The text from this AFP/Yahoo “news” item says:
An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City. At least 175 people were slaughtered on Tuesday and more than 200 wounded when four suicide truck bombs targeted people from an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq, officials said.(AFP/Wissam al-Okaili)
This “news” item, as of 08/15/07, is located at news.yahoo.com/photos/.
I’ve personally fired quite a number of bullets in my time and I can say, with some authority, that these bullets are the most amazing I’ve ever seen. I’ve never had bullet keep it’s casing, primer, and gunpowder AFTER it’s been fired. Those are still pristine, still in their shells.
Where can I get one of these reusable bullets? And that has got to be some really cool rifle that can hurl a projectile through a concrete wall at 2000 feet per second and not even get a dent in the bullet.
The rounds that everyone uses today, and since the late 1800’s, are a combination of a projectile (the bullet), a propellant (gunpowder, for example) and a primer (the explosive cap), all contained in one metal package. A firing pin hits the primer which sets off a small explosion. This explosion ignites the propellant and creates a lot of hot gas. This gas pushes the bullet down the barrel of the gun very rapidly.
But this “elderly Iraqi woman” is holding complete rounds that could only have “hit” her home if someone opened a box of them and threw them at her. And look at the shine on those rounds; they’ve never even been around a firearm.
I can just hear Obama on the campaign trail now: “We have to stop hand-tossing unspent rounds into civilian homes!”
The photo is from Agence France Presse, a “news” clearinghouse that has no love for the US or the current conflict in Iraq. Looks more like they’re trying to create a story rather than report on one. And the photographer, Wissam al-Okaili, has been known to fabricate more than a few photos for the purpose of showing how “evil” the war in Iraq is.
Iraq, bullet, Sadr City, Wissam al-Okaili
