***update: see also Dafydd’s thorough slice-and-dice at Big Lizards***

Tenacious bloggers are not letting the MSM off the hook for the dubious Qana ambulance incident this summer.

Zombie has an update with responses to various media attempts to debunk the debunking.

The Herald Sun’s Andrew Bolt shreds a report by reporter Sarah Smiles of The Age, who went to Lebanon to try and prove the story true. Quoting at length here to do Bolt justice:

Now The Age tries to defend the missile-through-the-red-cross ambulance hoax.

It starts with a bold claim, announcing in the headline:

Ambulance attack evidence stands the test

It does?

But read on and you will find that reporter Sarah Smiles, who lived as a student in Beirut for four years, doesn’t confirm the evidence but change it:

• The missile through the Red Cross painted on the roof of one ambulance becomes a possible missile through the back of the other of the two that were attacked.

• The first ambulance that was hit by a missile is now hit instead by “small weapons”.

* A man who had his leg blasted off in the ambulance with the hole through the Red Cross now has it blasted off in the ambulance with the bigger hole in the back.

* A medic explains the strange absence of blood in that ambulance by saying the injured man’s leg was “cauterised”.

* An attack launched by Apache helicopters is now launched by drones.

* A driver who was first reported to have been knocked unconscious in the attack this time fails to mention that, claiming only that shrapnel-pocked helmet saved him.

• Curiously, all three Red Cross workers who were there and were interviewed after the alleged incident, claim they were saved by a shrapnel-pocked helmet. None were actually wounded with all this shrapnel flying about.

No explicit acknowledgement is made of what seems even from this story to be conceded: that The Age‘s initial claim that a missile was fired through the Red Cross symbol of ambulance was false.

Nor does it admit what it also seems to concede: That the ambulance first pictured as “proof” of that missile strike was not hit by a missile at all.

Nor is any explanation is offered for the following:

Why we are only now shown a picture of the alleged ambulance that Smiles says was damaged worst – and presumably this time by a missile? Why did the media ignore this more dramatic picture that would have better proved their claims of an Israeli atrocity?

Why is an ambulance hit by a missile still largely intact? Don’t Israeli missiles work?

Why did a missile attack on ambulances not only fail to destroy them, but fail to kill any of the people inside?

Why did The Age initially report both ambulances were in fact hit by missiles, when it now seems to concede that - at best (or really worst) just one was?

Why has an attack that one medic first said occurred as he was driving now changed to an attack as he was transferring patients?

Why was an ambulance hit by something that caused a huge “explosion” and “fire” show no scorch marks at all, and have a window caved inwards, not outwards?

Why did an ambulance allegedly attacked by Israel have the torn metal covered in rust in an initial Age picture take just one or two days later?

Why did a medic shown in hospital covered in bandages appear in pictures just days later with not a scar or scratch on his skin?

All strange questons needing answers which Smiles fails to provide. Nor does Smiles report that her main informant is an ambulance driver whose nickname, says the Boston Globe, is “Abou Harb” or “Father of War”.

But bottom line from The Age report: The famous hole through the Red Cross sign on the ambulance roof was NOT caused by a missile. The picture of the ambulance it gave as proof told an untruth.

Tim Blair delivers another kick to The Age’s pants by printing ambulance photos the newspaper chose not to run online. Go take a look.

John Hinderaker and Power Line blogger of the week Dan Riehl debate the latest.

Jawa Report has a follow-up music video remix that puts the pieces all together. Take a Rocket Ride:

Direct hit.

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