The title is a quote from an old Eddie Murphy sketch. I chose it because it features a character who runs around screaming about the terrible accident that Eddie had just been in, despite never having been there to watch it. He isn't named in the sketch so for the purposes of this Sullivan-Esque award, I've decided upon a the name: "Walking down the street just minding my own business" Award - a phrase which the character repeats constantly during his manic re-telling of the accident he didn't witness.
This award is to be given to the most spurious illegitimate story given to News teams by 'eye witness' civilians.
If I'd created it earlier it would have gone to the man who claimed to have been beaten up and sodomized in Abu Ghraib but was later revealed to be wearing fake bandages over his perfectly healthy and unbruised/wounded left arm.
I present to you these excerpts from a BBC News article on the US strike on the syrian border:
"They fired more than 40 missiles. As soon as they started attacking, firing the first missile, I went away. I was running"
More than 40 missiles? What? Are we using pea shooters now? 40 missiles, hellfire, sidewinder, tomahawk cruise or otherwise would utterly devastate a massive area. Not a wedding party
Another man told Arab TV channel al-Arabiya: "The US planes dropped more than 100 bombs on us."
More than 100 bombs? Wow!
A B52 can only carry a payload of 55, 100 Pound bombs and even then it's logistically ludicrous to target them all at one area.
"They hit two homes where the wedding was being held and then they levelled the whole village."
What? Having completed their objectives the USAF just sadistically decided it was time to blow up everyone? Only insane conspiracy theorists and Socialist Worker's Weekly readers could believe that.
Look, these reports of coalition air-strikes hitting a wedding party by mistake may well be accurate, and I'm very much prepared to consider the possibility that the coalition made a mistake - although their findings suggest otherwise. However I don't care how distressed you are, dancing around like a loony and saying you just got hit with more than 2 B52s worth of payload and survived doesn't make you seem particularly trustworthy, which is the reason why these two guys receive the first Walking down the street minding my own business Award.
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at May 20, 2004 09:57 PM