The Toilets in Cuba Aren’t Better Than Ours

[thedrifter]

The Toilets in Cuba Aren’t Better Than Ours

May 16, 2005


by Frank Salvato


Having read Michael Isikoff and John Berry’s May 9 th article in Newsweek magazine I was forced to come to a conclusion: Cuban toilets were much better than those in the United States. But, with Newsweek’s retraction of Isikoff and Barry’s ‘Quran flushing story’ it would appear that Kohler is safe, at least for now.

You may ask me how I could have possibly come to the conclusion that Cuban toilet artisans were superior to their American counterparts, what with the travel ban to Cuba and all. My conclusion was based in common sense and deductive reasoning.

In Isikoff and Berry’s article they cited an anonymous source as stating that interrogators at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay flushed an entire Quran down the toilet. They did this, the anonymous source said, in an attempt to shake the will of the suspected terrorists so as to gain information on other terrorists and their potential plots.

As I sat reading this allegation it dawned on me, the toilets in Cuba must be incredible. I mean, here in the United States all one has to do is use too much toilet paper and the toilets clog. In Europe – which I have traveled more than once – the toilets are much the same as they are here, able to handle about the same amount of “payload.” Can you imagine the power of a flush that could transport an entire Quran through the pipes? And we thought we had great water pressure!

The thought of American toilet superiority being vanquished by Cuba’s weighed heavily on my mind. So, I conducted an experiment.

I took a magazine. For the purposes of my experiment I chose a Newsweek magazine. I then tried to flush the Newsweek magazine down my American-made toilet. That was a mistake!

I then conducted a second experiment. I enlisted the help of a 3-year old and instructed him to start flushing things down my toilet. My able assistant and I categorized the objects by size and charted our toilet’s performance.

Let me suggest to you that the biggest object you can get down the toilet before it clogs is considerably less than something the size of a Quran.

All kidding aside, it is unconscionable for “reporters” to unleash such inflammatory accusations based on anonymous sources. Those in the mainstream media have abused the privilege of the “anonymous source” for far too long. Read Jayson Blair’s unscrupulous fiction written prior to his book deal or the discredited writings of Maureen Dowd and Al Franken to understand why real, named sources should be required before articles such as Isikoff and Berry’s are allowed to be published.

There is an assertion that requiring the names of sources would have allowed Watergate, Travel-gate and Monica-gate to go unreported, that without the use of anonymous sources many others who would engage in illegal and sordid events would be given free-rein.

There is also the argument that the anonymous source is a valuable tool for the mainstream media in their quest to hold our elected officials accountable.

In the past these contentions may have had a leg to stand on. Today they do not.

Today the offerings of the mainstream media have become something that yesterday’s real journalists would abhor. Stories are slanted by ideology and disguised as the truth. Reporters regularly insert their opinions into the news and entire publications have been caught using skewed opinion polls to bolster their editorial pages. Succinctly stated, the mainstream media has become lazy and cannot be trusted not to abuse the anonymous source to promote their ideological or greed based agendas.

The wire services have reported that in Afghanistan at least 16 people have been killed and over 100 injured in rioting that was in most part provoked predominantly by Isikoff and Berry’s Newsweek article. There have also been reports that 300 Muslim clerics in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan are threatening to call for yet another jihad against the US if those responsible for “desecrating” the Quran are not “handed over to an Islamic country for punishment.” It seems that in the eyes of radical Islamists the false allegations originating from an anonymous source are enough to kill and go to war over.

Meanwhile, Newsweek has retracted the article by Isikoff and Berry. They have issued an apology “to the victims of deadly Muslim protests sparked by the article.”

Newsweek’s editor, Mark Whitaker said the magazine inaccurately reported that US military investigators had confirmed that personnel at the detention facility in Cuba had flushed the Quran down the toilet and issued this innocuous apology:

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst."

Isikoff and Berry’s Newsweek article caused 16 deaths and over 100 injuries. Their reporting can be classified in one of two ways; either as proactive in committing an act of media activism by tailoring a story to their agenda driven needs or as a deadly piece of propaganda legitimized by its publication in Newsweek. Either way, Isikoff and Berry – and to a certain extent Newsweek – should be held accountable for the 16 deaths in Afghanistan. This time an apology just won’t do.

As for your toilet, if your 3-year old is finished trying to flush “Tinky Winky” down, and if your plumbing has survived, grab your Newsweek and have yourself a “sit-down.” Just be sure to keep a plunger handy, just in case your toilet gets clogged with an “anonymous source.”

