Strategy Page has most of these, now, as well, plus a few more. The additional ones at Strategy Page were also in the email I received, though I didn’t post them. This message must be making the rounds.

The additional photos are taken at a lower resolution (though even the bigger ones aren’t all exactly the same size), so I’m wondering if two or three different individuals may have taken them. For instance, in the first photo on my post the guy in the blue shirt half-way down the embankment looks like he might be taking a photo with a digital camera using the viewscreen.

One thing that’s weird is that the date and location appears to have been cut and pasted into the message. The whole thing is sort of a mess, in fact:

I don’t doubt that these photos are authentic. I’m just wondering if the time and/or place is correct or if someone just slapped some text onto some cool pics and circulated them. The Strategy Page post says they were taken by a civilian contractor supporting the US Army.

In any event, they are quite something to behold.

UPDATE: Snopes has more on these. It calls them true, though it doesn’t know the exact origin of the photos yet. It points out an aritcle on the the sandstorm, and has a link to a BBC page with more.

And Blackfive mentions them, as well.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, ACE has “uncovered” a Dear Abby letter on this.

All along I’ve thought the problem with the Sgrena checkpoint shooting was the he-said, she-said nature of the speed debate. The US military said the car was going too fast and refused to slow down after warning shots. The Italians said that the car was traveling slowly and tried to stop immediately.

How to determine the truth?

A US satellite reportedly recorded a checkpoint shooting in Iraq last month, enabling investigators to reconstruct how fast a car carrying a top Italian intelligence official and a freed hostage was traveling when US troops opened fire.

The report, which aired Thursday on CBS News, said US investigators concluded from the recording that the car was traveling at a speed of more than 60 miles (96 km) per hour.

Giuliana Sgrena has said the car was traveling at a normal speed of about 30 miles an hour when the soldiers opened fired, wounding her and killing Nicola Calipari, the Italian agent who had just secured her release from a month’s captivity.

US soldiers said at the time of the March 4 incident that the car approached at a high rate of speed and that they fired only after it failed to respond to hand signals, flashing bright lights and warning shots. [emphasis mine]

The only problem, as I see it, is that the report aired on CBS. Does that mean it’s fake but true?

Between this speed discrepancy and the claim of 300-400 shots fired but only six (seven) bullet holes in the car, I’m beginning to wonder if Sgrena was even in the car. Some think her kidnapping might have been faked. Maybe her release was faked as well?

Reportedly, the Italians are hesitant to sign off on the US report. If this report of 60 mph is true, I don’t know how they can dispute the US’s claim that the soldiers acted properly. (hat tip to Musing)

UPDATE:A quick glance shows the story only on CBS and ABC. FoxNews, CNN, and MSNBC all fail to cover it on their front page. And the two stories on CBS and ABC fail to mention the satellite imagery that shows the car’s speed. They merely state that the US and Italy disagree on the speed the car was traveling.

No doubt the networks are putting together a major special broadcast to cover this story in depth.

Here are some pics forwarded to me of a sandstorm approaching Al Asad Airbase, Iraq. Though I can’t vouch for the authenticity, I do know person who forwarded them and she knows the person who originally received them from someone in Iraq. Click each for a better look:

(more…)

Kitten Cannon

For those that liked the Penguin Smash game. (via Argghhh!, who comments “the horror…the horror”)

Unknown location. Unknown time. Unknown origin.

(Click for better look)

Looks like a Dragunov SVD to me.

UPDATE: Here’s another one:

This one is from dragunov.net. Go check it out for more pics, including those gold-plated sniper rifles we heard about some time back.

NCTC Terrorism Study: Huh??

Armed Liberal at Winds of Change notes the annual National Counterterrorism Center report (you know, the one that was hushed up) and is less than impressed with the methodology:

I have a significant problem with this; it’s a simple one – we’re at war in Iraq (and to a much lesser degree in Afghanistan). It’s a war with an army that has adopted terrorism as a tactic, and that freely uses it when civilians are the only ones likely to be killed – as opposed to guerrilla warfare against our or Iraqi armed forces, in which it is possible that civilians will inadvertently or carelessly be killed.

It’s insane to conflate these incidents and count them alongside acts of terrorism in the United Kingdom.

He wants a nation by nation database of the numbers that could be analyzed in a meaningful way.

To use the level of terrorist attacks in Iraq as a global yardstick is like measuring gunshot deaths in France in 1941-42 and assuming that they represent a trend in the murder rate in Western Europe.

I’m opposed to canceling publication of the report, but a better report would be quite welcome.

And increased terror activity doesn’t necessarily mean we’re losing the war, as many would have you believe, anyway. This struggle is going to go on for a long, long time, folks. It’s a World War (the fourth one, by my reckoning), and it’s really just getting started.

US govt admits RFID passports are danger to Americans

Not only did someone admit that they’re potentially dangerous, they decided not to go ahead with the plan.

Remember, admitting it’s bad and not doing it are two different things.

I wrote about this plan a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway, here’s the link in the NYT. (via WoC)

Soldier gets death penalty for killing officers in Kuwait

Hasan Akbar has been sentenced to death.

Wow. The insurgents who have vowed to prevent democracy from forming in Iraq haven’t stopped attacking just because democracy is forming in Iraq.

Who woulda’ guessed it?