Does this photo prove Sadr’s protest in Najaf was poorly attended?
posted at 8:56 pm on April 10, 2007 by Allahpundit
Er, no, because it’s not a photo of Najaf. It’s a photo of Baghdad. I thought that circle looked familiar.
How did this nonsense even get started? The caption on the MNF page explicitly identifies the location.
Plenty of photos of the actual Najaf protest are on the wires. MNF insists there were only 5,000-7,000 people there. Hmmm.
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Flash mob.
spd rdr on April 10, 2007 at 9:20 PM
You lost me — is MNF an acronym for multi-national force?
I can see why the Iraqi government would want to report a low number for the Najaf protests, but I can’t see why the US military would intentionally spin the numbers. They are smart enough to know we all have access to the wire photos that you referenced.
Anton on April 10, 2007 at 9:24 PM
A recent Ivy League graduate with an geography major?
Zorro on April 10, 2007 at 9:26 PM
Yea, and? A couple weeks ago most here were praising the Brits even as they pulled out of southern Iraq saying what stand up fellows they have been. Now we have them bending over for Iran and allowing the Mahdi army to reassert themselves after being displaced from Baghdad.
Take a look at Omar’s latest post. The Iranian controlled puppets are flexing their muscles wherever we aren’t just as they did in Lebanon. Waving Iraqi flags that they extorted money to buy is a sign of solidarity with the government of Iraq? Really? Who believes this? Good thing the Lebanese don’t.
Sadr needs to be brought to justice with extreme prejudice. Then let’s see how many flag waving thugs show up in Najaf.
JackStraw on April 10, 2007 at 9:30 PM
i’m pretty dissapointed that gateway and redstate haven’t updated their posts to reflect their error yet.
jummy on April 10, 2007 at 9:35 PM
The real measure of Sadr’s influence is whether his rats come out of hiding to get shot.
old_dawg on April 10, 2007 at 9:37 PM
Allah,
The photo at the bottom of your post is different than the photo of the circle in the links you provide. It looks like the photo at the bottom of your post actually is from Najaf. Am I missing something? Your post doesn’t make much sense.
NPP on April 10, 2007 at 9:41 PM
Yes, the bottom photo is from Najaf. The thumbnail on the front page is from Baghdad. I can see where you might be confused. I’ll post the full-size to clarify it.
Allahpundit on April 10, 2007 at 9:43 PM
Maybe it’s just me, but it looks like those photos were taken in such a way so as to prevent us from making an educated estimate of the crowd’s size. Or, more likely, they were taken to make a small-ish crowd look bigger.
It looks like more than 5000-7000, but there is nothing there to indicate that there is more than 10,000, let alone “tens on thousands”.
DaveS on April 10, 2007 at 9:47 PM
how wide a shot can it get?
jummy on April 10, 2007 at 9:53 PM
I still find it extremely ironic that they staged a code pink style protest — something they couldn’t have done before the coalition forces took down Saddam’s regime!
db on April 10, 2007 at 9:56 PM
it looks like at least ten thousand within the frame, and the streets leading out of the frame are packed. i’m not happy to see it, i’m just saying…
the bright side? massive political protests occurred in baghdad. they don’t have order, reliable utilities or security, but they have that at least.
jummy on April 10, 2007 at 9:57 PM
MNF insists there were only 5,000-7,000 people there. Hmmm.
I counted 30-35 people across in the front row of the Najaf picture. A generous counting of heads back to the last visible row of flags, I got ±50 rows. Counting flags back, and assuming a flag every five rows, I got ±80 rows.
35 x 80 = ± 2800 people. Admittedly, my numbers are only a little better than guesses, especially in the number of rows, but am I off by a factor of 7 (to get to “tens of thousands”)? I’d say the Najaf picture depicts menacing angle.
a4g on April 10, 2007 at 9:58 PM
Oooops, I guess I can’t use the “less than” sign without trigger an HTML tag…. Should read:
…I’d say the Najaf picture depicts [less than] 5,000 protestors, and so doesn’t really offer evidence either way.
