the laws of war, rather than measure it against the conduct of the other party. To criticize one party for violating international humanitarian law does not excuse or mitigate the violations committed by the other party....