Who wants to bet that the White House was behind the Koran debacle?

[devilgrrl]

With Newsweak magazine that is. I'm sure someone has already brought this up but wouldn't it be sooooo typical of them?

[bryant69]

1. I don't know

I mean it was a stupid move, so this is a typical move in that sense - but I'm not sure I see what they hoped to get out of it.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[CatWoman]

5. What I don't understand is why the Pentagon didn't raise

objections when they had the opportunity? It was vetted by them before publication:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/05/15.html#a2965

More on Newsweek

Howie reports : Whitaker said that a senior Pentagon official, for reasons that "are still a little mysterious to us," had declined to comment after Newsweek correspondent John Barry showed him a draft before the item was published and asked whether it was accurate, adding that the magazine would have held off had military spokesmen made such a request. Whitaker said Pentagon officials raised no objection to the story for a week after it was published, until it was translated by some Arab media outlets and led to the rioting.

The item was principally reported by Michael Isikoff, Newsweek's veteran investigative reporter. "Obviously we all feel horrible about what flowed from this, but it's important to remember there was absolutely no lapse in journalistic standards here," he said. "We relied on sources we had every reason to trust and gave the Pentagon ample opportunity to comment. . . . We're going to continue to investigate what remains a very murky situation."

Why didn't the Pentagon raise a red flag? Why didn't they say hold on while we check those facts? Newsweek didn't blind side the Pentagon. They acted in good faith by giving the Pentagon access before they ran the story. The first reported incident made it seem like they printed the story with no notification. That's not the case. Didn't the "senior" Pentagon official have an idea what might happen? This doesn't excuse Newsweek, but the mayhem that ensued could have been averted.

[Village Idiot]

19. Not only THAT, but

very similar material (standing, sitting, spitting and urinating on the Koran) has been published in the NYT (May 1, 2005), The UK Guradian (March 2004), WaPo and the Daily Mirror - to the point where there was a 7 day hunger strike at Gitmo, and the Base Commander had to issue a formal verbal apology to detainees...

What's the fuss about Newsweek? Why not hammer EVERYBODY, or NOBODY???

Why Newsweek???

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. I think the White House is behind the RETRACTION.

[Just Me]

6. Is that due to civilian protestors having been killed?

:shrug:

[PsychoDad]

13. Dead folks don't bother the shurb

But the fact that our dictators over there were starting to feel the heat from their people moved this bunch into action.

[liberal N proud]

3. It has KKKarl Rove written all over it.

[Ready4Change]

4. Hmmm...

Suggesting they falsely leak something that's true, and then publicly debunk the known, false leak, in order to both discredit critical news sources, as well as defuse future attempts to expose the true story?

It would be a an effective, if risky, strategy. I wonder if the "discredited" news sources could compare notes and determine the source of false leaks?

[Spazito]

7. The only thing the bush cabal is behind is the strong-arming

to get a retraction and the only reason the push is on now is because the unrest in the Middle East is threatening some of their 'allies in thievery'.

[Ganja Ninja]

8. I doubt it was done for a purpose.

What purpose would it serve to put out a story like this? Where's the gain in it for Bush-co?

I don't doubt that it was an idea dreamed up by Rummy and his gang. It has their tracks all over it.

[Pathwalker]

10. Destroying the press is the purpose it serves.

which only further enables their plans to destroy America. A populace that deserts the press will be easily overtaken.
You're just not seeing it in total.
Have you noticed how cannibalistic the press has become toward the competition? I have.

[DoYouEverWonder]

16. If your goal is to destroy civil society

then destroying the credibility of the press is part of their attack plan.

[Pathwalker]

21. Destroying the civil society of America IS their goal.

They can achieve their pure Theocracy no other way.

[JohnyCanuck]

9. Newsweek Got Gitmo Right

Newsweek Got Gitmo Right
by Calgacus*

Contrary to White House spin, the allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo published by Newsweek on May 9, 2005, are common among ex-prisoners and have been widely reported outside the United States. Several former detainees at the Guantanamo and Bagram prisons have reported instances of their handlers sitting or standing on the Koran, throwing or kicking it in toilets, and urinating on it. Prior to the Newsweek article, the New York Times reported a Guantanamo insider asserting that the commander of the facility was compelled by prisoner protests to address the problem and issue an apology.

One such incident (during which the Koran was allegedly thrown in a pile and stepped on) prompted a hunger strike among Guantanamo detainees in March 2002. Regarding this, the New York Times in a May 1, 2005, article interviewed a former detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, who said the protest ended with a senior officer delivering an apology to the entire camp. And the Times reports: "A former interrogator at Guantanamo, in an interview with the Times, confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans." (Neil A. Lewis and Eric Schmitt, "Inquiry Finds Abuses at Guantanamo Bay," New York Times, May 1, 2005.)

