Green Helmet Admits Staging Photos, AP Spins Furiously

Tue, Aug 15, 2006 at 5:30:16 pm PDT

Salam Daher, the Green Helmet Guy, admits pimping dead bodies for staged photos.

The AP’s bureau chief in Iran, Kathy Gannon, tries her best to spin the story. (Hat tip: Allahpundit.)

The 20-year veteran civil defense worker said he shows dead children to photographers to make clear that Israeli airstrikes killed young Lebanese during the monthlong conflict. Some Internet bloggers have accused him of setting up photos and of treating the dead insensitively.

In one photograph, taken after an Israeli airstrike hit a building in the village of Qana, Daher held a dead infant over his head. The boy’s blue pacifier was pinned to his nightshirt.

“I did hold the baby up, but I was saying ‘look at who the Israelis are killing. They are children,’” Daher said. “These are not fighters. They have no guns. They are children, civilians they are killing.’ ”

He said he had no regrets and he made no apologies. “I wanted people to see who was dying. They said they were killing fighters. They killed children.”

Gannon brushes off the video proof of Salam Daher’s vile activities with one sentence:

One Web site posted video purporting to show Daher arranging to have the body of a child taken off an ambulance and displayed for photographers.

One web site?

UPDATE at 8/15/06 6:26:21 pm:

Notice also this outrageous line:

In one photograph, taken after an Israeli airstrike hit a building in the village of Qana, Daher held a dead infant over his head. The boy’s blue pacifier was pinned to his nightshirt.

One photograph? There are dozens of them.