Posted on 05/14/2005 11:00:15 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Newsweek has blood on its hands.
Sixteen Afghans have been killed and about 100 injured since violent anti-US protest erupted on Wednesday over a report in Newsweek magazine that U.S. military interrogators at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba may have desecrated the Koran.
Newsweek reported in its May 9 edition that military investigators had confirmed allegations by FBI agents on detainee abuse, including an incident in which at least one Koran was thrown into a toilet.
Video footage of angry bearded mullahs brandishing posters saying "death to America'' and "punish the culprits'' was shown today on the Pakistani television. The footage showed demonstrators protesting the desecration of the Koran in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and in Karachi, Lahore and Quetta after Friday prayers. U.S. President George W. Bush was burned in effigy, along with U.S. flags, the television stations reported. The stations also said the lower house of Pakistan's parliament passed a resolution unanimously condemning the desecration of the Koran and demanding that the perpetrators be brought to justice.
General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said Thursday, that while an investigation found one case in which a detainee clogged a toilet with pages ripped from the Koran, as well as times when detainees were irritated when guards touched Korans, no cases of Americans putting a Koran in a toilet had been found.
What is wrong with the liberals at Newsweek? They printed a rumor, reported from anonymous sources as fact. And people died.
On May 13th, military sources said that FBI agents made no such allegations as the ones reported by Newsweek and that the military did not look into Koran desecration. The whole story was made up out of whole cloth.
In Newsweek's eagerness to print anything that will harm the administration, these fools also harmed the country. Lending credence to this rumor has only strengthened the hands of our enemies, fanatics and and those who would undermined US efforts to build democracy. This behavior is criminal. People died.
And the story is out of control. The AP reports that, "investigators probing abuses at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay found that interrogators had placed Korans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet." At the same time, The Washington Post reports that, "Some Muslims detained at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have complained that U.S. soldiers dumped their Korans into the toilet." Those two stories, by two supposedly responsible news organizations are at odds with each other. One story reports the source as investigators, while the other sources detainees. It seems that no news organization has any facts but they are all giving legs to this rumor. Meanwhile, people die.
If Newsweek has evidence that the rumored events they reported as fact occurred, it is incumbent upon them to produce their evidence. Newsweek must name their sources and present their bona fides. Or, is it Newsweek policy to print any rumor from any source without presenting evidence or facts to substantiate these rumors?
Anybody can say anything. That doesn't make it true. But there are consequences. In this case, people died and Newsweek has their blood on its hands.
Link to Forbes.com article
http://www.forbes.com/finance/feeds/afx/2005/05/12/afx2024482.html
Newsweak prints lies many people dies. Where is J.E. Hoover when you need him.
I think he goes by the name of Clinton and Ried now.
Reid...sorry, it's late.
This would assume that Newsweek was a responsible publication. Printing rumors as fact (as long as they fit your bias of the day) is entirely within bounds for liberal publications. They'll throw anybody under the bus as long as it accomplishes their objectives.
.......but I LOVE your attitude.....and your comments! Great tagline. Thanks for your contribution to this thread. You are quite right. The liberal media will "throw anybody under the bus as long as it accomplishes their objectives."
....and their objectives here, including Isikoff, were to see if they could generate another "Abu Ghraib"-type scandal which that bloated walrus, Ted Kennedy, could then hold forth and pontificate about on the floor of the Senate. It is utterly infuriating.
This was totally rumor-based. No facts. No corroboration. Just a thin, baseless story which - as it turns out - happened to come from a true fact; - namely that one of these towel heads down in Gitmo was flushing pages of his own copy of the Koran down the toilet, as an act of sabotage. Maybe he didn't like his lunch that day. Not enough meat in the stew, or some such complaint.
Char
Imteresting how the memory works. I recall back in the 60's a pundit of the day commented that he didn't want to be around when this "Silent Majority" came for the loud mouth libs. Personally, I long for the day and pray for a good seat on the front row.
There is always a need for investigative journalism to report failures, but the MSM are destroying their own credibility as watchdogs by so eagerly following false leads that point to what THEY WANT to report.
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