S(h)ITE red-faced as 'Islamist' Washington ruin image turns out to be from Fallout 3 game
Source: Daily Telegraph
note the page has been pulled, as has Google's cache copy, presumably because Kopy Katz and her cohorts don't like the bad publicity.
The image from the game, which should appear below, doesn't appear to be purged from The Telegraph's site (yet).
The SITE Intelligence Group said that the image, showing a ruined Capitol Building in Washington, was created by extremists as part of discussions about the feasibility of nuclear strikes against the US and Britain.
The images appeared in a video, called Nuclear Jihad: The Ultimate Terror, posted on two password-protected websites, al-Ekhlass and al-Hesbah, believed to be affiliated with al-Qa’eda.
SITE also released translated several chatroom threads from al-Ekhlass and al-Hesbah, discussing the possibility of nuclear attacks on the West.
However, it has transpired that far from being a detailed simulation created by terrorist masterminds, the apocalyptic vision is in fact lifted from the computer game Fallout 3, by US game designers Bethesda Softworks.
SITE and Intell Center, two Jewish media groups that always seem to be the first to get the latest from AQ Central, finally got a bit sloppy when creating their latest Bin Laden masterpiece.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Rita Katz and SITE "find" another AQ tape, with one of their bogus creations from MOSSAD Central Casting saying that the US better not pass the "Thought Crime Act", since that would blah, blah, blah.
Have they gotten so arrogant that they're getting lazy or do they really think that we're that stupid?
I think it is a combination of the two. They are arrogant, as arrogance seems to go with that particular territory. And they do think we are stupid, after all, we are just 'goyim', aren't we?
This has some pretty decent links, that didn't transfer to my posting, but the site is worth checking out.
Fallout 3 Image Spooks Terror Experts
Turns out terrorist are familiar with both kinds of RPGs.
by Ryan Geddes
May 30, 2008 - A computer-generated image of a post-nuclear Washington D.C., crafted by the Fallout 3 artists at Bethesda Softworks, has apparently popped up on terrorism-related Internet forums, and the image is now at the center of an online brouhaha.
According to the Entertainment Consumers Association's GamePolitics blog, U.S. defense contractor and intelligence analyst group SITE found the image while perusing message boards commonly used by Islamic terror groups, who were apparently discussing the possibility of nuclear attacks on Western nations.
SITE reportedly passed intel about the online terror activity to government and media, and the latter (including the Telegraph in the UK and the Australian newspaper) disseminated the info far and wide.
This Fallout 3 image was mistaken for terrorist-created propaganda.
England's Daily Mail posted the pic under the headline: "Al-Qaeda's terrifying vision of a devastated America in the wake of a nuclear attack." According to the Daily Mail, there was also a post-apocalyptic video on the terror-related sites.
Said the paper: "U.S. analysts said a lot of effort had been put into the video - entitled Nuclear Jihad, The Ultimate Terror - with graphics, music, and clips of different leaders and groups. The same expertise seems to have gone into creating this image of a devastated Washington."
As of this writing, the Mail and the Australian were still running the Fallout 3 image alongside the terrorism stories, but the Telegraph has since removed its article. The piece remains the most-read article on the paper's Web site however, under the dead-linked headline "SITE red-faced as Islamist 'Washington ruin' turns out to be from Fallout 3 game."
After the Telegraph ran its SITE-sourced story claiming terror groups were responsible for creating the image, SITE issued a press release rebutting the Telegraph's "red-faced" headline, saying the company never made any statements about who created the artwork:
SITE reported to its subscribers that extremists posted the image to a password-protected forum affiliated with al-Qaeda. This is entirely accurate. Moreover, this information was part of a report describing the general atmosphere in this forum with regard to extremists' discussions on weapons of mass destruction, making its context all the more important. This report in its entirety is also completely accurate. The Telegraph is not a subscriber to SITE's services. Apparently, the newspaper made these erroneous claims without actually reading SITE's original report, and the basis of their information for their incorrect article is unknown to us.
As GamePolitics points out, videogame images have crept into terrorism discussions before. In 2006, Battlefield 2 footage was presented to the House Select Committe on Intelligence as al Qaeda propaganda.
Source: xbox 360