The Newsweek Backtrack: Did the Right Win a Game of Chicken?

by SusanHu
Sun May 15th, 2005 at 18:14:44 PDT

UPDATES below fold:

The pressure on Newsweek is intense. The rightwing machine descended, blaming its report for riots in Afghanistan, Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan and Indonesia. Even a UK newspaper headlined Newsweek's guilt for the global riots. What did Newsweek print?

"May 9 - Investigators probing interrogation abuses at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay have confirmed some infractions alleged in internal FBI e-mails that surfaced late last year. Among the previously unreported cases, sources tell NEWSWEEK: interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet and led a detainee around with a collar and dog leash."

But today we see this:

Newsweek magazine backed away Sunday from a report that U.S. interrogators desecrated copies of the Quran [at] Guantanamo ... (CNN)

Even the Pentagon pins the blame on Newsweek:

Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita blamed Newsweek's report for the unrest in Muslim countries. "People are dying. They are burning American flags. Our forces are in danger."

There are major problems with the blame-Newsweek tack

: More below :

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Update [2005-5-16 17:23:13 by SusanHu]:

Flash: MSNBC says that, moments ago, Newsweek officially retracted the story.

How a Fire Broke Out | The Editor's Desk

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Note: SEE BELOW UPDATE on White House response. Scroll to "Newsweek Needs To Do More Than Apologize, White House Says."

Also see earlier updates re WaPo at end of diary, and new quote from another blog, who hijacked our country, and Juan Cole.

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The major problems with the blame-Newsweek tack:

1. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, in a U.S. State Dept.-issued press release on May 12, said the Newsweek story isn't a chief cause of the riots: " [H]e has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else."

2. I've found four reports -- with more easily found -- to back up Newsweek's sources on the desecration of Korans belonging to Guantanamo detainees.

The four instances I found:

A. From The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 20, 2005:

Lawyers allege abuse of 12 at Guantanamo

By Frank Davies
Inquirer Washington Bureau

[.......................]

Some detainees complained of religious humiliation, saying guards had defaced their copies of the Koran and, in one case, had thrown it in a toilet, said Kristine Huskey [an attorney in Washington, D.C.], who interviewed clients late last month. Others said that pills were hidden in their food and that people came to their cells claiming to be their attorneys, to gain information.

"All have been physically abused, and, however you define the term, the treatment of these men crossed the line," [attorney Tom] Wilner said. "There was torture, make no mistake about it." ...

B. From the Center for Constitutional Rights, New York City, NY and linked as a footnote in a Human Rights Watch report:

72.They were never given prayer mats and initially they didn't get a Koran. When the Korans were provided, they were kicked and thrown about by the guards and on occasion thrown in the buckets used for the toilets. This kept happening. When it happened it was always said to be an accident but it was a recurrent theme.

C. From the Center for Constitutional Rights, New York City, NY and linked as a footnote in a Human Rights Watch report:

7

4. Asif says that `it was impossible to pray because initially we did not know the direction to pray, but also given that we couldn't move and the harassment from the guards, it was simply not feasible. The behaviour of the guards towards our religious practices as well as the Koran was also, in my view, designed to cause us as much distress as possible. They would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet and generally disrespect it. It is clear to me that the conditions in our cells and our general treatment were designed by the officers in charge of the interrogation process to "soften us up"'.

D. From the Center for Constitutional Rights, New York City, NY and linked as a footnote in a Human Rights Watch report:

Statement of Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed, "Detention in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay," released publicly on August 4, 2004, para. 72, 74, available online at: http://www.ccr- ny.org/v2/reports/docs/
Gitmo=compositestatementFINAL23july04.pdf,
accessed on August 19, 2004. The disrespect of the Koran by guards at Camp X-Ray was one of the factors prompting a hunger strike. Ibid., para. 111-117.

There are more. This should suffice for now.

I see this incident this way: Newsweek has good sources for its allegations, but has backed off because it finds itself in a dicey, ill-founded public relations nightmare.