Related Reading:

Gitmo: SouthCom Showdown

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7693014/site/newsweek/

Newsweek Says It Erred in Koran Desecration Report

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050515/ts_nm/religion_afghan_newsweek_dc

Pentagon: No Abuse of Koran, Afghan Protests Unrelated

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-05-12-voa74.cfm

Times Panel Proposes Steps to Build Credibility

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/business/media/09paper.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1116180022-MCPL6NWvxWKAx2o9mIpxmQ

Koran flushing not confirmed

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050512-111805-5936r.htm

Clerics threaten holy war over alleged Quran desecrations

http://us.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/15/afghan.protests.reut/index.html


Frank Salvato

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Newsweek Backtracks As Anger Spreads Over Koran Claim <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
By Patrick Goodenough <br />
CNSNews.com International Editor <br />
May...

[thedrifter]

Newsweek Backtracks As Anger Spreads Over Koran Claim
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deadly Mistake
By Paul Marshall
National Review Online
May 16, 2005

The shakily sourced May 9 Newsweek report that interrogators had desecrated a Koran at Guantanamo Bay is likely to do more damage to the U.S. than the Abu Ghraib prison scandals. What is also deeply disturbing is that the journalists who put the report out seem somewhat clueless about this reality.

Since the story was published there has been outrage and mayhem in much of the Muslim world. Demonstrations erupted in Pakistan after Imran Khan, a former cricket player and now opposition political figure, read sections from the article at a press conference.

Riots broke out throughout Afghanistan, mobs attacked government and aid-organization offices, and 15 people have died so far. Anti-American demonstrations have taken took place from north Africa to Indonesia.

Sheikh Sayed Tantawi, the head of Al-Azhar in Cairo, the major center of Sunni learning, called the purported desecration "a great crime," while Egypt's mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, called it "an unforgivable crime" and "aggression" on Islam's "sacred values." The Gulf Cooperation Council, a set of American allies, called for the "harshest punishment" so that "the dignity of Muslims" could be preserved. Officials in Gaza and Iran also waded in.

This weekend, Abdul Fatah Fayeq, the senior judicial figure in Afghanistan's Badakhshan Province, read out a statement from 300 Muslim clerics stating that President Bush should hand the culprits over to an Islamic country for punishment or else "we will launch a jihad against America."

Meanwhile, in the face of Pentagon denials, Newsweek has begun backtracking. Newsweek seemed to have had doubts about the report from the beginning, since they ran it not as a straight news story but as a squiblet in the "Periscope" section. Now, in the May 23 issue, editor Mark Whitaker admits that their sourcing was suspect and stated "we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst." In the same issue, Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas is more forthright, asking "How did NEWSWEEK get its facts wrong?"

Equally disturbing is the fact that Newsweek reporters seemed to have little idea how explosive such a story would be. While noting that, to Muslims, desecrating the Koran "is especially heinous," Thomas looks for explanations, including "extremist agitators," of why protest and rioting spread throughout the world, and maintains that it was at Imram Khan's press conference that "the spark was apparently lit." He confesses that after "so many gruesome reports of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, the vehemence of feeling around this case came as something of a surprise."

What planet do these people live on that they are surprised by something so entirely predictable? Anybody with a little knowledge could have told them it was likely that people would die as a result of the article. Remember Salman Rushdie?

The spark was lit not by Imram Khan but by Newsweek itself on May 9 when apparently none of its reporters or editors was aware of the effect such a story would have. There seems to have been nobody there that knew that death is the penalty for desecrating a Koran in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Egypt is milder, there one would be sentenced to several years in prison under Article 161 of the penal code for "publicly insulting Islam," or perhaps Article 98, "inciting sectarian strife"; similar patterns are followed in more moderate Muslim countries.

In Pakistan, Article 295-B of the penal code calls for life imprisonment for desecrating the Koran or any extract from it. Last September, mentally handicapped Shahbaz Masih was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment, convicted of tearing up some leaflets that contained verses from the Koran. In 2003, the same judge sentenced Ranjha Masih (no relation) to life in prison for allegedly throwing a stone at a Muslim signboard with a Koranic verse on it during a bishop's funeral procession. Dozens of other Pakistanis have met similar fates.

In all of these countries, the greatest danger is not from the courts, but from vigilantes and mobs. In Pakistan in 1997, Shantinagar, a Christian town of some 10,000 people, was burned to the ground after a man there was accused of tearing pages from a Koran. In the Netherlands last fall, the documentary producer Theo Van Gogh was butchered after he produced a documentary Submission featuring Koranic verses on women's bodies.

Even if Newsweek publishes a full retraction, the damage is done. Much of the Muslim world will regard it merely as a cover-up and feel reconfirmed in the view that America is at war with Islam. It will undercut the U.S., including in Afghanistan and Iraq, far more than Abu Ghraib did. "We can understand torturing prisoners, no matter how repulsive" Newsweek quotes one Pakistani saying, "But insulting the Qur'an is like torturing all Muslims."