But I’ll give the MSM extra points for a deliciously menacing angle.
a4g on April 10, 2007 at 10:01 PM
Damn Coalition, preventing the Iraqi people from slaughtering each other in peace…
Savage on April 10, 2007 at 10:02 PM
I’m feeling stupid. If there were a lot more people protesting the U.S. being in iraq, isn’t that a bad thing?? Why do we want the crowd to be larger?? (Am I on the right web site??)
Lothar on April 10, 2007 at 10:06 PM
whatever it is, it’s a lot. if someone has a solid, scientific method for arriving at “our” figure for records keeping sake, then let that number be arrived at and filed away. other than that, it it doesn’t wear well on us to try to factor the crowd down to insignifigance. the photos tell the story. and we’re familiar with the polling dataand the odd schizophrenic stance toward our presence shown therein.
jummy on April 10, 2007 at 10:06 PM
This is just an example of the sloppy writing on this blog. So much of it relies upon some sort of “insider” preknoweldge. It’s hard to tell what’s a joke, what’s real, what the initials are. etc
VinceP1974 on April 10, 2007 at 10:09 PM
Which curtain are the 3,000,000 behind?
Stephen M on April 10, 2007 at 10:10 PM
As for the circle…isn’t today the anniversary of the Statue being pulled down?
And yeah…why would the military want to fudge the numbers? The blogosphere is watching…
JetBoy on April 10, 2007 at 10:13 PM
Everything is perfectly clear if you follow the links. That’s what they’re there for.
Allahpundit on April 10, 2007 at 10:16 PM
lothar, it’s not about wanting anything. it’s about what is. i can want it to be sunny and clear out with all my might, but if i go outside without an umbrella, i’m still going to get wet.
also street demonstrations don’t mean as much as they are thought to by either the pro’s or anti’s. people go to street protests for a range of uncatalogued reasons and they stay away for a range of uncatalogued reasons. the summer of 2003 saw massive demonstrations aimed at the bush admin. having attended the major counterprotests, i can say that the numbers in the streets were consistently 12 to 1. but come election day, who won?
a4g, i don’t think it’s a particularly manipulative angle. the photographer is standing in the street getting as much of the crowd in the frame as he can. he can’t really be expected to fly above the crowd to avoid the foreshortening effect.
jummy on April 10, 2007 at 10:17 PM
sorry, i meant “1200 to 1″
jummy on April 10, 2007 at 10:18 PM
yep.
good times.
jummy on April 10, 2007 at 10:33 PM
Crap. I thought Gateway had his facts straight, and took him at his word (I should know better by now).
SSG Craig Zentkovich said via email that he shot this picture from the top of the Sheraton hotel in Baghdad in 2005.
Bob Owens on April 10, 2007 at 10:34 PM
jummy,
I think this particular street protest means a lot, since what we’re looking for in it is not a broad indicator of Iraqi mood, but rather the relative strength enjoyed by Mookie at this point.
As to your point regarding camera angle– fair enough, in an objective world. But I’ve seen too many shots framed coincidentally in accordance to the editorial bias of the presenters to not be at least a little bit cynical. Now, if the caption had been “Stunning Disappointment For Firebrand Cleric”…
a4g on April 10, 2007 at 11:20 PM
true. still i’d say that there’s a lot of reasons a lot of shi’ites would join a protest against the occupation apart from loyalty to sadr.
jummy on April 10, 2007 at 11:31 PM
And tell me again why Sadr was given a reprieve, when our guys had him up against a wall…so close?
JetBoy on April 10, 2007 at 11:37 PM
jetboy, the post-invasion was botched. the operation needed to be performed, but bush is a quack. that’s my solemn meditation on this anniversary.
jummy on April 10, 2007 at 11:40 PM
Just be patient Vince, it’s all good here, we ALL make mistakes, especially me, hang in there………
PinkyBigglesworth on April 10, 2007 at 11:43 PM
They must have one hell of a flag budget.
askheaves on April 10, 2007 at 11:44 PM
I want all of you to remember this, come May 1st…….
“Viva La Isurgents?”
PinkyBigglesworth on April 10, 2007 at 11:49 PM
Back in my Navy days, that’s what we called a “target rich environment.”
