Examine this picture from the AFP on Yahoo News (hat tip Hotair):
Click to see full size and be sure to look at the red device on the end of the soldier’s rifle barrel.
Here is the caption alongside the photo which proves to be totally bogus:
US soldiers secure the area at a newly installed check-point at the Babadag training facility in Tulcea, Iraq. A string of suicide attacks against Iraqi security forces killed at least 37 people on Tuesday, including 28 when two suicide bombers blew themselves up among a crowd of army recruits, security officials said.(AFP/Daniel Mihailescu)
The red attachment is a laser transmitter, part of the MILES system used by soldiers for non-lethal combat training. When soldiers press the trigger, it sends a laser burst that can be detected on gear that other soldiers wear, and it can also be used with blank cartridges for more realistic training. Any rifle equipped with the MILES system is useless for actual security purposes. http://hotair.com/archives/2008/07/15/media-fires-blanks-on-military-picture/
The picture in question could not be of soldiers securing anything. It is a file photo of a war-games exercise and the laser device on the end of the rifle barrel demonstrates that beyond reasonable doubt. It is most likely that AFP found a file photo and invented the caption. Another example of why more and more reasonable people have no trust in the elite media.
Senator Obama has been on the so called “Self Reliance Tour” as of late, and that includes his recent speech to the NAACP.
Obama, in recent weeks, has taken on the message of Bill Cosby by telling black families that they essentially need to get their act together socially and exercise more restraint, responsibility and self reliance.
If ANY white man went to the NAACP and said such a thing that message would not have been well received to put it mildly.
It is no secret that Obama took a huge hit among white voters, including union workers that tend to vote Democrat, with statements about the middle class such as his “guns and religion” comment that so damaged his campaign. The poll numbers reflected that damage.
Obama knows that the self reliance message is one that rings true with Middle America where the concepts of freedom, limited government and rugged individualism are a staple of society even among moderate and Reagan Democrats.
Obama’s voting record shows him to be the very most partisan of the very left wing of the Democratic Party. The self reliance tour would have destroyed him in the primary and it is not a political message that he has ran on before. The left has no where to go but Obama so he can afford to use a message like this without much risk.
UPDATE See Below- The rewrite of history continues
Politico:
The Daily News report by James Gordon Meek says: “Barack Obama’s campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop ‘surge’ in Iraq, the Daily News has learned. The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a ‘problem’ that had barely reduced violence. ‘The surge is not working,’ Obama’s old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks – not U.S. military muscle – for quelling violence in Anbar Province.
The rewriting of history has begun. Soon we will see even more statements from Obama that begin like this:
“What I have always said is this….”
…and then he will proceed to rewrite his past statements and history just as he has repeatedly done on issue after issue. Even left wing staples such as the New York Times and some 527 groups are all over Obama for this behavior and now the next phase of it is beginning.
The volume of kick back from left wing groups has caused Obama to reverse his previous reversal on starting the troop withdrawal immediately.
McCain promptly took advantage of the situation by pointing out the obvious; Obama is going to Iraq on a fact finding mission and Obama has just made a new Iraq policy again before he ever even got there and talked to General Patraeus and gotten the facts.
Obama’s long line of flip flops complete with video clip evidence has been catalogued right here. Just take a peek at the link on the left that says “Campaign 2008″.
Chuck Norton
UPDATE – Obama NYT Op-Ed rewrites his previous positions and now he has back on the pullout bandwagon after the left had a fit over his “conditions on the ground” statements he had made to after the primary.
