Hooray for Pallywood!

My gosh -- has it been nearly two weeks? Sorry for the lack of posts.

I'm sure you will all forgive me, however, after I direct you to your own private screening of "Pallywood," a new documentary showing how Palestinians stage casualties for the benefit of a gullible (at best) Western media. Not surprisingly, 60 Minutes and the French co-star in the role of "useful idiots." A not-dead Palestinian has a great cameo as "dead Palestinian." The 20-minute documentary is freely available for download at a great site, The Second Draft. More info here, here, and here (h/t: Belmont Club).

Now, here's the interesting twist: CBS has just started a new "blog" (I use the scare-quotes because: a) it's likely to be just a post-Rather corporate CYA maneuver; b) they only allow readers to make comments of 500 characters (!) or less. The test of their sincerity and openness may come in the next few days, when they sponsor a Q&A with "60 Minutes" Producer Rome Hartman. So far, I am the only reader to have submitted a question publicly online, and I submitted a longer (>500 characters!) version in an email (slightly redacted below):

Dear Mr. Hartman,

How often do you rely on foreign stringers or videographers with a fighting interest in a conflict? Please respond to the "Pallywood" documentary (http://seconddraft.org) which demonstrates how 60 Minutes was duped by staged Palestinian "casualties." Similar charges have been raised about Iraqi photogs who seem to "coincidentally" find themselves at the location of terrorist attacks.

As I wrote in response to the Public Eye's piece on the detention of CBS Iraqi stringer Ameer Younis Hussein, there are serious ethical issues involved in working with foreign stringers. In fact, I think there is a serious risk that the MSM could find itself unwittingly abetting terrorism. There are two key ingredients to successful terrorism: 1) the explosion itself, which is propaganda-of-the-deed, and 2) someone able to capture this propaganda on film and willing to broadcast it to the world, to instill fear and despair. As documented by the Belmont Club, there have been far too many instances of unnamed Iraqi "stringers" potentially being enemy operatives. CBS and other American MSM have not taken this risk at all seriously.

Thank you again for your new forum.

Sincerely,

Neuro-con

Let's see if, and how, they respond.