Turning Newsweek into Snewzweek

Poking around for an analysis of the Newsweek Periscope piece on Gitmo interrogators allegedly flushing copies of the Koran down the toilet in order to demoralize prisoners, and the subsequent fueling of fundamental fires by Al Jazeera, Pakistan's government and others that exploded into the riots in Afghanistan, I found SusanHu's entry at DailyKos. Here, laid out for all to see, is the confused, after-the-fact attempt to knock down the story by the same folks who brought you the abuse at Abu Ghraib, the secret "renditions" in third countries of prisoners, and the smearing of fake menstrual blood by female soldiers in order to both entice and dehumanize prisoners.

Hu's piece links to General Myers' statement directly contradicting Newsweek's effect on the Afghan situation:

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Afghan Riots Not Tied to Report on Quran Handling, General Says

Army investigating allegations of mishandling at Guantanamo Bay facility

By Jacquelyn S. Porth
Washington File Staff Writer


Washington – The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says a report from Afghanistan suggests that rioting in Jalalabad on May 11 was not necessarily connected to press reports that the Quran might have been desecrated in the presence of Muslim prisoners held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Air Force General Richard Myers told reporters at the Pentagon May 12 that he has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else.

[from USINFO.STATE.GOV]

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So how is it that days and days went by before anyone challenged Newsweek's story? Isn't it a little bit strange that the trusted source backed down only after pressure had been applied by both government and media competitors? And how nakedly Putin-like do you have to be in order to stand before the press, as Mr. Scotty did, and basically tell Newsweek what they need to write in order to make BoyGeorge happy? It not only smells fishy, the stink is coming from folks who have no credibility when it comes to playing by the rules with prisoners around the world - our government.

What bothers me most is the fact that Newsweek buckled under the pressure. It's not even a new story. Hu quotes from the Washington Post, giving us a little bit of the back story on Holy Flushing:

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Earlier this year, lawyers representing Kuwaitis held at Guantanamo said their clients told them that military police threw at least one Koran into a toilet. A released Afghan named Ehsannullah told The Washington Post in 2003 that U.S. soldiers taunted him by doing the same thing. Three Britons released last year also said Korans were put into toilets by U.S. guards.

[WPost story by John Mintz, May 14th]

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Maybe The Boy, The Dick, and Dr. Bill would be satisfied if Newsweek put Michael Savage on its cover, with the caption "Mr. Misunderstood" in order to rehabilitate his "reputation" like Time tried to do with Ann Coulter. Newsweek should show some backbone, their source should come forward and tell the truth, and the government should be told to shut up when it comes to "recommending" what ANY news source prints. As for Newsweek's competitors and the cable snewz channels, they've milked their half-baked take on the story until it no longer matters who said what, how the riots came about, and how arrogant and destructive it is for a sitting president's spokesman to tell a news magazine what they should write.

If the past is any teacher, I suspect the Newsweek story and more is probably true. And the only way to draw a line in the sand in this case is to force their source's hand, re-investigate the charges mentioned in the Post and elsewhere, challenge Gen. Myers on his statement pointing away from Newsweek as the cause of the riots, and stand up to this theocratic monolith of a government before what little bit of real news we now get becomes nothing more than a collection of Beltway press releases. Who knows? Maybe we can find some privates and reservists to court martial in an effort to show our "respect" for human dignity - just like we did with Lt. Calley in Vietnam.

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Update, May 27, 2005

From the BBC: Seems the FBI is leaking drop by drop info corroborating Newsweek's story. Who woulda thunk it, huh?

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The White House rounded on the magazine [Newsweek], saying its report had done "lasting damage" to the US image in the Muslim world.

But the FBI documents made public on Wednesday, after a request from the human rights group American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), show that such allegations had been made at Guantanamo Bay.

[from BBC News]

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Update, June 5, 2005

USA Today, reporting on both the Pentagon's and the FBI's investigations into Koran abuse at Gitmo provided this unconfirmed report:

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In one of the unconfirmed cases, a detainee in April 2003 complained to FBI and other interrogators that guards "constantly defile the Koran." The detainee alleged that in one instance a female military guard threw a Koran into a bag of wet towels to anger another detainee, and he also alleged that another guard said the Koran belonged in the toilet and that guards were ordered to do these things.

[from USA Today]

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Quotes from BBC, The Washington Post Co., USA Today, and USAInfo.Gov are assumed to be the property of their appropriate copyright owners, and are used here for contextual purposes only.