Article in The Telegraph claims James Foley beheading video staged

I think he is dead . Staged or not there would be no reason not to kill him . Maybe they lied to him and told him it was to be staged only to kill him in the end . He knew the dangers of being over there .
 
When the family was contacted by IS to notify them that they had their son, and then gave them proof of life which were 3 questions about himself, couldn't the US intelligence community have been able to determine where the email originated from and who the sender's IP address was or even an actual address.
 
When the family was contacted by IS to notify them that they had their son, and then gave them proof of life which were 3 questions about himself, couldn't the US intelligence community have been able to determine where the email originated from and who the sender's IP address was or even an actual address.

Given time perhaps.. running traces like that isnt an instantaneous thing.
 
This is a thread to discuss what happened, not the reasons why.


And what does "false" mean? He's still alive? That's someone else? It's all CG? You don't get to dictate what word mean.

Instead of worrying about the meaning of words, just clearly say what can be verified.

Mick, it seems that much of what I've read poses a similar argument to that which is made in the following video i.e. that the beheading was faked using CG. I realize that the video (below) also deals with the "Why?" (which is not part of this thread). For debunking purposes I understand why the two need to be separated. However, without the why, faking a journalist's beheading to build support for the invasion of Syria, unfortunately the debunking loses context. CTers usually begin with a premise (need to drum up support for another war) and then develop their theories (faking a beheading).

 
However, without the why, faking a journalist's beheading to build support for the invasion of Syria, unfortunately the debunking loses context.
Metabunk doesn't debunk conspiracy theories. They debunk specific claims of evidence.
 
Given time perhaps.. running traces like that isnt an instantaneous thing.
IPv4 in general and email in particular is a really insecure system, too. The information in the headers are only as trustworthy as the software that generated it and there's tons of untrustworthy* software out there.

But there was an attempt to do this, and they did have a possible location at one point, which was raided. No hostages were found there, which could mean a lot of things. The sender could have been sufficiently obfuscated (using VPNs, proxies, onion routing and/or spoofed headers) that the trace wasn't accurate, they could have been mobile and not tied to the location so as soon as the communication was finished they packed up and left, or they could have been using a different location to communicate than they used to hold the hostages, so even an accurate trace doesn't actually get you a useful target. Or, very likely, all three, since none of those are difficult things to do.

*-untrustworthy in this context doesn't necessarily mean it's malicious or used for criminal purposes, only that it generates false or invalid data. It's useful for malicious or criminal purposes, but this kind of software has all kinds of valid uses, as well, like making an email look like it came from your office when it really came from home.
 
A second American by the name of Steven Sotloff was supposedly beheaded today by ISIS. The NYT is reporting that a video was posted to the internet of this beheading. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/world/middleeast/steven-sotloff-isis-execution.html?_r=0
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has beheaded Steven J. Sotloff, the second American executed by the Islamic militant group, and posted a video of it on the Internet, the SITE Intelligence Group, a research organization that tracks jihadist web postings, said Tuesday. Mr. Sotloff’s family issued a statement saying it believed he had been killed.
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US Intelligence is working on authenticating the video which was discovered by SITE Intelligence Group.
Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, said he could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the video showing Mr. Sotloff’s killing. “It is something that will be analyzed very carefully by the U.S. government and our intelligence officials to determine its authenticity,” he told reporters in Washington.

Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said that American intelligence agencies would “work as quickly as possible” to determine whether the video was authentic. She said the United States would be “sickened” by confirmation of Mr. Sotloff’s beheading
Content from External Source
I wonder if there will be CT's to follow proclaiming it was staged, or if this 2nd beheading put the nail in the coffin of the CT's circulating involving James Foley.
What is ISIS trying to gain from these tactics? Do they honestly believe these beheadings or threats of beheadings will stop the US from dropping bombs on them. Don't they understand the way things are done. All they are doing is speeding up the inevitable by doing this barbaric acts!
 