Vinnie on April 11, 2007 at 12:06 AM
PinkyBigglesworth:
That’s not fair. That’s like having an Irish protest in the streets of Boston on March 17. That’s artificially inflating numbers.
askheaves on April 11, 2007 at 1:25 AM
ITM has the lowdown on their flag “budget” They borrow a Ba’athist tactic of shaking down small merchants for “contributions”
He also estimates the crowd at no more than 10,000.
billy on April 11, 2007 at 1:27 AM
“Nonsense”? The protest was a freaking bust. Period.
Gateway Pundit had already posted that march photo on his blog:
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/04/again-al-sadrs-protest-numbers.html
Besides AP’s semantics on photos the bottom line is the protests were a bust and al-Sadr is losing his influence on the mass of Shia.
angryamerican on April 11, 2007 at 1:44 AM
With respect, what else would you call it?
PinkyBigglesworth on April 11, 2007 at 2:08 AM
I think the real point is being lost.
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/alsadr-calls-for-antius-protests/37981-2.html
Was there 3 million people protesting?
Where there hundreds of thousands?
Where there tens of thousands there?
Oh forget it, let’s focus a whole post on a misidentified photo and the blogger fight between the left and right that ensued…Please. Let’s get serious.
TheBigOldDog on April 11, 2007 at 6:16 AM
I’d be willing to bet that some of the “tens of thousands of protesters loyal to Moktada al-Sadr” and “chanting Death to America” were Democratic members of Congress. Can the Dums make it any more obvious that they want us to loose there? And the MSM will certainly provide them with all the assistance they can.
lynnv on April 11, 2007 at 8:14 AM
Don’t think anyone wants the crowd to be larger, just don’t like the info being uh, managed. Similar vein: Congress begins today to look into the Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch debacles. Almost choked on my orange juice–guy reading the news: “blah, blah, blah…investigating why this misinformation was so widely disseminated.”
Is this a trick question? Lord.
honora on April 11, 2007 at 8:20 AM
misinformation about 2 soldiers in the middle of war thousands of miles of away with scores of people in the information chain? Ya, that’s something I want Congress spending time on. Beats going to Syria and Iran pursuing your own F’in foreign policy. At least it won’t put any lives in danger:
Pelosi, Lantos may be interested in diplomatic trip to Iran
TheBigOldDog on April 11, 2007 at 8:45 AM
Bless your heart. So, what did the Easter Bunny bring you?
honora on April 11, 2007 at 9:05 AM
A PETA protest in front of a Spiral Ham store which tied up traffic for miles but gave me the opportunity to roll down the windows of my HD Diesel pickup and unload on a bunch of clueless moonbats trying to put a small businessman out of business on the one day of the year he counts on to feed his family. The nice thing was, as soon as I stood up, so did others stuck in the traffic. It was the best present the benevolent bunny could have given me.
TheBigOldDog on April 11, 2007 at 9:21 AM
I’m always a little amused by anti-US protests in Iraq. I wonder if they are conciously aware that the only reason they can even stage a protest is because the US granted them that right through force of arms and at the cost of many lives.
How did Saddam handle protests against his government?
taznar on April 11, 2007 at 10:14 AM
Of course they’re aware and they couldn’t care less. Its the Sense of Entitlement combined with a deeply held belief that infidel lives are cheap.
Enrique on April 11, 2007 at 10:31 AM
I need to get into the Iraqi flag selling business!
Zetterson on April 11, 2007 at 10:44 AM
Classic example of would have been nice to thought of this earlier. Say early 2003.
People tend not to like being occupied. Well, we may say, are we not a lot better than Saddam. Doesn’t matter, still resent us as occupiers. (I am not defending this POV, merely an observation).
honora on April 11, 2007 at 11:26 AM
Love ham, but really, spiral ham is kinda tacky, Wonder Bread tacky if you know what I mean….;^)
honora on April 11, 2007 at 11:28 AM
No, you need to get into the American flag business. Out of patriotism? No. The American flag is a consumable (burn it, tear it, walk on it and throw it away) so you get repeat sales. Most other flags, except maybe the Israeli flag, tend to hang around a long time which limits repeat sales.
TheBigOldDog on April 11, 2007 at 11:51 AM
Think Progress (an oxymoronic name on both counts for anything associated with liberals) still has the Baghdad pic labeled as “Najaf”:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/10/najaf-protests/
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/najaf3.jpg
JinxMcHue on April 11, 2007 at 12:02 PM