Newsweek has foresaken journalism to save what it perceives as its own hide.

I hope you'll all speak up, amplify, and point out areas where we might look further:

I will repeat the inflammatory headlines I found at rightwing blogs yesterday:

Newsweek sparks global riots with one paragraph on Koran
-- Timesonline UK

RoP Riots Over Newsweek Article
-- Little Green Footballs

299 Words from Newsweek ... have yielded death in the streets of Kabul.
-- Roger L. Simon

More on Newsweek's Riots
-- Sisyphean Musings

Following all this, and surely some pressure from the Pentagon -- since a Pentagon spokesperson (see above the fold) has blamed Newsweek for the riots, Newsweek began a hasty retreat.

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SEE ALSO: Bernhard's excellent diary, "Newsweek's Non-retraction Retraction.

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Front-paged at BooTrib.

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Update [2005-5-16 14:18:27 by SusanHu]:

Newsweek Needs To Do More Than Apologize, White House Says

POSTED: 6:33 pm EDT May 15, 2005
UPDATED: 12:18 pm EDT May 16, 2005

NEW YORK -- Newsweek's apology for its story about Quran abuse at Guantanamo is not adequate, says a White House spokesman.

Newsweek is extending its sympathies to the victims of the violence in Afghanistan that left 15 people dead in anti-U.S. protests prompted by a story in the news weekly claiming that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay prison had desecrated Islam’s holy book, the Quran.

But White House Press Secretary said Newsweek needs to do more.

“While Newsweek now acknowledges that they got the facts wrong, they refuse to retract the story," McClellan said. "I think there's a certain journalistic standard that should be met. In this instance it was not. The report has had serious consequences. People have lost their lives.”

NBC

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Update [2005-5-16 0:14:51 by SusanHu]:

The tale of two stories at the Washington Post:

"British Intelligence Warned of Iraq War"
By Walter Pincus
May 13, 2005
-- Page A18 --

"Newsweek Apologizes: Inaccurate Report on Koran Led to Riot"
By Howard Kurtz
May 16, 2005
-- Page A01 --

Which story is more important to the Washington Post?

Which story is more important for the American people and our country?

Bill Moyers is correct. The MSM is beyond hope.

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Update [2005-5-16 9:36:46 by SusanHu]:

The Who Hijacked Our Country blog makes perceptive remarks about the extremists:

Newsweek is starting to hedge its bet and "qualify" its story. But these allegations have been leaking out since last Spring. And they go hand in hand with some of the other abuses and tortures committed by U.S. soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

Extremists on both sides are milking this for every last drop. Radical Islamic leaders are using it to fan the flames and turn the protests into riots. And here in the U.S., the Far Right wingnuts have found another hot-button issue to get themselves worked up over.

Right wing pundits and bloggers are in their tightest lockstep formation since the Terri Schiavo case. And what are they all chanting in unison? It’s Newsweek’s fault. Newsweek caused these riots! Duuhhh!!!

It figures. Last year when the Abu Ghraib tortures were first publicized, rightwing Neanderthals were up in arms. Were they furious that some inbred prison guards were violating the Geneva Convention and putting other American soldiers at risk? Nope. They were furious at the media for airing the story.

And you remember last Fall, when a soldier in Iraq asked Rumsfeld about their substandard equipment, and Rumsfeld gave his famous response of “you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had.” According to the Chicken Hawks on the Far Right, the main issue was that the soldier’s question had been prompted by a reporter. So what if our soldiers are getting killed because of inferior armor — by God, a reporter snuck in there and planted this question just to embarrass Rumsfeld.

So once again, like a stampeding herd of cattle, the right wing bloggerbots are off and running. Look out; don’t get trampled. Here comes one now; and here's another one. And yet another one. Don’t worry, there're plenty of others, but after awhile one stampeding head of cattle looks pretty much like the rest of them.

So these protests and riots were all caused by a magazine article?!? These right wing dildos have such a clear grasp of cause and effect, they probably think rain is caused by wet sidewalks.

[Emphasis mine. - Susanhu]