Yep,..... staged!
I have a slightly different interpretation. I don't necessarily think it was 'staged' in the sense that it wasn't meant to be a real car bomb. I think it was a 'real' car bomb....gasoline explosions are commonly used in Arab car bombs. The angle that I think is interesting is that these same photographers happen to be at all the prime locations. Both in Fallujah and here, they know when to be where. I think the terrorists clue them in as to when to be where so that the footage and pictures make it into the western media. They get their shot, the terrorists get their coverage. It is a win-win for the terrorists and their media supporters...but it comes with a big loser...those that lost their lives in the terrorist attacks.
I think (perhaps this is where Iraqi talk radio comes in) that the anti-terrorist forces should publicly announce that these photographers had advanced warning of terrorist strikes and instead of alerting authorities and stopping the terrorism, they waited and took their pictures with callous disregard for the lives of Iraqis. I bet that these three aren't even Iraqi. I can't help but wonder how the relatives of some of the brave Iraqis who lost their lives in terrorist strikes might react to that information. Someone else might be taking pictures of their burned corpses hanging from a bridge.
An earlier post alluded to a controversy in the blogosphere about the fortunate presence of wire service photographers at the scenes of terrorist acts in Iraq. Go check this out: The Obsidian Order [hat-tip: Instapundit] today offers an in-depth look at photos from one such scene. The conclusion:
The key and blindingly obvious point: there are at least three photojournalists from different outfits there exactly at the time it goes off! This is not a lucky coincidence. The pictures are clearly taken less than a minute after the original explosion and less than a minute apart. Also: all of the photographers are stringers, not regular staff photographers.
Interpretation: One, this was staged, the particulars of the bomb ensure it will be ineffective and safe from the distance from which it was photographed, but visually spectacular. The people running are most likely also staged. Two, the reporters were invited to see it. Three, they knew it was staged. One of the comments on the site says:
Fox news had the sequence on the TV tonight. FNC said the Iraq police had shot up the car and stopped it -- the car caught fire -- then apparently a bomb inside went off. When the camera pulled back, the police with their guns raised were in the near filed framing -- as if they had been shooting at the car.
So I am not sure what your point is. Looked to me like the Iraqi police got their man before he could reach the school. FNC said a school was the target, not that it was hit by the explosion. Ah ha! There we have it! The reason the pictures look funny is because the Iraqi security forces killed the attacker before he could properly position his vehicle and the vehicle then sympathetically detonated. But wait! This is good news right? Iraqi security forces disrupted an attack. Then why does the Reuters caption under each photo read thus:
An Iraqi boy runs past a car just as it explodes in front of al-Nahdha High School which was scheduled to be used as a voting centre in Baghdad, January 28, 2005. Hours earlier in the same area in southern Baghdad, a car bomb exploded next to a police station, killing four Iraqi civilians, police said. REUTERS/Ali JasimNot only does Reuters refuse to acknowledge the success of Iraqi security forces in every single caption, but they instead mention a completely different bombing that was successful in killing innocents.
This is truly amazing! And they spit on us lowly bloggers! Obsidian Order rightly asks, who are these photographers and what are their motives? We must ask the same about the caption-writers.
Another chink in the wire service armor falls away.