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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (58615)	8/7/2004 9:18:11 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793924

Everything loose ends up in San Francisco. American fakes own decapitation in broadcast videotape RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer Saturday, August 7, 2004 A video aired Saturday that purportedly showed an American being decapitated in Iraq was a hoax. The American, Benjamin Vanderford, reached by The Associated Press in San Francisco, said he videotaped the staged beheading at his friend's house using fake blood. Vanderford, 22, said he began distributing the video on the Internet months ago in hopes of drawing attention to his one-time campaign for city supervisor. When his political aspirations waned, he thought the video would serve as social commentary. "It was part of a stunt, but no one noticed it up until now," Vanderford said. "I did this for a couple of reasons. One is to attract attention. But two is to just make a statement on these type of videos and how easily they can be faked." On the tape, Vanderford, sat on a chair in a dark room, his hands behind his back, trembling and rocking back and forth. The tape showed a hand with a knife cutting at the motionless man's neck, but did not show any militants. Vanderford was clad in a T-shirt, not the orange jumpsuit that other hostages have been dressed in. "We need to leave this country alone. We need to stop this occupation," he said on the video, adding that he had been offered for exchange with prisoners in Iraq. "Everyone's going to be killed this way." Sipping soda in his kitchen, a shirtless Vanderford said he made the video at a home in Pleasanton, Calif., located about 45 miles west of San Francisco. He spliced the video with images of mutilated bodies taken from a Web site operated by Hamas, a terrorist group responsible for suicide bombings in Israel. He later edited the 55 second video using production software to downgrade the quality so it would look similar to beheading tapes distributed since the war in Iraq began. "We had to make it more lower quality to make it more realistic," said Vanderford, who works at a bank when he's not performing in his rap group and designing video games. "That was another experiment that was part of this to see how quickly that system will spread news." The video was titled "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Slaughters an American" and had no indication of when, or where, it was made. Zarqawi is an al-Qaida linked militant whose group, Tawhid and Jihad, has claimed responsibility for numerous deadly attacks across Iraq, including the beheadings of U.S. businessman Nicholas Berg, South Korean translator Kim Sun-il and a Bulgarian man, Georgi Lazov. Their beheadings were filmed and the video posted in the Internet. Vanderford said he understood if relatives of those killed in Iraq thought his stunt was misguided, but he offered no apologies for the hoax. "I see how it could be considered disrespectful. But I think people, if they look at it, will understand two other big issues it brings up," he said. "A small group of disgruntled people in Iraq or Saudi Arabia could just get more attention just by easily releasing something like I did on the Internet."

To: LindyBill who wrote (58615)	8/7/2004 2:52:22 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793924

It's nice to know that for President Bush, everything, including the WOT is all about politics & gaining/holding on to power, rather than actively dealing with a real threat to our national security. It's just as heartening to see this liberal "journalist" is disinclined to objectively reporting the whole story factually & accurately, while simultaneously giving credibility to known left wing lunatic conspiracy theorists & speculating wildly all things ominous & negative about Bush. IOW, business as usual. :-\