It would be charitable to think that if Newsweek had known how explosive the story was it may have held off until it had more confirmation. If this is true, it is an indication that the media's widespread failure to pay careful attention to the complexities of religion not only misleads us about domestic and international affairs but also gets people killed.

- Paul Marshall is senior fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom and editor of the just released Radical Islam's Rules: the Worldwide Spread of Extreme Sharia Law.

Ellie

[Osotogary]

Call me insensitive, call me what you want but I'm thinking that if someone took my Bible and reportedly (wether true or not) flushed it down the toilet would the worlds Christians be so upset as to riot, slay or harm others who are not Christian? Please...give me a break! The answer is H no!! Is the prisoner/detainee/whatever , who's Koran was reportedly flushed down the toilet, still alive, fed and clothed? Are there not other Korans available to share? In the history of mankind has there not been one instance where a Koran was misplaced, moved or lost by the owner? Did riots follow? I think not.
Phooey! This is just another bogus excuse to commit murder and mayhem and blame it on someone else and under the guise of religion.

In addition to the above.
If I was a good organizer and had a base support of like minded prisoners/detainees/whatever and I knew that I could play the "religion card" to what appeared to be a subservient and sympathetic media, I guess you could say that some folks, when hearing of my plight, would raise some sort of stink about it. I would imagine that the most that would happen would be that I would have another Bible sent, delivered or snuck in to me.

Bible flushing is not newsworthy and wouldn't even raise a eyebrow let alone create a murderous evironment.

[thedrifter]

Newsweek Lied, People Died
Satire by Steve Kellmeyer

In an unexpected turn of events, Newsweek has revealed their recent story concerning false allegetions that military interrogators flushed the Koran down a toilet was actually funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

“I’ve always loved Andres Serrano,” said one of the interrogators, “In fact, he personally taught me how to fill a urine cup. I had one of his autographed cups gilded. It’s on my mantelpiece today. I figure it’s worth maybe a quarter million.”

Serrano, well-known for his marvelous artistic work, “**** Christ,” which submerged a crucifix into a jar of his own urine, applauded his student’s work. “Well, of course people died!” he replied in response to this reporter’s queries, “That’s the essence of art. That’s what I love about the Arab street Moslems have the hearts of artists. What I’ve been teaching for years is that we need to ascend to a radically new level of performance art and now we’re beginning to get there.”

Accomplished artist Chris Ofili agreed. Ofili is well-known for his spectacular rendition of the Holy Virgin Mary, which represents her exposed breast as a ball of elephant dung, and replaces the angels that traditionally crowd around her with cut-outs of human buttocks.

“The problem with American Catholics is they don’t understand art. They look at this work of mine, they see it, and what do they do? They write letters of protest! I mean, is that it? That’s all?? I’m trying to provoke a real involvement in society, maybe a riot, maybe some arson, and all I get is letters and a couple of white folk carrying signs.”

“I was really in a funk about that for a long time.” Ofili continued, “I had just about given up on America. But then this happens! Newsweek reporters are my kind of people. The NEA drops a dime on one of my students and Newsweek was there to play this into a big happening. I wish I could have been in Afghanistan to see the blood flow!”

German anatomist and chemist Gunther von Hagens was also highly enthusiastic about the Newsweek work. Hagens, who calls himself the Plastinator, takes dead human bodies, peels away the skin, extracts all water and fat and injects them with silicone and other polymers, and then presents them, flayed for better viewing, in various states of dismemberment. This exhibit has toured art museums internationally.

“What I want to do now is get those corpses, plastinate them, and continue Newsweek’s work,” said Hagens. “The problem is, we didn’t get enough bodies. I’m working with reporters at Newsweek, Time and CBS right now to finish another grant proposal to the NEA. Flushing the Koran was a good first step, but it’s time to move on. We’re proposing one of those suicide bombers detonate himself near the Ka’aba.”

The Ka’aba is the holiest site in Islam, a meteorite which has been at the center of Arab worship since well before Mohammed.

“Take out the Ka’aba and the Moslems will go NUTS! That should get us the kind of body count that today’s art demands. In fact,” Hagens added, “we don’t even have to take it out. We just publish an article saying that Bush has targeted it for destruction. Everybody who reads our stuff already has the vision of Bush that we want them to have. It will be easy!”

“This is what art is all about,” enthused an NEA board member, “Art builds on reality. When we first saw the Newsweek proposal to invent a story about desecrating the Koran, I have to say I was not very excited. In America, we have desecrated everything we could think of and it never got us more than a few nasty notes from some ignorant hotheads.”

