hat tip Michelle Malkin
I'm sure I don't need to rehash the far left liberalism of the New York Times, particularly what we've seen over the past few years (although I would like to gather together a comprehensive and ongoing list at some point), so I'll just get right to it...

I actually read about this on another blog the other day, but I was actually specifically looking for something else at the time and forgot all about it. I'm pretty sure I saw it at Hit & Run first, but either way they were certainly out earlier than the rest of us. Anyway, at least we're talking about it now.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that this is a false caption, leading to the belief that this photo is all together a staged event meant for maximum heartstring pulling impact (i.e. "How could Bush bomb these poor people, look at how sad they are standing in their rubble next to that U.S. missile")

Pakistani men with the remains of a missile fired at a house in the Bajur tribal zone near the Afghan border.

I'm no expert, but when I first saw the photo a couple days ago, I thougth immediately, "wow, that thing looks old... is that really what we dropped"... But until the buzz picked up today, I had forgotten all about it. Well it appears people who know what they're talking about agree. And not only does it look old, it's not something that would have even been fired from a predator drone.

This exceprt from a Thomas Lifson article on TheAmericanThinker.com (Great article, breaks it all down)

Ned Barnett is an expert on military technology, and frequently serves as a contributor to The History Channel on mil-tech issues. He has plenty of experience researching military ordnance. He told me:

“Based on my extensive experience in researching military technology, I can verify that this is a 152mm or 155mm artillery shell – unfired – and by the looks of it, fairly old. It also looks like it has a fuse in it, suggesting that the guys in the photo are either ditch-water dumb or have a death-wish.

Again, I'm no expert, so someone might be able to convince me that a Predator would drop one of these things... but I'm not the NY Times, and I probably still would have checked it anyway! This kind of reminds me of MoveOn.org not knowing the difference between British and U.S. troops in one of their commercials *cough*propaganda films*cough*. Then busted photoshoping stills on their web page trying to cover their tracks.

Like all the other daily examples of staged photos, headlines, and articles the Misleadstream Media won't touch this... These sort of things happen with such regularity, equaled only by the regularity at which the media ignores it, even when the bloggers bring it to their attention. I just wish enough people knew so we could demand media reform, because it's only going down hill folks.

More:
Jeff Gannon, Sister Toldjah, Augean Stables, Iowa Voice, Old Controller, Generation Why