While some are thinking (see post below) that the Associated Press should have won the Duranty Prize rather than the Pulitzer Prize for their glamour shots of “insurgents,” the Iraqis themselves have put these thugs on television. This, not the AP photos, is a real “reality show” called “Terrorism in the Hands of Justice.” The Washington Post has an interesting report, including this response to the program from a Baghdad shop owner (yes, it’s an isolated quote but read the rest):
“I watch the show every night, and I wait for it patiently, because it is very revealing,” said Abdul Kareem Abdulla, 42, a Baghdad shop owner. “For the first time, we saw those who claim to be jihadists as simple $50 murderers who would do everything in the name of Islam. Our religion is too lofty, noble and humane to have such thugs and killers. I wish they would hang them now, and in the same place where they did their crimes. They should never be given any mercy.”
UPDATE: More antidote from TigerHawk, including one of those “prize-winning” pics from the AP.
MORE: The Milblogger Prize – I like their photos better. [You're biased.-ed. No kidding!]
I think if anything changes the attitudes of Muslims in regards to terrorism it will be the sight of other Muslims being shot, beheaded and blown to bits by these murderers.
The AP can hire all the Arab/terrorist stringers they want, the reality is that the kind of men that drag election workers out of cars and shoot them in the streets are murderers not heroes.
Too bad AP feels the need to give them free PR. I know I used to trust the AP…no more.
Problem is, the Duranty Prize has long been the correct assignation. One prime example only is the famed 1968, Vietnam photo of the So. Vietnamese officer executing a North Vietnamese insurgent who had just been caught murdering a So. Vietnamese policeman and his family. The manner in which the Tet offensive as a whole was reported by the Western Left and MSM (the photo was taken in the middle of Tet) is another example of myopic and distorting propaganda concerning which the Duranty Prize paid abundant homage to.
Iconophilia and logophobia together with post-modern forms of sophistical pretension and gloss combine to form the more recent, heterodox Left’s propaganda initiatives. Explaining Postmodernism by S. Hicks is a great resource for understanding the complex sophistication of the latter.
To be clear, the logo in the logophobia referenced above refers not to merely a word or any word, but the word which cuts to the quick, minimally which makes an honest and transparent attempt to apprehend the salient truths.