“We have been striving to evoke the 60’s again, to bring back the riots, the smell of tear gas, the rubber bullets. All of this is an important part of American culture. It’s hard to believe, but many young people today have literally never run down the street with their clothes on fire from an exploding smoke grenade.”

Other NEA members agreed, “Americans are too willing to take anything we dish out. Every bit of artwork we’ve funded, from ripping apart children in the womb to paying off judges to hijack the Constitution, it doesn’t matter. Nothing works anymore. We needed to find people with backbone, people who would stand up to us so we could laugh as we crushed them. We can’t get Americans to riot anymore.”

“Oh, sure, killing Schiavo was fun,” added another, “and we don’t regret a dime of the money we spent on our best up-and-coming artists, men like George Felos and Judge Greer, but that was a one-time thing. The NEA has finally found a way to take performance art worldwide. We’re done with wrapping islands in plastic. Let’s start wrapping the Koran in dog vomit!”

Steve Kellmeyer

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Newsweek: 'Sorry For The Murders But It Was Really Bush's Fault' <br />
<br />
by Sher Zieve <br />
<br />
We knew it would happen. I just didn’t think it would be this soon. Newsweek, in a thinly-veiled allusion to its...

[thedrifter]

Seeking sanity in the asylum Kathleen Parker
May 18, 2005

Reaction to an inaccurate Newsweek report that led recently to rioting and death in Afghanistan suggests that hysteria is, indeed, contagious.

To briefly recap, Newsweek reported in a small blurb (May 9) that American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a Koran down a toilet in attempts to get Muslim terror suspects to talk. Once the Newsweek story was broadcast abroad, the usually reticent hate-America crowd erupted in mass pique. Havoc ensued. At least 15 Afghans died and many more were injured.

All because of a story that may not have been true. The "knowledgeable U.S. government source" who told Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and John Barry about the flushing apparently wasn't so knowledgeable. At the risk of seeming insensitive, may I suggest that c'est la guerre, and urge everyone to follow Dr. Lamaze's always-useful advice: Breathe deeply and focus.

What we need here is a little perspective.

First, we all can agree that flushing a Koran down a toilet, if physically possible, would be both insensitive and rude, though Westerners generally have a higher tolerance threshold for such offenses. Put it this way: You could flush a Bible down the toilet in front of Goober in Kabul, and it's unlikely that Mayberry suddenly would be awash in blood.

Without disrespecting true believers of Islam, one also could debate the relative miseries of seeing our favorite scripture disappear into the plumbing versus, say, watching airplanes fly into buildings, killing thousands of innocents. Remember, these are terrorist suspects captured after 9/11, not kidnapped members of an Afghan boys choir.

The apparent Newsweek mistake was regrettable, but we should beware allowing ourselves to mirror the emotional reactions of people who were by no measure justified in their response - even if the story had been proven true. The same people foaming over a reported act of blasphemy didn't flinch while executing women for stepping outside sans burqa. I'm afraid my moral outrage in favor of the morally outrageous is all tapped out.

While the world was reacting in righteous indignation to the Newsweek report, another story was circulating about Turkish women in Germany being executed by family members in "honor killings" sanctioned by certain interpretations of the Koran. Their offense? Acting like Western women. Or, in the pithy words of a 14-year-old Turkish boy who was justifying an execution: "The ***** lived like a German."

Before the good Muslim world objects, let me assert what shouldn't need saying: Islam isn't the problem here. The problem is ignorance and the right-wing Islamist faction that will use the Koran for its purposes, whether to incite a riot or murder a woman who refuses to wear her headscarf. The enemy is extremism.

I have no interest either in defending Newsweek or in justifying interrogators' methods, but let's be blunt: Those rampaging in Afghanistan didn't need a reason to riot; they needed an excuse. That the media provided one is regrettable, but that regret needs to be tempered by perspective and objectivity.

Instead, much of the anger the past several days has been directed not at the Islamist extremists who went berserk, but at the reporters who apparently got the story wrong. What if they'd been right? Should Newsweek not have reported it? Would the riots have been justified if someone had flushed a Koran?

We might debate those questions, but meanwhile, we should resist the urge to overreact as some have in suggesting that the press should be restricted or stifled. Although imperfect, a free press is one of our nation's highest expressions of freedom and the thing that separates us from the same right-wing, authoritarian, extremist forces that we condemn. Yet, an alarming number of Americans, their faith in journalists damaged by recent scandals, have lost sight of the meaning and importance of a free press.

A recent University of Connecticut survey found, for example, that only 14 percent of respondents knew that freedom of the press was part of the First Amendment. Only 55 percent of those surveyed strongly agreed that newspapers should be allowed "to publish freely without government approval of a story." Now there's a finding to warm the cockles of a Taliban heart.

