Toys R Us (& bodies R us) is a front in the war

Judith Klinghoffer posts photos of childrens’ stuffed animals amid the rubble in Lebanon, and asks “REAL OF STAGED? You decide. But they sure are precious and awfully clean.”

Tim Rutten in today’s Los Angeles Times, calling for a serious, major examination of wire service practices, comments “Reuters might want to check its freelancers’ expenses for unexplained Toys R Us purchases.”

At freerepublic.com the answer to both questions was posted yesterday. Unfortunately, I am a complete boob at importing photos into this blog software, so you’ll have to look for yourself. An Associated Press photographer, the photos captured at Yahoo, took photos of childrens’ stuffed toys being staged for propaganda photos.

Tim Rutten calls this the “most troubling of the possible explanations for these fraudulent photos, which is that some of the photojournalists involved are either intimidated by or sympathetic to the Hezbollah terrorists. It’s a possibility fraught with harsh implications, but it needs to be examined thoroughly and openly.”

I previously called for a major, independent investigation and reforms here and here.

This seriousness of this behavior by Reuters and others goes well beyond matters of truth in journalism to complicity -- and it increasingly appears as knowing complicity -- in a carefully orchestrated phase of the Hezbollah battlefront upon which peoples lives, and possibly the very survival of their nations, are being lost.

ALSO see here as reputable photojournalist Bryan Denton writes of seeing bodies unearthed from their graves for staged photos. [HT: Media Lies blog]