As Mick said, MB doesn't debunk conspiracy theories, but rather specific claims of evidence. The original post was a "claim" that the beheading was fake. From what I've read, in not sure that claim was successfully debunked. However, rarely does this site tackle specific claims made in the mainstream media; they are accepted as fact almost a priori. If one makes the claim that "ISIS beheaded James Foley on camera" which is EXACTLY what 90% of the media claimed, I say you guys did a good job of debunking that. He was NOT beheaded on camera as most people seem to think. Now, any further speculation as to why it was staged or whether he is truly dead is just that: speculation. However, if one accepts the notion that the beheading did not actually happen as we were initially led to believe, it begs the question, why? I realize that this thread is not the proper place to pursue that answer. There are reports that many members of ISIS were trained by the CIA at a secret base in Jordan in 2012. That might be a good thing to try and debunk. I would post it but I can't seem to figure out how to do so. I always "violate posting guidelines". Maybe someone with more experience could do so. A simple google search for CIA trained ISIS will turn up numerous articles.
 
As Mick said, MB doesn't debunk conspiracy theories, but rather specific claims of evidence. The original post was a "claim" that the beheading was fake. From what I've read, in not sure that claim was successfully debunked.

We don't debunk claims, we debunk claims of evidence. What you have there is a theory "the beheading was fake". YOu can't "debunk" that, as the goalposts are always shiftable. However you can debunk specific claims of evidence, like "the panning shot is 2D", which was demonstrably false. Or "jpeg error level analysis indicates the image was altered", which was also demonstrably false.

So please don't bring up broad claims like "CIA trained ISIS". We don't debunk claims, we debunk claims of evidence.
 
We don't debunk claims, we debunk claims of evidence. What you have there is a theory "the beheading was fake". YOu can't "debunk" that, as the goalposts are always shiftable. However you can debunk specific claims of evidence, like "the panning shot is 2D", which was demonstrably false. Or "jpeg error level analysis indicates the image was altered", which was also demonstrably false.

So please don't bring up broad claims like "CIA trained ISIS". We don't debunk claims, we debunk claims of evidence.
Mick,
Perhaps that's why every time I have tried to post a new thread it was turned down. I don't think I was always posting an actual "claim of evidence". Perhaps I was just posting a "claim". So, help me a little more to understand. Would the video supposedly showing Foley's beheading fall into this narrowly defined criteria? After all, it is being offered as evidence for the claim that he was beheaded by a member of ISIS. I really can't see why this couldn't or shouldn't be a proper item for debunking, IF there is evidence that supports the notion that the claim (Foley beheaded by ISIS) is false.
As to the CIA training, there are "claims" supported by evidence, that this is a reality. Are those claims applicable for MB?
Appreciate your reply.
 
We don't debunk claims, we debunk claims of evidence. What you have there is a theory "the beheading was fake". YOu can't "debunk" that, as the goalposts are always shiftable. However you can debunk specific claims of evidence, like "the panning shot is 2D", which was demonstrably false. Or "jpeg error level analysis indicates the image was altered", which was also demonstrably false.

So please don't bring up broad claims like "CIA trained ISIS". We don't debunk claims, we debunk claims of evidence

Understood. So why was this post allowed on your site?

You just said, "What you have there is a theory "the beheading was fake". YOu can't "debunk" that, as the goalposts are always shiftable."

So again, why was this post allowed to be read since it is clearly a violation of your terms according to your own words? I'm SO confused!
 
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So why was this post allowed on your site?

Because it's reasonable to talk about topics that seem likely to lead to dubious claims. Like MH17, or the Boston bombings. So long as it's a discussion of the plain facts, that's fine.

Of course people chat, and discussions diverge, but I try to keep things on track.
 
As Mick said, MB doesn't debunk conspiracy theories, but rather specific claims of evidence. The original post was a "claim" that the beheading was fake. From what I've read, in not sure that claim was successfully debunked.

OK, let's get specific.
It seems there are a number of possible faking claims here.
1. that the glimpse of the start of beheading itself was fake, some supposed cutting action was fake and there should be lots of blood spurting etc.
2. that the head is possibly a dummy on a real body with a digitally removed head or a dummy body.
3. that the head on the body is a digital composite, or a photorealistic 3D computer model lit and rendered with subsurface scattering (to give the appearance of skin translucency) and composited onto the body... and either the body is a real person's body has been digitally manipulated to remove the person's head or it's a dummy body.