Once we start asking government permission to publish, we become partners in propaganda and cohorts of authoritarianism. Far better to risk mistakes - and even riots from the lunatic fringe - than to forfeit the right to question authority.

Mistakes will be made, but freedom means living to say, "I'm sorry."

Ellie

[Sgted]

Yeah.....I'm insulted and angry also.
I want to riot and kill innocent people because, on a daily basis the American flag is desicrated, disrespected and burned in countries that teach the Koran.
It's no secret that there are those who make up these stories in an effort to create anti-American sentiment.
And the world listens and raises an angry fist at us.

[thedrifter]

Newsweek Retracts Koran Desecration Story
By Robert Paul Reyes

"The pen is mightier than the sword."

Words have the power to heal and comfort, but they also have the power to destroy and cause pain.

Those of us with a platform to reach others with our editorials and speeches, must carefully weigh each word we speak or write.

A couple of years ago the Rev. Jerry Falwell labeled the Prophet Mohammed a "terrorist"; the minister's inflammatory remarks sparked outrage among Muslims around the world and set of riots in India that left eight dead.

Jerry Falwell continues to make insensitive and intolerant statements; as a result he is not taken seriously by anyone who values truth, morality and good judgement.

In its May 9 issue Newsweek reported that American interrogators at Guantanamo put copies of the Koran on toilets and in one case, flushed one down a toilet. This report sparked anti-American riots in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia that resulted in several deaths.

Newsweek relied on only one anonymous source; this reputable publication did not properly vet this story. Newsweek has apologized and retracted the story.

But the damage has been done -- radical Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan have seized on the Newsweek article to incite hated against the United States.

Jerry Falwell makes an incredibly outrageous statement one week and then the next he will blame 911 on homosexuals or label Tinky Winky a gay radical.

Newsweek needs to prove that it has more credibility than Jerry Falwell by making sure it doesn't publish any more false stories. This fine publication shouldn't rely on just one source for any story, especially for a controversial report that can have such serious consequences.

I'm not going to cancel my subscription to Newsweek, I have faith that the writers and editors of Newsweek will do a better job of researching their reports.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

May 18, 2005 / 9 Iyar, 5765

It’s not just Newsweek

By Michelle Malkin

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | If you want to hear an earful, ask an American soldier how he feels about our news media. You will invariably hear an outpouring of dismay and outrage over antagonistic and reckless reporting. I have stacks of letters and e-mails from soldiers and their families sharing those frustrations. During the Vietnam War, such sentiments would get packed away private hurts to be silently borne for decades.

But today the Internet has allowed soldiers on the front to disseminate their viewsbreaking through the media's entrenched anti-military bias— in unprecedented ways. In the wake of Newsweek's publication of its unsourced, mayhem-inducing, and now-retracted item about Koran desecration by U.S. military interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, a sergeant in Saudi Arabia immediately responded on a blog called The Anchoress (theanchoressonline.com):

I have placed my life and the life of my fellow soldiers in danger in order to achieve a measure of the freedoms we enjoy at home for the Iraqi and Afghani people. As soldiers, we all understand that we may be asked to participate in wars (actions) that we (or our countrymen) don't agree with. The irresponsible journalism being practiced by organizations such as Newsweek, however, [is] just inexcusable. At this point, because of their actions and failure to follow up on a claim of that magnitude, they've set the process back in Afghanistan immensely…

I don't regret serving my country, not one bit, but to have everything I'm doing here undermined by irresponsible journalists leaves me disgusted and disappointed.


Military bloggers across the Web this week echoed the sergeant's disgust with American journalism. And it's not just Newsweek.

It's the New York Times and CBS News and the overkill over abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. It's the Boston Globe publishing porn photos passed off by an anti-war city counselor as proof that American G.I.'s were raping Iraqi women.

It's the constant editorial drumbeat of "quagmire, quagmire, quagmire."

It's the mainstream media's bogus reporting on the military's failure to stop purported "massive" looting of Iraqi antiquities.

It's the hyping of stories like the military's purported failure to stop looting of explosives al Qaa Qaa right before the 2004 presidential election stories that have since dropped off the face of the earth.

It's the persistent use of euphemisms "insurgents," "hostage-takers," "activists," "militants," "fighters" to describe the terrorist head-choppers and suicide bombers trying to kill American soldiers and civilians alike. It's the knee-jerk caricature of American generals as intolerant anachronisms. It's the portrayal of honest mistakes in battle as premeditated murders.

It's the propagandistic rumor-mongering spread by sympathizers of Italy's Giuliana Sgrena and former CNN executive Eason Jordan about American soldiers targeting and/or murdering journalists.

It's the glorification of military deserters, who bask in the glow of unquestioning and largely uncorroborated print and broadcast profiles.

