The London Times is getting praise for issuing an apology over falsely captioning an April 2005 picture of fishermen executed at a Haditha, Iraq stadium by insurgents as depicting victims of Marines in the Nov. 19 incident still under investigation–which I reported over the weekend. [And yes, as I noted, we all know the Times is among the less unhinged of European papers. Which is why the original error, amid the worldwide haste and hype over Haditha, was such a "dreadful" one (to use Gerard Baker's word) in the first place.]

But some smears aren’t so easy to take back–especially when the image is as searing and damning as the bloody image the Times wrongly attributed to our Marines. Despite the correction, the image has been burned into the public memory. Look at how Chicago Sun Times cartoonist Jack Higgins used that image, wrongly used by the London Times, in a cartoon published today (hat tip: reader Jim O’Toole and Webloggin):

Is Higgins aware that the image he relied on falsely attributed the terrorists’ stadium executions of fishermen to the Nov. 19 incident involving our Marines?

Did he or his editors take any steps to ensure the accuracy of the image Higgins simulated to indict the Marines? Or will Higgins somehow argue that he is not implying that the Marines were the perpetrators of the atrocities in the stadium scene he copied from the AP photo?

Ask them:

E-mail letters@suntimes.com
Editorial page editor Steve Huntley: shuntley@suntimes.com
Publisher John Cruickshank: jcruickshank@suntimes.com
Jack Higgins: jhiggins@suntimes.com

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Refresher…

WRONG:

RIGHT:

Update: Milblogger Dadmanly takes me to task for attacking the wrong target–in part, it seems, because I included Gerard Baker’s e-mail address in my original post. Baker is the US editor of the paper. His responsiveness to American blog readers led to the removal of the erroneous photo (and I immediately published his note).

Why my initial post directing people to someone in a position of influence within the newspaper’s management is considered “over-the-top” is beyond me. Bloggers asked someone to be held accountable. It resulted in action being taken to protect the reputation of American troops.

Unfortunately, it was not soon enough.

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Latest news: 21 Shia students shot dead in Iraq by masked terrorists.

Let’s hope, for the Marines’ sake, that the London Times photo editors check their captions twice before they publish any pictures from the scene.