"The photo that fooled the world"

We talked about the drowned syrian boy photo that was used by mass media to manipulate public opinion.

This made me think of another photo. The most famous photo from the Bosnian War, and that helped to convince the public opinion against the Serbs.

It was even cover of the Time Magazine:

The headline is quite explicit: "MUST IT GO ON?"

But what if this photo is not what it seems?

"The fact is that Fikret Alic and his fellow Bosnian Muslims were not imprisoned behind a barbed wire fence. There was no barbed wire fence surrounding Trnopolje camp. It was not a prison, and certainly not a 'concentration camp', but a collection centre for refugees, many of whom went there seeking safety and could leave again if they wished.

The barbed wire in the picture is not around the Bosnian Muslims; it is around the cameraman and the journalists. It formed part of a broken-down barbed wire fence encircling a small compound that was next to Trnopolje camp. The British news team filmed from inside this compound, shooting pictures of the refugees and the camp through the compound fence. In the eyes of many who saw them, the resulting pictures left the false impression that the Bosnian Muslims were caged behind barbed wire.", as explained here.

You can see a documentary exposing the truth about this image. I think the most revealing of all are the images from 0:47 and on of the second part of the video.

And now the last question... We saw this image everywhere, but why the western viewers never saw pictures of Mujahideens fighting for the Bosnian side?

‘El-Mujahedeen’ brigade of the Bosnian Muslim Army

parading in downtown Zenica in central Bosnia in 1995,

carrying the black flag of Islamic jihad.

The green banners on their heads which read: “Our path is the Jihad”

written in Arabic script.

But, although these soldiers were unknown in the West, you can read in Wikipedia a defense of them, which is quite ironic.


You could arguee that these images, like many existing others, of the mujahideens fighting for the Bosnian side, were not as shocking as the "manipulated" image of Trnopolje... But what about beheaded soldiers?

Surely photos of beheaded soldiers are shocking. And the western media has shown a lot of images like that (blurred or pixelated, almost always, it's true)  from the Islamic State. So why didn't they show these horrible crimes when the victims were serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo??



WARNING: Extremely Graphical Images Ahead.

The head of a Serb, Blagoje Blagojevic,

held by an Arab Saudi/Afghan ‘Jihad’ fighter in Crni Vrh,

Bosnia, 1992:

Click on image to enlarge,

Click on image to enlarge.

The story behind Aylan Kurdi's death

This is one of those photos that from time to time shock the world. They are published in the cover of many newspapers, apear in the news, and are shared in Twitter and Facebook. Usually, there is only a headline with the photo.

You can not imagine anything more sad than what we see in this photo. So it is human, to want to stop it. And here is were propaganda comes in, when the headline is shaped, usually by mass media.

But, for some unknown reason, when we dig behind these iconic photos, we usually find stories that differ from the headline

This photo as many other before had been used to model public opninion. We can see a good example of how this photo changed public opinion (and therefore political agenda) in these two news from the UK: Cameron 'deeply moved' by Syria boy death and the next day David Cameron: UK to accept 'thousands' more Syrian refugees, or as described in The Independent:

"2 September: pictures of three-year-old Aylan al-Kurdi, drowned in his Syrian family’s attempt to reach Greece from Turkey, provoke a wave of public sympathy for refugees.

3 September: the slogan ‘refugees welcome’ goes viral; 250,000 people in 48 hours back an ‘Independent’ petition calling for Britain to take its fair share of refugees. Mr Cameron says Britain will fulful its ‘moral responsibilities’."

But, as usual, the complete story was hidden from the public.

Some facts:

1. Abdullah Kurdi was living and working in Istanbul before the sea crossing
2. He and his family were renting a small house paid for by his sister
3. Kurdi worked for £5.50 a day supervising women making Islamic garments
4. A passenger on the doomed boat claims Kurdi was working with the gang

Let's put the allegations made on the last point aside (Second passenger claims Aylan Kurdi’s father was working with people smugglers and was driving the boat on which his son died), because they don't change the point. The point is:

"But once the family settled in Turkey nearly a year ago, could the Kurdis still truly be classed as refugees in the same plight as those sheltering in a dusty tented city?"

So they were not refugees fleeing from death and destruction but migrants looking for a better life. A better life or better teeth for his father...?

I have read many times that the real reason the family took this dangerous trip was because the child's father, Abdullah Kurdi, wanted new teeth. But I couldn't find the source of this version, so I didn't want to publish it.

But here is the source: child's aunt, Teema Kurdi explains in Sky News:

“The situation is that Abdullah does not have any teeth. Another story about it. So I been trying to help him fix his teeth. But is gonna cost me 14,000 and up to do it. He need teeth implant. So when I told him there is now way I can get you the money in one time because dentist need to get paid right away and Western Union usually – if I send them the money – they only allowed 1,000 at a time – not under their name of course – has to be a third person to collect the money and give it them. So I said to him, actually my dad, he come up with the idea, he said to me, "I think if they go to Europe for his case and for our future, I think he should do that, and then we’ll see if he can fix his teeth." And that’s what I did three weeks ago.”

Read more inconsistencies here.

Counterbalancing the Rapefugees Scandal

In the last days we have had several examples of how mass media are trying to counterbalance the bad effect on public opinions that had the leaking (because they tried to hide them) of the New Year's Eve sex attacks.

Two examples:

"Women and children refugee numbers crossing into Europe surge" ("they have accounted for just 45 per cent so far this year", the article was published the 20th of January... So less than one month of data!)

"10,000 refugee children are missing, says Europol"

If you needed a prove of the mass media manipulating the public opinion, here you have it.


But what I wanted to take a look at, is the inmigrant sex ratio, mentioned in the first article:

		Only adults
Men .....................	73%	................ 86,90%
Women ................	11%	................ 13,10%
Children ..............	16%

Why 86,90% of the refugees were males? Of course they can say that it is a very dangerous journey and that's why men take the risk alone... But that contradicts the official theory: aren't we told that refugees are fleeing from destruction and a certain death in Syria? If that is true, how can these men live their families there to look for a better life. If they are fleeing from war and death, it doesn't make sense the theory that they pretend to bring their families to Europe later, because it could be already too late.

If it was me, I would surely never leave my wife and children in such situation, if it was a matter of life and death, as we are told.

Or maybe just not all the refugees fleeing from war and destruction...?