And it's the lesser-known insults, too, such as the fraudulent manipulation of Marine recruits by Harper's magazine. In March, the liberal publication plastered a photo of seven recruits at Parris Island, S.C., under the headline, "AWOL in America: When Desertion Is the Only Option." None of the recruits is a deserter. When some expressed outrage over the deception, the magazine initially shrugged.

"We are decorating pages," sniffed Giulia Melucci, the magazine's vice president for public relations to the St. Petersburg Times.

As Ralph Hansen, associate professor of journalism at West Virginia University and a rare member of academia with his head screwed on straight, observed: "Portraying honorable soldiers as deserters is clearly inappropriate. And I don't see any way Harper's could claim that they weren't portraying the young Marines as deserters. A cover is more than just art. I think that someone had a great idea for a cover illustration and forgot that he or she was dealing with images of real people."

The members of our military are more than just an expedient means to a titillating magazine cover or juicy scoop or Peabody Award. Too often since the "War on Terror" was declared, eager Bush-bashing journalists have forgotten that the troops are real people who face real threats and real bloodshed as a consequence of loose lips and keyboards.

It's not just Newsweek that needs to learn that lesson.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Worse than its error: Newsweek put soldiers at risk By JOHN CARLSON
DES MOINES REGISTER COLUMNIST
May 18, 2005

I was moaning about the latest debacle in my occasionally honorable profession, when my friend shrugged and said he didn't care.

Say again?

"I don't care."

I turned a bit snappish and suggested he just might be interested if he had a son or daughter serving in the American military in Afghanistan. After all, the bull's-eyes on their foreheads have suddenly become more inviting targets thanks to an apparently bogus few paragraphs that showed up in Newsweek magazine a couple of weeks ago.

"I'm not saying I don't care about the soldiers," my friend said. "I'm saying I don't care about the news media."

He mumbled something about not believing us a good part of the time. We're sloppy, he said, and he doesn't trust our motives when it comes to politics and foreign affairs.

No offense, he said. It's just the way things are.

Hey, no offense taken. At least not this week.

Our brief discussion related to the Newsweek report of a supposed investigation of alleged prisoner abuse by U.S. military guards at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The magazine quoted "sources" as saying, "Interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Quran down a toilet. . ."

The story was noticed by a politician in Pakistan, who called a press conference to accuse that country's leaders of conspiring with America in some sort of anti-Islam cabal.

Word spread to Saudi Arabia, where the Shoura Council - a parliament of sorts - said the alleged Quran desecration is part of a world-wide attack on Muslims.

Outraged clerics in Afghanistan are threatening a holy war against the United States.

In the meantime, 17 people were killed and more than 100 injured as thousands rioted in Afghanistan.

In other words, all hell broke loose in the Muslim world because of a few words in Newsweek.

Then all hell broke out here, because Newsweek's brief report collapsed. The magazine couldn't confirm the flushing incident was true. The "source" apparently was wrong. No such investigation occurred, and there is no investigative report. Just a big misunderstanding.

It seems the reporter talked to some unidentified person at the Pentagon, who said part of what the magazine was preparing for publication was incorrect. So that information was pulled.

The magazine said the flushing part of the article remained because the source - whoever it was - didn't say it was wrong.

So, Newsweek took a non-comment as confirmation. Not a good move, because it appears the incident didn't happen.

Newsweek's top editor apologized, saying everybody at the magazine feels awful about the whole thing.

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst," Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the current issue of the magazine.

Whitaker sort of admitted the specific information was wrong. At the same time, his people weren't denying it might be true. It was one of those confusing CBS News-esque non-apology apologies.

That held for a few hours, until just before the network news shows went on the air Monday evening, and the magazine issued a full retraction. Speculation here is this came immediately after a senior staff meeting, when somebody asked if anybody had seen Dan Rather lately.

Why does any of it matter?

Well, other than the riots, there are all those American soldiers in Afghanistan.

What? You'd forgotten about them?

There are 17,000 members of the U.S. military there, as well as a bunch of American civilians who are trying to help build a country.

Iraq gets most of the attention these days, so it's easy to forget our people in Afghanistan.

They're in the prayers of a few thousand Iowans every day, because more than 700 Iowa National Guard soldiers have been in Afghanistan the past 12 months.

It is the largest Iowa Guard unit to be mobilized since World War II.

It can be very nasty duty for the soldiers, who are based out of armories in 22 Iowa communities.

They've been shot at and ambushed and have dodged mines.

Some of those soldiers were riding in a convoy last November when it was hit with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire.

Spc. James C. Kearney III, a 22-year-old soldier from Emerson, was killed in the attack. Two other Iowans in his vehicle were wounded.

The unit is scheduled to return to Iowa in a couple of weeks, and that's not soon enough as far as they're concerned.

