Newsweek takes the heat for military smoke screen

[existential1]

Has anyone been paying attention to the news lately about the Newsweek story that started those protests in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan? Apparently Newsweek reported that an officer at Guentanomo shredded a copy of the Koran and threw it in the toilet. News of this sparked the protests in the aforementioned countries, which then caused police to kill several protesters. Now however, Newsweek is being asked to appologize for the story and admit that these accusations were false, because a military investigation reported it to be false :angry: . Are we to believe after everything thats happened with Abu Gharib that the military can honestly investigate itself? <_< And, is the military&#39;s disrespect for the muslim culture really anything new? How can anyone believe a goddamn thing they say?

[redstar2000]

The logic of the situation suggests to me that someone high up in the White House telephoned the publisher of Newsweek and told them bluntly: retract or we put you out of business&#33;

And Newsweek caved...because, it is, after all, in business to make money, not to "publish the truth without fear or favor".

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2005, 01:12 PM
Has anyone been paying attention to the news lately about the Newsweek story that started those protests in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan? Apparently Newsweek reported that an officer at Guentanomo shredded a copy of the Koran and threw it in the toilet. News of this sparked the protests in the aforementioned countries, which then caused police to kill several protesters. Now however, Newsweek is being asked to appologize for the story and admit that these accusations were false, because a military investigation reported it to be false :angry: . Are we to believe after everything thats happened with Abu Gharib that the military can honestly investigate itself? <_< And, is the military&#39;s disrespect for the muslim culture really anything new? How can anyone believe a goddamn thing they say?
First, the Newsweek article did not spark the rebellions in Afghanistan. I highly doubt all of those Afghans sat down with their morning cup of coffee to read the European edition of Newsweek and saw the one line -- printed in English no less&#33; -- that mentioned the desecration. As the U.S. military acknowledged when it was happening, the rebellions were a result of tensions between the people of Afghanistan and the Karzai government over corruption and cronyism.

Second, the Pentagon signed off on the story. The editors of Newsweek vetted the article with senior military brass in Washington before printing it. The magazine only made one mistake in its reporting: it said that the allegations would be in a report issued by the Southern Command (SouthCom), as opposed to the Central Command (CentCom), which is the command responsible for Afghanistan and Iraq.

Third, this is not the first time that such allegations have surfaced. Reports by the International Red Cross, numerous NGOs and even the Pentagon itself have published similar allegations of desecration of Muslim symbols to break down the resistance of the detainees. In fact, there was an organized protest by detainees at Guantanamo over this treatment last year.

Miles

[Severian]

I doubt any threats were necessary. The publishers of Newsweek are...patriotic Americans, they would probably put it.

So was their source in the military, who Newsweek says recanted.

Bourgeois critics of the Bush administration leak and publish this stuff to try to alter its policies...not to give ammo to adversaries of U.S. imperialism.

There&#39;s certainly plenty of reason to think Koran desecration was indeed part of interrogations at Guantanamo.

A brief antiwar.com piece linking numerous earlier articles on Koran desecration at Guantanamo. (http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=5959)

The International Committee of the Red Cross says (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000928846) it has reported such interrogation tactics on a number of occasions. Incidentally, the ICRC rarely makes this kind of official public statement on prison conditions; they want to be invited back by the jailers.

It&#39;s funny what kinds of things happen to spark protests, isn&#39;t it? This, rather than say prisoners being beaten to death on Bagram Air Force base. Ya never know. The first Palestinian intifada was sparked by a traffic accident.

But this story could never have sparked these protests except that large numbers of people were predisposed to believe it. And they had numerous good reasons to believe Uncle Sam would do something like this.

[Guerrilla22]

The Bush adm. and the pentagon seem to think that the Newsweek article was the sole reason for those riots. I&#39;m sure people in Afghanistan are reading Newsweek.

Also I believe the report to be correct. The writer had two sources, untill one of the sources backe doff his claims only after the riots strarted.