So the formerly authoritative New York Times has published a picture distributed around the world on the home page of its website, using a prop which must have been artfully placed to create a false dramatic impression of cruel incompetence on the part of US forces. Not only did the editors lack the basic knowledge necessary to detect the fake, they didn’t bother to run the photo past anyone with such knowledge before exposing the world to it.

 

...the photo was deliberately faked by the people depicted, probably with the knowing aid of the AFP photographer. I think the villagers were lying about not hosting members of al Qaeda, too.

ONE MORE THING: The photo is still up at Yahoo News Photos, but with a changed caption that now says the men are shown standing next to "a unexploded ordnance." Yes, probably from the 1980s. No doubt the picture will be reproduced in many newspapers around the world.

UPDATE:  Lefty blog Mahablog tries to defuse the bomb, but fails miserably: 

I’ll take Mr. Lifson’s word about the artillery shell; I don’t know artillery shells from spinach. But I do know something about photograph attribution, and this one clearly says “Getty Images” in the lower right-hand corner.

This means that Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., did not personally order up a staged fake photo from New York Times photographers. Rather, it was purchased (probably for one-time use) from Getty Images. I found the image (Image #56593062) in the News database.

In any case he boldy does some "detective work" and goes on to claim that if the NY Times was scammed then Getty images was scammed too and they are "usually reliable". 

What brilliant genius is this?  Did Getty images publish the picture claiming that it was a missle (and infering that it was American)?  Nope.  And just because the image is owned by Getty that means that the AP photographer was beyond reproach?  How many examples of staged photos have we seen in Iraq alone?  I posted on some of them here.  The scarry thing is that other lefty bloggers desperate for a way to defend this are quoting his "detective work" like he is some kind of authority.  Then again some think of the New York Times as an authority.

He continues to embarrass himself further by challenging John Hinderaker's claim that it was from the 80's.  He goes out of his way to demonstrate that the picture is from 2005, completely missing that John was referring to the shell and not the picture.  The American Thinker article quotes a military expert explaining the basis for the claim that the shell was from the 80's.

What genius. 

UPDATE2:  Corrected indentation error above that made it appear that my first update was being said by John.

UPDATE3:  I wasn't aware that Maha from Mahablog also posts at The Daily Kos.