Brig. Gen. Mark Zirkelbach, deputy adjutant general of the Iowa Army National Guard, returned from a visit with the soldiers a couple of weeks ago.

He said the Iowa troops are based around Afghanistan, providing security for civil affairs and reconstruction efforts.

"One of the things they've done for months and months is to take school supplies to areas where they're working," Zirkelbach said. "The soldiers are trying to build a trust relationship with the people there. All that work has been set back because of this Newsweek thing."

Newsweek's Whitaker conceded in a television interview Monday night that even though there have been other allegations of "Quran abuse" by American guards, his magazine's report set off the rioting.

". . .Ours was the match that lit a fire," he said.

It's sad thousands of American soldiers are in the path of the flames.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Newsweek 's Isikoff/Barry: A Twosome of Treasonous Twits May 19, 2005
by Bob Newman

Last year, Newsweek called and asked if I would be willing to sit for an extended interview with the magazine on guerrilla warfare (someone there had read my book Guerrillas in the Mist: A Battlefield Guide to Clandestine Warfare). I had my doubts about Newsweek and the little voice in my brain-housing group said, "Don't do it, man. These guys have integrity and ethics issues," but I acquiesced as a public service. The article was published-complete with mistakes made by the reporter-in the magazine's World Wide Web edition.

That was a mistake. I should have listened to that little voice. Mais c'est la vie et c'est la guerre.

Newsweek 's Michael Isikoff and John Barry published a bogus story-now retracted after 17 Muslims were killed in riots caused by the story-in the May 9 th 2005 edition of the magazine claiming to have high-level government "sources" that told them a copy of the Qu'ran had been tossed into a toilet by interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to elicit a reaction from a Muslim prisoner. After the totally unverified story ran and people began dying, Newsweek was forced to admit that these two "journalists" had failed to vet the story and that their so-called "sources" could not or would not verify claims made in the article.

However, despite the deaths, damage to our efforts in the war on terror, and the magazine virtually admitting in writing the story that it had illegally acquired classified intelligence, the leftists who run the rag are, as of today (May 18 2005), insisting that no one at the magazine will be held responsible for the results of the fatally fraudulent piece.

In other words, Newsweek's executives feel that Isikoff and Barry's jobs are far, far more important than the lives of 17 or so Third World camel jockeys. And so what if their fake story harmed our efforts to win the war on terror? I mean, after all, American military and intelligence personnel are simply right-wing government lackeys who like to bayonet babies and blow up villages filled with women and children, right? Newsweek has made it very clear that harming the Bush Administration, aiding the terrorists by giving them more reasons to hate America and selling magazines easily outweighs the lives of most people.

Isikoff and Barry claimed that they had "sources" (plural, mind you) who told them about the alleged Qu-ran incident and also about a detainee being led around with a "collar and dog leash." Naturally, they didn't name that source, which means either (1) the sources knew they were illegally releasing classified information and Newsweek wanted to protect their identities or (2) there never were any sources, i.e., in an attempt to sell more magazines and get a leg up on Time, Isikoff and Barry simply invented the story. I'll let you decide which one to believe.

Newsweek says the article was written in "good faith," which is a ludicrous claim given the facts. This piece was penned with malicious intent, pure and simple. Freshman-level journalism students are taught to independently verify information before running it as news. Isikoff and Barry refused to do this and knew or should have known what the result would be in the Islamic world. That's the very definition of malice in my book and is plain evidence of a classic absence of ethics among two infamous "journalists."

This brings up the question of the media knowingly and willingly illegally acquiring classified intelligence and then publishing it. The mere act of acquiring it is a felony, of course, and publishing it could easily be taken as treason (aiding the enemy) during time of war, yet we see the media do this with astonishing frequency and the government refuses to arrest those who admit they committed a felony.

Why? Why is it that when a news outlet or "journalist" admits to have knowingly and willingly received classified stolen intelligence, they are not immediately arrested, their computers and files seized and their offices sealed for the duration of the investigation?

Why has it become chic and trendy in the war on terror to aid the enemy, when during World War II such acts would have been unthinkable to most reporters and would have been dealt with severely had a reporter gone over to the other side?

Self-centered media types unable to see the big picture say that committing such felonies is protected under the 1 st Amendment. Funny, but I've read the 1 st Amendment hundreds of times and nowhere in it does it say that.

So which is more important: the ability of a "journalist" to get people killed by abusing the 1 st Amendment, or winning the war on terror while keeping as many American military and intelligence personnel alive as possible?

The USA Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act should be brought to bear upon media outlets and "journalists" who knowingly and willingly put American military and intelligence personnel in mortal danger by receiving and disseminating classified intelligence. The FBI should be using wire taps, reading the emails of, and otherwise monitoring media members who have admitted to or who are suspected of illegally receiving classified intelligence.

