Posted on 05/15/2005 10:31:22 AM PDT by Pikamax
May 23 issue - Did a report in NEWSWEEK set off a wave of deadly anti-American riots in Afghanistan? That's what numerous news accounts suggested last week as angry Afghans took to the streets to protest reports, linked to us, that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Qur'an while interrogating Muslim terror suspects. We were as alarmed as anyone to hear of the violence, which left at least 15 Afghans dead and scores injured. But I think it's important for the public to know exactly what we reported, why, and how subsequent events unfolded.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
This is very dangerous reporting as we have found out over the week-end. The riots and the killings all over a stupid miss-guided news article.
We all know what happened to Dan Rather.
I don't know how Newsweek is going to get out from under this now since so many have been killed over this.
I heard on Fox this morning that "they" are screaming that Newsweek needs to go before a trial and charged for murder. 
Do you think these jerks even care?
1. Most in the media consider soldiers to be a bunch of idiots anyway.
2. Most journalists hate Bush and still can't get over the fact that despite 85% of them; the American public "LIKES HIM" and voted for him.
3. For a buck most Journalists will sell their mothers soul.
4. The media likes it’s “scandals”. As a really good journalist once told me (He really was a good one), “Without conflict, there is no story.”
Do you really think Newsweek or the writer of the story gave any thought about the consequences? But I assure you he did think "This scandal will make me Mr. Big-Time". Even without all the facts, even with it unsubstantiated, he probably heard something somewhere from someone who he can’t reveal. The details like “Is this true?” were probably never looked into very hard.
Do you think Newsweek going back on the story, or revising it was done voluntarily or to head off a legal suite? Their thought was probably: "Hmmmmm, we got caught with our pants down, how do we fade this into the grey, or make it fuzzy enough so they can't come after us?"
Newsweek don't give a dam about the fall out! They probably already have a whole legal team working the issue, insuring their precious money, made with this bogus story, is safe.
Nice BLOG.
Red6
That really is the point, but we have become so acclimated to media irresponsibility cloaked by bogus first amendment claims that we've lost any sense of outrage.
On second thought, calling it irresponsible is a bit bland. Subversive is a better term. Deliberate sabotage even better.
The question now is, having seen how easily the ummah can be provoked into a blood-lust frenzy, can the MSM resist a repeat performance down the road? I doubt it.
Newsweek attacks the 2nd Amendment all the time, yet an article they ran has killed more people than anyone with a gun could possibly do.
I read it here, and don't recall the original source that the post cited.
Reading around a little bit, I find that the Islamic tendency to resort to violence was incited by an amplification of Newsweek's paragraph.
Although the original report in Newsweek was small, it was re-broadcast by television networks such as al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya and in Pakistan it was quoted by Imran Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician, at a press conference. He said it would strengthen the impression that America's War on Terror was against Muslims.Ahhh - here is a source for the "prisoner did it" version. It was Gen. Myers, citing Gen. Craddock and a written log entry. I'm sure many Muslims would NEVER believe a story that a true Muslim would desecrate the Koran. A report of that would also be taken as an excuse to riot, as the infidels were printing lies.Newsweek sparks global riots with one paragraph on Koran - By Catherine Philp - May 14, 2005
Gen. Myers told reporters in Washington that Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, the head of U.S. Southern Command, has "been in Guantanamo for the last couple of days digging into this issue to see if there was a time when the Koran was not respected."ANd finally, here is an opinion piece that blames the Muslims for rioting, and belittles the State Department for appeasement."They have looked through the logs, the interrogation logs, and they cannot confirm yet that there was ever the case of the toilet incident," Gen. Myers said.
He did note "a log entry, which they still have to confirm, where a detainee was reported by a guard to be ripping pages out of a Koran and putting them in a toilet to stop it up as a protest," he said. "But not where the U.S. did it."
