According to the Associated Press, the following photo depicts three Iraqi women conducting an anti-American protest in Baghdad on Monday. The question then is, how does the AP know this is an anti-American protest, as opposed to a pro-American or at least, a pro-Iraq (the liberated variety) protest?
After all, these women are not burning an American flag, carrying placards with slogans such as “Death to America” on them, or any number of other behaviors that can easily be identified as anti-American. In fact, to the casual observer, it’s hard to tell what the purpose of this small tea-party might be.
The point is, anyone who has even marginally followed recent mid-east reporting knows that the Associated Press and Reuters, to be specific, effectively refuse to report anything that might reflect positively on the United States. At the same time, those organizations have demonstrated a fondness for skewing their account of events in such a way as to demonize the U.S. and Israel while portraying Muslim terrorists as “freedom fighters” and victims. One example is the recent scandals surrounding the widespread practice of doctoring photos in order to portray the Israeli army as nothing more than murderous thugs.
It’s sad to think, that lacking any other event that might possibly be portrayed as disparaging to America, the AP slapped up a photo of three women with an Iraqi flag and called it an anti-American demonstration. We know that the women in the photo were not interviewed because the AP attributed not a single word to the bunch, so it boils down to the assesment by some caption-writer in a cubicle somewhere as to what the three women had on their minds.