Bloggers take a closer look at the alleged Israeli strike on a Reuters news van from last week: See Power Line, Snapped Shot, and Hot Air. *** Related: Allah looks closely, very closely, at that NYTimes cheesecake shot. Greg……

Weapons leave traces – fragmentation from a warhead or artillery shell, telltale patterns from shaped charges, etc. These rockets would leave large sections of motor still intact (the fuel would be expended, leaving sections of the rocket with no explosive charges) Yet they’re not trotting out any parts alleged to be from the munition that hit the vehicle!

The hole certainly isn’t from a direct hit of any sort. A direct missle hit of any kind would leave the vehicle unrecognizable (all of them have a tendency to turn lightly armored vehicles inside-out, practically)

If it weren’t for past history, and the fact that Reuters has staged plenty of photographs before, I’d give them the benefit of the doubt and say they could have been near a chosen target and received a stray piece of fragmentation. Because of their habit of creating news where none exists, I’m highly skeptical that it was anything other than a faked scene.

I’ve actually been sitting on this one for a while, after a reader named Michelle linked me to this Hajj fauxto, but I’ve been too busy to post on it the way I wanted to. So without further ado, let’s……

as for your earlier comment:

Here’s a photo of the interior, which is apparently supposed to show that the missile penetrated the roof. Once again, no sign of fire…

Not only is there no sign of fire, but I don’t know if I’d call that interior much more than messy… Hell, I’ve ridden in cars that looked worse than that inside!

Riehl World View

Reuters is calling for an investigation into allegations that Israel intentionally targeted an SUV occupied by members of their organization. See updates and info via Hot Air, Poweline and lgf. However, the item below doesn’t seem to…

The damage on the ‘jeep’ I flipped and rolled quite a few years ago is eerily VERY similar overall to the damage on the reuters vehicle, except I didn’t hit anything hard enough to penetrate, although I also did have a crack in the sheet metal right along the edge of the roof, just like the one in the photo.

Another possibility is from a small (non-shaped)explosive charge sitting on directly on the roof of the vehicle, or a poorly designed IED charge fired from somewhere above and fairly close.

Either of which make the Pallies the most likely culprits.

No way in hades it was a missile fired from an aircraft, not even a ‘dud’ one.

At first I was having trouble reconciling the two photos of the same spot, one looking grey and the other looking like two years worth of rust…. I guess it could be white balance differences from the flash photo at night and natural light for the daytime one, but the daytime one STILL looks like a couple of years worth of rust, while the flash looks like fresh damage.

Reuters got some ‘splaining to do.

The Israelis probably did fire at SOMETHING, but it sure as hell was not that vehicle. I mean, this does not pass the straight face test, people. I can’t believe that so many people are ignorant of at least a rough approximation of what explosives do in confined spaces.

Like the previous vehicles, this vehicle looks like it was damaged either by hand or in some kind of accident.

The blood on the door is obviously hand-smeared, not splatter. I wouldn’t be suprised if it wasn’t even human blood.

That truck doesn’t look anything like the Pentagon did. (Yes, that is sarcasm) Armor may protect the occupants by it doesn’t extinguish fire.