Koran flushing not confirmed - Guy Taylor - Wash. Times - May 13, 2005
MIM: As was to be expected, an investigation proved that no incidents of Korans being put on or into toilets had ever taken place at Gitmo. The last two days are a case study in conspiracy and mass hysteria in the Muslim world, and illustrate the profound gap between the Muslim world and the West. As of today the death tolls stand at 7 people who were killed in riots after the story was circulated that American guards at Guatanamo Bay had 'desecrated' the Koran by flushing it into a toilet.The absurdity of the charge, which would have resulted in plumbing problems, and been technically impossible, was never raised. Instead, US officials showed abject dhimmitude and squirmed while decrying the (unproven) mistreatment of what they called "The Holy Koran". Now that the truth, has emerged, namely that a Muslim prisoner is reported to have put pages of the Koran in a toilet to clog it , the state department and military have been more worried about appeasing Muslim rage instead of agressively asserting the facts. As a result of this dhimmitude protests have spread to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Gaza.Indeed, it looks like the beginning of a world wide Jihad - sparked by a Muslim who put the pages of his Koran in an American surpervised toilet at Gitmo in what can only be termed - the filth and the fury.
He was an incredible little wussy, spoke in a most weak, tentative and unconvincing tone. He had the frozen, scared expression of a weasel caught in the headlights.
As Colonel Hunt put it a few minutes later "it was a half-assed apology"....and it was.
Congrats to Rivera for getting the exclusive on this guy's televised statement. Fox viewers were able to get a rare look at a behind-the-scenes media perp.
We tend to think of media titans as strong, powerful, well-spoken individuals. Listening to this honcho is proof that some of them are weak, cowardly and lying bastados. They obviously hate the country that makes them wealthy......and they hate the military that protects them.
This guy made me want to hurl....and I'm not alone. I never saw Colonel Hunt so angry and glowering as he was last night right after he heard the Newsweakling's weaseling statement.
Leni
With this kind of agenda-driven laziness and incompetence, the sooner the lamstream press withers away and dies, the better. We don't need 'Rat-party hacks posing as reliable sources of information. Better to have "alternate media" than lying, ideological "traditional" media.
Emmett Till case
Could you refresh my memory on this? Thanks.
Question: Does Al-Jazeera print the same stories in Arabic?
The rioters killed those innocents. Sure as the bully beats up the person who taunts him.
What you seem to be advocating is a whole lotta appeasement, based on the fact that Muslims all over the world are hot and bothered against Western civilization in general, and American interests in particular.
What Newsweek did was despicable too. Newsweek needs to apologize to the America for trying to blacken its eye. The rioters need to be taken to the justice shed for their physical actions.
does the first amendment protect SLANDER?
No..and...yes. But it would have to be proved in court that newsweek knew this story was wrong and ran with it anyway.
"Sullivan V NY Times"
The rioters killed those innocents.
But who provoked them?
Is there stores there to loot?
Editors@newsweek.com:
Dear Newsweek Editors,
So Newsweek ran with an unverified story from a single source, got 16 people killed and over 100 injured with massive PR damage to the USA?
How are you going to compensate the victims and their families? Newsweek lied and people died!
Even Dan Rather didn't go that far to make Bush look bad.
Henry Norris
Raleigh, NC USA
Actually, the Muslims will probably continue to believe it no matter what, because they WANT to believe it. Now that Newsweek has done this, no retraction in the world is going to make them drop this. They are ignorant people manipulated by power-crazed fanatics.
However, I think Newsweek should suffer for this grossly negligent act, and should have to apologize and pay some kind of compensation. That's the only thing that might make them think twice next time.
Al Jazeera. Everybody knows what Newsweek prints is half truth. It is irresponsible to repeat it, and irresponsible to believe it (tongue half in cheek).
I try to make clear in my posts that I think the error in Newsweek's report is indefensible, BTW. So are the rioter's actions.
Good observation. This is a cabal of immense size, power... and alligned with the DNC.... POWER!
Maybe the liberals just wanted the "Arab" street to finally rise up, as they have predicted all along, but never saw happen? Then they could "report" that Bush's WOT is failing because the lunatics don't love us anymore.
Just as the liberals have cast the Islamic cults as victims in Israel for 40 years, they are now in the process of casting Saddam and Sons as innocent victims of the US.
Very transparent, and the same old play-book.
The underlying theme that Newsweek is trying to perpetrate is that (some) Americans disrespect the Muslim religion and Muslims, and more particularly, that some of these are in positions of official power.
Is that theme accurate? Are there military people, guards, soldiers, etc. who disrespect the Muslim religion and Muslims? If so, the rioting Muslim masses will feel self-justified in their action.
Turn it around. Are there Muslims that disresepct the Christian religion and Christians? I see a religios war, and IMO, it was started by the Muslims.
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