BLOGGERS AND FACTS...AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

Seeing is believing, the saying goes.

But some bloggers are rather stubborn. And silly.

Remember yesterday's bombing in which unknown terrorists tried to blow up a US embassy vehicle but instead killed three innocent Lebanese motorists?

Well, according to the writer at Beirutspring, a normally rather clever blog on Lebanon, the US embassy car was carrying diplomatic licence plates.

Or, as Beirutspring writes: "An large explosion in the Karantina Area in Beirut targeted a car with an American embassy plate. No Americans were killed."

Yeah right...

I was at the scene of the bombing and, of course, saw the US vehicle. Either I am turning mental, or Beirutspring strongly supports ignorance. Because the number plate of the US vehicle I saw was very much a regular Lebanese one. You know, white with blue.

So I posted a picture of the car (including a view of the Lebanese number plate) on my blog. I also posted a video (in which you can see that the embassy car carries a regular plate). And I wrote down my eye witness account describing the vehicle and its numberplate.

Well, most of us would be convinced by this, I believe.

Not Beirutspring guy though.

Especially since Beirutspring blogger himself linked to my little video of the aftermath of the attack, I was surprised to learn he had not corrected his mistake. So I wrote a comment on his blog, informing him that it really wasn't a diplomatic number plate.

I mean, why create rumors, confusion in a part of the world where everything is already a conspiracy and conspiracy theories are more popular than, let's say, the Da Vinci Code (oops, wrong example, Da Vinci Code is banned in Lebanon).

Beirutspring's response to my comment: "This blog only". What he meant was, well, only harryzzz mentions the civilian number plate, nobody else. Of course Beirutspring knows better, as he doesn't even live in Lebanon, let alone visited the scene of the attack....

And this is exactly the problem with most of the (political) bloggers in this world. They actually never do anything. They don't report, they don't leave their house, they don't call, they don't investigate.

The only thing non-journalist bloggers have, is their opinion.

So they endlessly write opinion pieces for their own blogs and mix it with vague rumors or "facts" they find on the Internet. Like the "fact" that it was a diplomatic number plate. Really, I wouldn't be surprised if Robert Fisk is gonna write a 1800 page book called: PITY THE DIPLOMATIC VEHICLE - a short history of plate manipulations by the CIA in Lebanon.

So if a picture, a video and an eye witness account aren't enough, what then is enough? I really don't know. Recently the Iranians claimed an American made video of Iranian speedboats in the Perian Gulf was fake, and in the Dutch village where I spend my childhood, most people still think the landing on the moon was done in a studio. Remember my video, a couple of months ago, of the Flying Terrorist in Nahr al Bared camp, northern Lebanon? After I put it on youtube, it generated not only hundreds of thousands of hits, but also almost a thousand comments.

Some of these comments read: Yes, i know this video, it is an Israeli attack on Gaza.

Anyhow. Blogs are great if you want opinion, but for reports and facts....please stick to the real media not to some guy who only sits behind his computer.

By the way: The license plate of the US embassy vehicle is: Liban - B 192994

Harald Doornbos

Right click and open in a new window the Beirutspring story HERE