The hunger strike and apology story is also confirmed by another former detainee, Shafiq Rasul, interviewed by the UK Guardian in 2003 (James Meek, "The People the Law Forgot," Dec. 3, 2003). It was also confirmed by former prisoner Jamal al-Harith in an interview with the Daily Mirror (Rosa Prince and Gary Jones, "My Hell in Camp X-Ray," Daily Mirror, March 12, 2004).

The toilet incident was reported in the Washington Post in a 2003 interview with a former detainee from Afghanistan:

http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=5959

Ever stop to think that in all this caffufle over sexual perversion and humiliation, torture and overt displays of disresepct towards the Muslim religion in the prison camps there is a bigger agenda at play? I strongly suspect after seeing events unfold that it's an agenda on someones plate to deliberately create as much enmity, hatred, distrust and ill feeling between the US and Arabs/Muslims as possible. I mean if that was their goal, could they have gone about it in any better fashion?

I don't accept for a millisecond that this is all coming about because of poorly supervised, pea-brained, naive young troops going off half cocked and acting on their own. Someone wants to create as much hatred and emity between Arabs and the US as possible and they are doing a damn good job of it.

[chapel hill dem]

11. I think there is a strategy here, but

it is more a "pounce upon mistake" plan than any grand disinformation scheme. They seem cocked and ready to fire upon a moments notice.

I know from being quoted in the press locally that only 70-80% of what I am quoted saying is verbatim in context. I spend a lot of time clarifying misquotes with friends and associates -- the on-deadline pressure seems to induce mistakes.

Also, the internet has hastened the external fact-checking process and the agenda-driven bloggers have accelerated it to near real time.

[JamboGuide]

12. Of COURSE!

The media was half-RESPONSIBLE for bringing down Vietnam, and we cant have THAT now can we. This latest play by Rove is ot make the media look even WORSE so as to silnce ANY war opposition.

[Just Me]

15. It's the oppression of free speech, a means of controlling the media,...

,...and manipulating the information/facts reaching the American masses.

It's a form of tyranny, no doubt!!!

[illflem]

14. I think the whole thing was engineered to discredit the media

Like the admin could really give a shit that Muslims are getting killed in riots.

[ktowntennesseedem]

17. Whether they are or not...

(and I'm certain they are; given their track record I can't imagine they aren't!), those who are protesting the desecration of their religion see it that way. They reacted to the report with outrage, but then when Newsweek issued the quasi-apolgy, the proseters immediately denounced it as caving into pressure from the powers-that-be at the White House.

Guess that means I hate America; I, too, attribute everything negative to the lying, cheating, and manipulating of Shrub & Co.

:banghead:

[Chicago Democrat]

18. I not that jaded yet, If they did that, then they probably did 9/11 too

I'm not there (yet)


open mindedly yours

[PurityOfEssence]

20. Nah, this was a fuck-up; THEY'RE NOT THAT GOOD

Karl Rove isn't a megagenius; he just has the old habit of having no shame and a criminal's sense of winning for that very second in time. Just like people love gangster movies because they give them the vicarious thrill of defying the restrictions of society, they also think that smearing liars and thugs are somehow brilliant.

Maybe I'm wrong, but this just looks like asshole torturers with some "thing" against Islam who felt they had a blank check down in the legal no-man's-land of Gitmo to do whatever necessary to demoralize or demean their captives. It wouldn't surprise me if the higher-ups even suggested or explicitly recommended this kind of thing.

Of course, having issues with religion in general, I'd bet that the "people" who did this are also of one of this country's predominant religions, and that this had some factor in it too. (Of course, that's all conjecture on my part, but I'll betcha they're not agnostics...)

The ham-handed quashing of this from the Pentagon is no act of skill, and to simultaneously name the Pentagon guy disputing it while Newsweek swears up and down that there was no pressure is idiotic, transparent and embarrassing.

If the theory is that this can be planted, then blown open in order to discredit Newsweek, I just have to say that these schmucks aren't that good. Now putting the screws on them after they'd had the gall to publish something embarrassing to the saintly U.S. of A. and clumsily trying to cover their tracks, THAT'S plausible.

Remember, too, that Don Rumsfeld thinks he's president, and there's quite a rift and power struggle between the Pentagon and the White House. He's famous for sticking his nose into foreign policy with memos suggesting what we should be doing in the foreign sphere, and he's definitely enough of a dick to try to take down a magazine.

Exploiting an opportunity, sure, but PLANNING this? Nah, I don't buy it.