Posted on 05/16/2005 1:15:52 PM PDT by ambrose
Newsweek backtracks on Koran claims
Roland Watson, Washington
May 17, 2005
THE incendiary account of US interrogators flushing a copy of the Koran down a toilet at Guantanamo Bay may not, after all, be true, the magazine behind the claim has said.
A report in last week's Newsweek sparked riots in Afghanistan that spread across the Muslim world, leading to the deaths of at least 14 people and injuries to more than 120.
But the magazine backtracks in this week's edition. "We regret that we got any part of our story wrong and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in its midst," its editor, Mark Whitaker writes.
The article last week said the claims about the Koran, which previously had been aired by other news organisations, would be validated by an inquiry report into the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. It was based on conversations with a senior American official who said he had seen mention of the Koran incident in the report.
However, on checking with the source since publication, Newsweek said the official no longer could be sure that he had remembered correctly.
When told of Newsweek's new stance, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita raged: "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said."
The Pentagon has been under mounting pressure to get to the bottom of the allegations as anti-American riots spread from Gaza to Kabul to Jakarta. The allegations also drew an angry official protest from Saudi Arabia, one of the US's most crucial allies in the Islamic world.
Yesterday alone, officials or Islamic leaders in Bangladesh, Lebanon and Egypt condemned the desecration of the Koran and called for the US to take action.
The episode has threatened to give Washington its biggest headache overseas since the prisoner-abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib and has provided a target for anti-US sentiments.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was forced to declare that mistreatment of the Koran was "abhorrent" to right-thinking Americans.
Despite Newsweek's about-turn, the Pentagon has yet to state officially that no mistreatment of the Koran by interrogators took place at Guantanamo Bay, where the US has held 600 detainees in legal limbo for more than three years. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers said no evidence had yet been found to support the claims.
Such allegations have been raised before Newsweek's report. A lawyer for some Guantanamo inmates has blamed the attempted suicide of 23 of them in August 2003 on a US guard stamping on the Koran.
>>US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was forced to declare that mistreatment of the Koran was "abhorrent" to right-thinking Americans.<<
Well gee. Apparently Ms. Rice really IS a politician.
I guess I am "left thinking" in her book.
*****
Your thinking seems also flawed!
It cost nothing NOT to antagonized your neightbor in the world....but than you I don't think you will ever get it!
I heard someone (Tony Snow?) mention this morning that the 'other news organisations' were Al Jazeera and some Russian outfit. No more or less credibility there than with the mainstream news in this country any more.
Yeah, I hear you. It's been in foreign papes for a year or so.
I knew about this stuff wayyyyy before Newsweak, but I wouldn't incite a riot over it....
>>It cost nothing NOT to antagonized your neightbor in the world....but than you I don't think you will ever get it!<<
You are right of course. I like to call a spade a spade and let the chips fall where they may.
I was the little boy who shouted that "the emperor has no clothes."
Even if the moo-slimes don't treat the Bible with respect, its not a blasphemy punishable by death in any Christian religion that I know of.
But then maybe we just aren't nuanced enough to understand the Religion of Peace.
It's been reported in the telegraph (.co.uk) and some other foreign media (.au sites) for over a year. Just hasn't cropped up in the USMSM.
To me, its grosser to smear menstrual blood on someone, but that's just me.
Nothing to see here, move along...
Oh, you know--it's not the truth of the charges but the seriousness of the allegations, blah, blah, blah...
--Turk 182
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
Michael Isikoff
Born: c. 1952
Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Journalist
Level of fame: Niche
Executive summary: Newsweek reporter
http://www.nndb.com/people/859/000043730/
This Isikoff?
You can't unring a bell. Newsweak isn't going to paywhere near the price this country as a whole will. This is on a par with Abu Ghraib in the muslim world.
It's been reported in the telegraph (.co.uk) and some other foreign media (.au sites) for over a year. Just hasn't cropped up in the USMSM.
To me, its grosser to smear menstrual blood on someone, but that's just me...
This would be like trying to answer the old "are you still beating your wife" question.
Bah, double post. Sorry!
Pal, for those who are devout, The Book is holy.
It is late here now. Actually early morning. Im gonna grab some sleep, but tomorrow Im going to completely expose this entire drama of carefully exploited events.
You can't bring back a loved one due to a reporter having his head up his arse, but you can make the be-aches pay BIG TIME in court based on the violence this false story generated. So much for, "what liberal media bias" because they are killing our soldiers with their lying venomous anti American words.
Any state deparment Blame America firster can be cited for any anti-american story as an anonymous source. Isn't the Lib media grand!
And it's Americans who are supposed to be the reactionaries.
These people who riot and kill over nonsense like this are the ones the media is always telling us are more sophisticated than us hillbilly Americans.
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