Associated Press aiding terrorists?

Yesterday I posted about the Belmont Club's questions concerning how an AP cameraman just happened to be in the right place at the right time to capture on film the murder of Iraqi election officials.

Here was where the killers really lucked out. The AP photographer, though caught at unawares, who definitely had no "foreknowledge" of what was going down and at the worst expected a street demonstration, did not take cover, even as soldiers and Marines are trained to do when shooting starts. He was made of sterner stuff and held his ground, taking pictures of people he did not know killing individuals he did not recognize for reasons he would not have known about. This -- in the midst of "30 armed insurgents, hurling hand grenades and firing guns" -- as the Associated Press report says. And he continued to take photographs for a fairly long period of time, capturing not just a single photograph, but a sequence of them

The Belmont Club notes the results of the AP cameraman's "luck".

Two or three dozen people, at the most, would normally have witnessed these events. But due to the great good fortune of the killers, a photographer from the Associated Press was present and pictures of the execution were carried on newspapers throughout the globe, sending the executioner's message not merely to a handful of bystanders to hundreds of millions of readers throughout the world.


Roger Simon points to another disturbing article about the AP's "good luck".


"A group called the Islamic Movement of Iraqi Mujahideen announced that it had killed an Italian hostage called Salvatore Santoro," the Qatar-based broadcaster said, showing footage of Santoro with a blindfold and a gun pointed at his head.

The group read a statement in the tape accusing Santoro of working for the United States, Al Jazeera said. Images of his passport showed an Iranian tourist visa.

The channel said it obtained the videotape from the Associated Press.

The Associated Press videotaped the execution of a hostage and gave the tape to Al Jazerra? So now the AP is more welcome to the jihadists than Al Jazerra. Maybe this explains how the terrorists are able to produce their snuff films.

What are the odds the recent bin Laden tapes were produced by the Associated Press?

UPDATE:

From Poynter comes a reply from the AP.

From JACK STOKES, director of media relations, Associated Press: [This is a solicited letter regarding Salon's "The Associated Press 'insurgency.'"] Several brave Iraqi photographers work for The Associated Press in places that only Iraqis can cover. Many are covering the communities they live in where family and tribal relations give them access that would not be available to Western photographers, or even Iraqi photographers who are not from the area.

Insurgents want their stories told as much as other people and some are willing to let Iraqi photographers take their pictures. It's important to note, though, that the photographers are not "embedded" with the insurgents. They do not have to swear allegiance or otherwise join up philosophically with them just to take their pictures.

No, they do not want their "stories" told, they want to terrorize the world with their video taped murders of innocent people and the AP seems only too willing to oblige.

How many more innocent people will be murdered "for the camera" so the terrorists can get their "story told"?
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