So:
1. The tiny glimpse of cutting action looks done for drama and follows a public perception of how to cut a head.
In my professional experience doing cinema visual cgi, plus animatronic effects and prosthetics I've had the unfortunate necessity to look at real beheading videos from Chechnya etc and watched a rather unfortunate number of perhaps even more excruciating things from a colleague who was formerly a South African policeman who had a rather extensive video collection of execution videos. I've seen videos of beheadings accomplished by knives as small as this or smaller so yes, it is entirely possible.
I'd rather not disclose knife methods used to dispatch people quickly but will simply say I think the video was aimed at being watchable by as wide a general public as possible. Showing other common techniques would probably prevent the video being so widely distributed. As Mick says, it's irrelevant if the glimpse is staged. Any actual full beheading obviously does not appear on the video. All that is relevant is if he was killed.
(If he was not killed, then what would be the point of not killing him?
So they can pop him into a video alive at a later date and say "Surprise! he's all fine and we are really nice caliphate guys and trustworthy and honest... and faked an execution to.... um....err..."
If it was faked by the CIA what would be the point either? Wouldn't that mean the cia are too nice to simply kill a civilian and would happily risk him refusing to call friends and collegues for the rest of his life and inadvertently popping up on holiday in the bahamas in the background of someone's selfie ? )


2.
version a. A dummy head would require a "lifecast" taken of Foley, alive or dead with the expression seen or cast in a clay, water or oil based and then resculpted to the final version seen... and then filled with a translucent and tinted material like silicon and then meticulously hand punched with fibres to produce stubble, carefully pigmented and then blood or fake blood applied. Such things take weeks with highly experienced artisans.
This would require a compliant Foley to undergo the elaborate facial lifecasting process or it could be done after his death... but what would then be the point if it was done with a dead Foley? Why not just use foley's head?
So the implication of a lifecast dummy head would be a compliant still alive Foley.

version b. A sculpture of foley's head was created by a very skilled artisan in water or oil based clay and then cast and reproduced as above.. something I have rarely seen even Oscar winning prosthetic artists able to achieve convincingly with well known subjects.

version c. Foley's head was scanned and a 3D printer reproduced the scan full size in plastic that was then carefully surfaced and painted and had stubble etc added by hand punching or electrostatic flocking.

3.
version a.
The head is Foley's head filmed when he was alive and has had makeup blood or real blood from goats or martyrs poured over it, the lighting and head angle carefully noted and preplanned to exactly match a position and camera and lighting condition that will need to be carefully choreographed at a later date. ie, they need to choreograph filming the head and match the lighting of his head when it is filmed and digitally removed from its background and later to put on a back of a body with exactly the same lighting conditions. The head of the body would also need to be digitally removed... or would need to be an elaborate dummy also.
version b. The head is a meticulously recreated CGI model that would need to be scanned from Foley, and textured,digitally lit with the exact same lighting conditions as on the day of Foley's statement, rendered and composited onto the body etc etc.
Why bother? So much less preparation, expense, expertise and effort to just kill the guy for the price of a truck trip and a knife and so many fewer things to go wrong.
 
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The one that really upsets me is the "theory" that his whole family consists of crisis actors. Leave grieving families alone, conspiracy theorists!
 
The one that really upsets me is the "theory" that his whole family consists of crisis actors. Leave grieving families alone, conspiracy theorists!

Agreed. is there any evidence of them being crisis actors? or is that just a claim spewed out of hatred without hesitation. Im pretty sure, some of the thousand or so people who know them personally would blow a whistle saying "they are actors" or "wait a minute, thats not there name" or even "wait a minute, im their neighbor and they don't have a son." on the news, you know?
 
Agreed. is there any evidence of them being crisis actors? or is that just a claim spewed out of hatred without hesitation. Im pretty sure, some of the thousand or so people who know them personally would blow a whistle saying "they are actors" or "wait a minute, thats not there name" or even "wait a minute, im their neighbor and they don't have a son." on the news, you know?
* Rule 1 of Conspiracy Club: You talk (constantly) about Conspiracy Club

* Rule 2 of Conspiracy Club: You don't need evidence or even logical reason for a claim or to accuse someone of being a shill

* Rule 3 of Conspiracy Club: If you do offer evidence, and its quickly disproved, disregard, or just imagine new evidence
 
Just want to bring up some points here.

IS is Takfiri. Having personal experience with these people, they are the most brutal of the radical Islamic sects. Reviewing multiple other execution videos from IS, they do not shy away from brutality. Lining whole villages up in ditches and shooting them. Another shooting "unfaithful" muslims and throwing them in a canal. Another shooting arabs in western attire in drive by shootings then stopping to show the victims in the car dead. Why change that method when sending a direct message to the people you hate the most?

If you listen to the audio of Foley's video, the knife shown as a straight blade makes a sawing sound. I found that very odd. Straight blades against flesh do not make a "sawing" sound.