I've broken dozens of stories in the war on terror and made dozens more accurate assessments and predictions in the war on terror. If the FBI wanted to know how I am able to do this, all they would have to do is ask if they can read my emails, listen to my phone calls, etc. I would say they certainly could because protecting my country is more important to me than my privacy. This is heresy to the likes of Isikoff and Barry, of course, who would pale at the suggestion that the survival of America and her citizens is more important than their journalism careers.

A listener emailed me and suggested that since the liberal media is all for a federal mandatory waiting period for someone who wants to exercise his or her 2 nd Amendment rights and buy a firearm, that perhaps we should have a waiting period before someone would be allowed to exercise their 1 st Amendment rights. After all, it now painfully clear that words can kill just as efficiently as guns can kill.

Isikoff and Barry's act killed people. Should or will they be held in some way accountable for their act?

They should, but they likely won't, at least to the degree they should be. In fact, just as Dan Rather recently received a Peabody Award despite his scandalous Rathergate debacle, these two clowns might very well be rewarded for their perilous, deadly acts.

And that's just fine with many liberals.

Ellie

[USMCgrunt0331]

I'm in Guantonamo Bay now, and our toilets aint no bigger than back in the states, lol.

[thedrifter]

l-Ja-Newsweek

May 19, 2005
by Dustin Hawkins

If big media were trying to win back their credibility, this was not their week. But thanks to Newsweek’s crack reporting and rigorous fact checking, militant fanatics found the time to declare their 8,456th holy war against the infidels since January. At least there are now more official holy wars than there are holy warriors.

The fairytale lacked the energy and effort that most anti-American hit pieces require. The fabricated story goes like this: A mysterious western interrogator flushed an entire copy of the Qur’an down the toilet, sending Guantanamo detainees into a state of sadness. If true, how bad can it really be? Up until last year these prisoners did not even know what a toilet was.

But the repercussions were grand. Newsweek’s own retraction stated that “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… which left at least 15 Afghans dead and scores injured.” So, Newsweek publishes the false story, Middle Eastern papers pick up and run with the false story throwing accusations at the US Military, and riots break out as a result of the story. Hey, thanks for the retraction though!

To their credit, at least Al-Ja-Newsweek didn’t hold onto the story for days on end, claiming that though the source was bad, the news was true. A total of one source “confirmed” the original story, though the source later said he could not remember where he had heard about the story.

Other “news” creators have been more imaginative. Dan Rather reported on the long lost National Guard records that mysteriously appeared after decades, and just in time for a Presidential election. Kitty Kelley was at least creative enough to write an entire book of fantastical fiction. And when Kitty goes into full detail about cocaine addictions, you get the sense she knows what she is talking about.

Even if the story had been true it barely enters the category of either news or interesting. If we can’t even torture the people who want to see Americans slaughtered in the streets the least we can do is throw a little psychological discomfort their way. After all, the point is to get information from them. The surest way not to get information from terrorists is to put them up in a 5-Star hotel, send them a public defender, and wait for them to confess wildly to their evilness in the courtroom like during the finale of an episode of Matlock. But thanks for the offer, ACLU.

But the news organization lied, started a riot, and put more innocent American and Middle Eastern lives in danger. But for all the comfort that can be given, Newsweek is going to get to the bottom of this. (Meanwhile, CBS is still searching for George Bush’s pay stubs and OJ is still looking for the killer.)

This incident is just one more stain on Big Media’s dirty sheets, and surely one that won’t slow them down. Journalists will always claim that their job is to report the news, not to choose sides. But something has to give when the “news” always seems to stimulate the enemy and demoralize Americans. Stories such as the Abu Ghraib prison fiasco and the soldier who shot a threatening enemy stay on the front page for weeks. Pleas of the kidnapped are replayed dozens of times on television stations. But Islamo-fascists can burn down a church with small children and gas a small village and it barely makes page 17B.

Treasonous journalists play friendly with the enemy so they don’t wind up on the top of the jihadist hit list. What tells a bigger story is often what the Big Media refuses to report, not what it does report (or fabricate, or imagine, etc.). A few months ago, CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan resigned after stating that American soldiers were purposely targeting journalists in Iraq. If that were the case, we might actually be getting the news from them, fair and balanced.

Dustin Hawkins


Ellie

[thedrifter]

05.19.2005 <br />
<br />
A Tale of Two Major Gaffes <br />
<br />
By Michael S. Woodson <br />
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What does Newsweek magazine's response to its flushing-of-the-Koran story have in common with the Pentagon's response to its...

[hrscowboy]

screw them mussies i use the Koran in my outhouse everyday just rip out a few pages and wipe....