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Oh, the Humanity! [Wall Street Journal]
Blogger H.D. Miller notes a fascinatingly weird, and rather funny, example of Islamist propaganda on al-Jazeera's English-language Web site. The story is headlined "The Picture Which Shames US Army," and here's the concluding paragraph:
"This is a shocking picture. We want Aljazeera.net to show the world what the Americans are doing in Afghanistan. It is a picture which will shame the US military," added Ansiri, spokesman for the centre which is a human rights organisation.
So what atrocity does the picture show? You'd better sit down before we tell you, though you're liable to fall off your chair laughing:
A secretly taken picture of an American soldier frisking an Afghan child has shocked human rights campaigners across the world. . . . Taken by a strategically placed camera, and using a telephoto lens, the undercover photographer snapped a four-year-old child having his clothing searched by a heavily armed US soldier.
Oh no, not a frisking! Anything but that! Maj. Peter Mitchell tells al-Jazeera that "those children could have been carrying explosives," which, as Miller notes, is "not a bad assumption, since the Taliban were infamous for recruiting boys as young as 13 into their ranks." And, as Miller notes, al-Jazeera's "comic level of hyperbole" is emblematic: "Nearly all that the critics of American actions in Afghanistan have left is hyperbole and mock outrage."
As we read the al-Jazeera story, we were struck by the familiarity of some of the names. "Ansiri, spokesman for the centre which is a human rights organization"? That would be Yasser Ansiri, director of the London-based Islamic Observation Centre. As we noted in October 2001, Ansiri--whose name is also transliterated al-Siri or al-Sirri--has been described as "the mouthpiece of al Qaeda in Britain." He sought asylum in Britain after fleeing Egypt, where he had been convicted and sentenced to death for a bomb attack that killed a 12-year-old girl. Scotland Yard arrested him in October 2001 on suspicion of involvement in the Sept. 9 assassination of Ahmad Shah Masood, a Northern Alliance leader, but a judge ordered his release in May 2002.
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