With that, I doubt that IS had any part in the making of the video. Has anyone come across any evidence that even points to it originating from anywhere in the Levant region or actually tying it to IS?
 
Why change that method when sending a direct message to the people you hate the most?

Because the Audience is different. They want the people they hate to actually watch it. With the massacre videos they are trying to impress young edgy impressionable men who WANT to do that sort of thing and like to see that sort of thing.
With the beheading videos they want as many westerners with delicate sensibilities to watch the videos as possible so they make the video as palatable as possible with a hint of horror at the end.
Most westerners have never seen a chicken killed.

With media you always tailor the product to the specific target audience
 
Has anyone come across any evidence that even points to it originating from anywhere in the Levant region or actually tying it to IS?

Yes.

The executioner is supposedly a British citizen with known IS ties:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jihadi-johns-british-terror-ring-4721424

Last month the FBI confirmed they knew Jihadi John’s true identity but details have deliberately not been made public while intelligence officers continue to monitor the movements and electronic communication of his alleged helpers...

...Unlike most other western Muslim recruits, Jihadi John has risen to a position of some seniority.

Normally, Western fighters occupy lowly positions.
He is believed to have been a prison guard for IS and has risen to be a member of a shura council, or governing body, of an IS ‘wilayat’, or province.

Jihadi John is aged between 28 and 31, and is fluent in English, Arabic and classical Arabic, the language of the Koran.

He first joined IS in Iraq when he left the UK, but then moved to Syria.

He is said to travel around in a black Audi jeep, and has six other British terrorists with him who act as his bodyguards.
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The location of the Foley execution is supposedly in the hills outside of Raqqa, Syria:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/world/middleeast/peter-kassig-isis-video-execution.html

The previous videos of beheadings produced by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, appeared to be filmed in the same location, identified by analysts using geo-mapping as a bald hill outside Raqqa.
Content from External Source
 
This thread is odd. It is abundantly obvious that he is dead (by beheading) or as good as dead (an Infidel held captive by vicious Islamic extremists).

There does appear to be editing of the propaganda. But propaganda is always edited. So there is nothing new about that.

The only conspiratorial thing I can pick out of the whole thing is that the media spent so much time on it. They probably spent more time on this one beheading than on the 26 beheadings that Saudi Arabia conducted in broad daylight recently. This editorial choice was also propaganda in my opinion. How was this head any more or less important than the other ones? All of the heads were cut off by Islamic extremists...yet we only focussed on this one. I found this interesting.
 
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Because he was a westerner with some public profile, of course it was going to be focused on in the western press.
You must be being disingenuous when you say you can't see why that would get comparatively more attention.
You can't draw moral conclusions that his life must therefore considered to be worth more than the rest - it's just basic human interest to be more concerned over people one recognises or relates to more, hence more coverage, as people can empathise more by thinking, 'he could of been one of my friends or family.'
That doesn't mean the other lives are worth less, they just exist on the other side of a cultural divide.
 
Because he was a westerner with some public profile, of course it was going to be focused on in the western press.
You must be being disingenuous when you say you can't see why that would get comparatively more attention.
You can't draw moral conclusions that his life must therefore considered to be worth more than the rest - it's just basic human interest to be more concerned over people one recognises or relates to more, hence more coverage, as people can empathise more by thinking, 'he could of been one of my friends or family.'
That doesn't mean the other lives are worth less, they just exist on the other side of a cultural divide.
No, not being disingenuous. I didn't watch any of it as to me it was just another beheading. I really don't have any more interest in news of this or that man's death over another one. We kill each other routinely.

What differs dramatically is the coverage that we assign to specific deaths. I believe this value is placed with intent towards driving a given agenda, i.e. that the news media is working towards a specific end in focusing on this and not that. Perhaps we disagree about that. To clarify, what I think is important about the beheading is not whether there was blood or not, etc., but in why it was repeatedly broadcast. And I don't think that "we relate to him" is a good enough explanation.
 
To clarify, what I think is important about the beheading is not whether there was blood or not, etc., but in why it was repeatedly broadcast. And I don't think that "we relate to him" is a good enough explanation.
Because it's something horrifying that is newsworthy and gets public interest.
ETA
And unless you are on hire as media consultant to determine what is newsworthy, or you think your tastes represent the general public's, there's no real reason to think your opinion about it means anything. Unless you have some other data to support that it's strange or odd in any way.
 
