December 31, 2011
Contributor Petri Krohn suggested a post/discussion thread on this issue, explaining it as follows:
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Just before the fall of Tripoli Libyan propagandists were claiming that a copy of the Green Square had been set up in the desert near Doha, Qatar. When Tripoli was taken in August a video of rebels on the Green Square was first broadcast on al Jazeera on August 20th. Some Green supporters claimed that the video footage was fake and filmed in Qatar.
The evidence presented was flimsy; someone compared frames from the video to some on-line photos of the Green Square. Palm trees that were there in the 1960s were no longer there, missing details on the gate of the old city were gone because of the extreme compression of the mobile phone video (I do not know if you can call these "compression artifacts" as nothing was there.)
I thought the story would die in a matter of hours, unexpectedly it is still alive and kicking. Here is one of the original posts on Libya S.O.S. Here is one recently posted version in Finnish. I am afraid anyone sticking to this story will loose all credibility.
Who were the rebels on the Green Square on August 20th? Where did they come from? Where did they go?
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I have not much to offer, but here is a spot where anyone burning to know and share on this subject can post related comments.
I will add that on the apparent studio rigging next to the compound: Yes. They had been filming somewhat epic protests there against NATO/Rebel intervention, so the real Green (aka "Martyr's") Square had become in a sense a studio set. The fake studio set version of it you could spot by the lack of such scaffolding. They wouldn't want it to look like a studio!
The Site that Asks: Is the "dictator" justifying intervention by killing innocents? Or is someone else doing it for him? (previously The Libyan Civil War: Critical Views)
I was told, a french military official acknowleged the fake Green Square filming in a french TV-Show, but of course this would not be a sound confirmation. But, what the hell, there is a lot confirmation on the internet of video faking by the pentagon and by news agencies throughout the wars in Irak and former Jugoslavia since 1991. So I consider the verification/ falsification of this one a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteOh, lookee,who's this delivering a eulogy to "Nabbous" : CNN's "embedded" Iraq war propagandist, and Tripoli shed massacre reporter Arwa Damon from 1.55 onwards. In between times, she was reporting from "Syria" in June, to see how awful conditions were there. (i.e. better change the regime quick). See commentary on that fake propaganda video here. Frequently as, there, commentators draw a strong link between Damon and the CIA.
ReplyDeleteformer "anonymus"
ReplyDeletemy friend put the better english words,
I´m not "so good in english", but here`s his:
give them something to smile:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z0VxWZszyg
i`m sure, you have seen this before, but perhaps its not bad to see it again... ;-)
...
I can only link this website (libyancivilwar)on other sites , but could not help here...
thanks for your work !!!
(from germany - east = bad english speakers :oops: )
Here is another version of CNN's Charles Jaco reporting from Saudi Arabia. The claim is this was fake coverage from a studio. (I was watching CNN at the time, and believed all of it. Maybe they also showed some real footage.)
ReplyDeleteHere is Charles Jaco reacting to the story:
Charles Jaco Threatens Blogosphere Over CNN Video?
In Libya, I would rather compare this to the Mohammed Nabbous story.
When I first heard that Qatar’s Al-Jazeera had created fake sites to film fake victories, I was extremely skeptical. Even now, despite believing that Al-Jazeera spread lies to support Libyan regime change, which was the policy of Qatar’s dictator (a so-called king or emir), I’m not completely sold on the story. However, Thierry Meyssan of The Voltaire Network supports this allegation:
ReplyDelete“With Mr Jibril as prime minister of the rebel government of Libya, the height of duplicity was reached when a replica of the Green Square and Bab-el-Azizia was built in the studios of Al-Jazeera in Doha, where footage of false images was shot portraying pro-US ‘insurgents’ entering Tripoli. Need I mention the insults I received when I denounced this manipulation in the columns of Voltairenet.org? Yet Al-Jazeera and Sky News broadcasted these false images on the second day of the Battle of Tripoli, sowing confusion among the Libyan people. It was actually only three days later that the ‘rebels’—almost exclusively from Misrata—entered Tripoli, devastated by NATO’s bombs.”
Meyssan is an anti-imperialist certainly willing to reach for favorable data to support his agenda: e.g., on 2 July 2011 The Voltaire Network accepted too uncritically the notion that 1.7 million demonstrated in favor of the Jamahiriya government and Moammar Qaddafi.
Nevertheless, he’s a smart guy, and Voltaire publishes other smart people and their researched, plausible arguments (e.g., Manlio Dinucci, William Engdahl, James Petras, etc). If Meyssan accepts that Al-Jazeera created fake sites (e.g., a fake Green Square), I take the allegation more seriously.
Part of Meyssan’s narrative is confirmed by Thomas Mountain (“30,000 Bombs over Libya: One Hell of a Humanitarian Mission,” Libya 360° 2 Sep 2011 http://libya360.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/30000-bombs-over-libya-one-hell-of-a-humanitarian-mission/). As in Meyssan’s account, Mountain claims to have witnessed that the Misratans advanced into Tripoli only after ferocious NATO bombing.
Art Bethea