See what Buzzflash dug up? re: Newsweek Quran story

[newsguyatl]

Afghan Riots Not Tied to Report on Quran Handling, General Says
Army investigating allegations of mishandling at Guantanamo Bay facility

By Jacquelyn S. Porth
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington – The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says a report from Afghanistan suggests that rioting in Jalalabad on May 11 was not necessarily connected to press reports that the Quran might have been desecrated in the presence of Muslim prisoners held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Air Force General Richard Myers told reporters at the Pentagon May 12 that he has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else.

According to initial reports, the situation in Jalalabad began on May 10 with peaceful student protests reacting to a report in Newsweek magazine that U.S. military interrogators questioning Muslim detainees at the Guantanamo detention center “had placed Quran s on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book.” By the following day the protests in the city had turned violent with reports of several individuals killed, dozens wounded, and widespread looting of government, diplomatic and nongovernmental assets.

However, Myers said an after-action report provided by U.S. Army Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, commander of the Combined Forces in Afghanistan, indicated that the political violence was not, in fact, connected to the magazine report.

... more
http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive/2005/May/13-299433.html

[imax2268]

1. so...

in other words...

They are spinning the story because it could very well be true...

[Dinger]

2. Thank You Newsguyatl!

You're beautiful!

[Carolab]

3. AH HA!!! FIVE DAYS ago Myers OFFICIALLY denies NW report caused riots

ON a GOVERNMENT website, no less!!!

SEND THIS TO THE MEDIA!!!

Good find!

[Dinger]

6. Hi Buddy - I Know It's You! : )

How ya doin'?

[Carolab]

7. Not so hot. I'm thinking our country is screwed.

How are you?

[Dinger]

14. Pretty Damn Good

I'm fine. Heard from Grinchy lately? :grouphug:

[Carolab]

16. Grinchy?

Not familiar with Grinchy. Maybe you have me mixed up with someone else?

[Catherine Vincent]

4. I think that's what the situation is.

Those protests could be for something else and not the Quoran desecretion story.

[KoKo]

5. Good....cracks in Military support for the Chimp...strike back! n/t

[librechik]

8. your mistake: Assuming any of this has anything to do with facts!

crap, if we could have made a dent with facts against these liars, a lot of dear people would not be dead right now.

Go ahead, throw this fact at Hannity and see how far it bounces back.

(not singling you out--I too have a vestigial love for facts and justice that just won't go away no matter how many times I drown it in the bathtub--we are just SOOOOOooo screwed!)

[parasim]

9. Not only that, check out what the Washington Times had to say...

We're talking the Washington Times, that repub Moonie rag...

Analysis: Cause and effect -- another look at Newsweek

By Pamela Hess

-snip

However, similar charges were made in public by Thomas Wilner, a Washington, D.C., attorney with Shearman and Sterling who is representing 11 Guantanamo detainees from Kuwait in a lawsuit against the government. Wilner told reporters in February on a conference call that U.S. forces abused the prisoners, beating them with chains, sodomizing them, delivering electrical shocks, shaving Christian crosses into their body hair, and throwing their Korans in the toilet.

The difference between the Newsweek report and the Wilner allegations, carried by Reuters News Service and others, is the erroneous Pentagon confirmation of the Koran desecration.

But nothing happened in February related to the graphic charges, and for two days after the Newsweek report hit the streets, there was little reaction.

On May 6, however, a Pakistani political figure and former cricket star, Imran Khan, held a news conference and denounced the report. Khan is known as a sincere defender of Pakistan and one who has advocated a more moderate form of Islam than that embraced by Islamic fundamentalists. Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said May 8 the government was "deeply dismayed" by the reported Koran desecration. Pakistan's parliament the following day called on the government to condemn the United States.

-snip

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050516-055138-7186r.htm

[imax2268]

11. that's just fucked up...

I'm smelling that Newsweek was set up...and now the twits in the white house are feuling the fire...!

[atommom]

10. kick in honor of the truth

(not that most of the public will ever see it!)

[dweller]

12. where's the TRUTH?

:kick:

dp

[rndmprsn]

13. well this is the "smoking gun" on this pre-fab story...

bet it'll get as much play as the other smoking gun...downing street memo.

ugh, its hard to be positive after 5-11 and now this...incredible find though, really good work!

[kentuck]

15. They were rioting in Afghanistan and dying in Uzbekistan before...

this story ever broke? Something else is afoot....