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This thread is odd. It is abundantly obvious that he is dead (by beheading) or as good as dead (an Infidel held captive by vicious Islamic extremists).

There does appear to be editing of the propaganda. But propaganda is always edited. So there is nothing new about that.

The only conspiratorial thing I can pick out of the whole thing is that the media spent so much time on it. They probably spent more time on this one beheading than on the 26 beheadings that Saudi Arabia conducted in broad daylight recently. This editorial choice was also propaganda in my opinion. How was this head any more or less important than the other ones? All of the heads were cut off by Islamic extremists...yet we only focussed on this one. I found this interesting.

The main difference between the Saudi beheadings and the Foley one is that the Saudis are a state executing 'criminals'. Foley was kidnapped and murdered by an illegal group. I don't think its about who's head is 'more or less important' it's about the circumstance.

The media also have the added interest with Foley of him being one of them, ie a journalist.
For the record I think the west does a terrible job of reporting the human rights record of some of the Middle Eastern countries but that's a different subject. The Foley execution was designed and carried out with the western media in mind, it was filmed edited and released in a very deliberate manner. I think that also had something to do with the western medias response.
 
What differs dramatically is the coverage that we assign to specific deaths. I believe this value is placed with intent towards driving a given agenda, i.e. that the news media is working towards a specific end in focusing on this and not that. Perhaps we disagree about that. To clarify, what I think is important about the beheading is not whether there was blood or not, etc., but in why it was repeatedly broadcast. And I don't think that "we relate to him" is a good enough explanation.

...and yet, perhaps the "driven agenda" is simply to cover news - or prioritize news- that is pertinent to their viewers? I find it strange that you find it strange that the Western media would cover the dramatic, brutal murder of a Western media representative that was -as Faithless pointed out- filmed and designed to cause a reaction in the Western media- more than some state executions of criminals in Saudia Arabia. The executioner in the Foley murder spoke directly to the POTUS. Were the Saudi executions filmed? Were they sending a message to the US? Did they address the President of the US?

Its the same reason why the simultaneous beheading of 18 Iraqi soldiers - also filmed by IS- did not make as big an impact on my local news.

Its the same reason why the murder of ~140 school children in Pakistan last week did not make nearly as big of a media impact in the US as the killings at Sandyhook.

Do you think the Pakistani press covered SandyHook as much as the massacre last week?

I would suggest that the media is highly biased towards its constituency.
 
...and yet, perhaps the "driven agenda" is simply to cover news - or prioritize news- that is pertinent to their viewers? I find it strange that you find it strange that the Western media would cover the dramatic, brutal murder of a Western media representative that was -as Faithless pointed out- filmed and designed to cause a reaction in the Western media- more than some state executions of criminals in Saudia Arabia. The executioner in the Foley murder spoke directly to the POTUS. Were the Saudi executions filmed? Were they sending a message to the US? Did they address the President of the US?

Its the same reason why the simultaneous beheading of 18 Iraqi soldiers - also filmed by IS- did not make as big an impact on my local news.

Its the same reason why the murder of ~140 school children in Pakistan last week did not make nearly as big of a media impact in the US as the killings at Sandyhook.

Do you think the Pakistani press covered SandyHook as much as the massacre last week?

I would suggest that the media is highly biased towards its constituency.
All one need do is watch a few different broadcasts from other countries. In Canada, on cable, we can see newscasts from Canadian networks, CITY, Global, CTV, or CBC, but also all four USA networks , CNN ( USA version nit CNN World) and MSNBC, plus the BBC. Some days its quite interesting to note the lead stories on each one and note the huge differences in what gets hilighted , or even the same story with differing takes on it.
 
No, not being disingenuous. I didn't watch any of it as to me it was just another beheading. I really don't have any more interest in news of this or that man's death over another one. We kill each other routinely.

What differs dramatically is the coverage that we assign to specific deaths. I believe this value is placed with intent towards driving a given agenda, i.e. that the news media is working towards a specific end in focusing on this and not that. Perhaps we disagree about that. To clarify, what I think is important about the beheading is not whether there was blood or not, etc., but in why it was repeatedly broadcast. And I don't think that "we relate to him" is a good enough explanation.
The Saudi's do not record their executions and put them on the internet as a recruiting tool. ISIS seems to revel in executions, rape and slavery. That makes a major difference in the attention they get from the press.
 
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