[demnan]

17. Newsweek was "Rathered"

[LuPeRcALiO]

19. good one

true, too

[KoKo]

29. kick...

[Al-CIAda]

18. .

[smoogatz]

20. Yup--it's definitely a Rove set-up

A Rathering of the first water. A single bogus source in an otherwise factually true story discredits Newsweek and puts the damper on all MSM reporting about the torture story. Instead of apologizing/retracting, Newsweek should aggressively out the bogus source, and launch an investigation into his/her potential motives. THAT story would lead, eventually, to Rove. Meanwhile, Myers was apparently out of the loop--or got orders to spin clockwise when Rummy et al were spinning the other way.

[Oreo]

21. Media Blast this

I demand a retraction from BUSH. They lied (again). Here's my email:

The administration definitely sent its dogs out yesterday. Now the real journalists (those outside of the US) will jump on the story to bring out the facts that it did happen. The biggest teller that this was an administration ploy to take the heat off of themselves for ___insert most recent atrocity by the adminisitration____ is that the article did not cause the riots.

Here is an article from a US government website which says the Newsweek article was NOT the cause of the riots.
This is another step towards the media bowing down to the administration for good. They once again took every word from Bush and his minions as gospel without looking into things further.

http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive/2005/May/13-299433.html
Afghan Riots Not Tied to Report on Quran Handling, General Says
Army investigating allegations of mishandling at Guantanamo Bay facility





By Jacquelyn S. Porth
Washington File Staff Writer



Washington – The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says a report from Afghanistan suggests that rioting in Jalalabad on May 11 was not necessarily connected to press reports that the Quran might have been desecrated in the presence of Muslim prisoners held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Air Force General Richard Myers told reporters at the Pentagon May 12 that he has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else.

According to initial reports, the situation in Jalalabad began on May 10 with peaceful student protests reacting to a report in Newsweek magazine that U.S. military interrogators questioning Muslim detainees at the Guantanamo detention center “had placed Quran s on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book.” By the following day the protests in the city had turned violent with reports of several individuals killed, dozens wounded, and widespread looting of government, diplomatic and nongovernmental assets.

[scdusek]

22. This totally wreaks of Krazy Karl Rove.

You have got to be kidding me...for us to believe that those riots are the result of a Newsweek article that hasn't even been published yet? Not to mention that the Pentagon received an advance copy 25 days ago and did not dispute any of the facts? Please.

[Cugel the Clever]

23. Stunning Stupidity

OK, assuming that Myers is correct and the riots were in reaction to local political issues and not some blurb in a foreign news rag, who then is responsible for blowing up the story of Koran-flushing? Newsweek or the White House?

Now that the Newsweek story has been trumpeted far and wide as "false", it will certainly inspire the kind of hatred that our government would, ostensibly, wish to avoid. Needless to say, to any foreigner predisposed to suspicion of US motives, a denial is the same as an admission. Proven liars can't and shouldn't be expected to suddenly spout the truth.

The prudent path for the White House would have been to play dumb, a strategy that has protected them well in the past (Abu Graib, Iraq, 911, etc). By jumping out there and trying to Rather-Rape Newsweek, BushCo has planted the image of the Koran swirling down the sewer in the minds of that many more millions of Muslims (alliteration overload!)

[DirtyDawg]

24. These guys need to get...

...their act together. Didn't anybody let Gen Myers in on the deal? Hell, somebody knew that the rovemeister was conjuring up a 'how can we lay this off on the Liberal media?' - ala Rathergate - plan. So why didn't they just tell the Pentagon to 'lay low' for a few days? Because they don't really give a shit about the 'troops', General officers on down, that's why. Myers was just too quick to throw himself on the grenade. Sorta like all the coordination that used to accompany Tom Ridge's and John Ashcroft's Alphonse and Gaston approaches to calling for color coded terrorist alerts.

I used to think these guys were just lucky, but no more. They are absolutely the most devious, and skilled, manipulators of the news, and the desired public reaction to it, that have ever run the country.

[Nothing Without Hope]

25. See General Myers' statement in this Keith Olbermann VIDEO CLIP

It's an honest coverage of the Newsweek/Koran desecration situation, airing May 16:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3668859
Thread title: “Olbermann: an honest report on the Newsweek retraction - (VIDEO)”

Keith Olbermann's blog entry from last night has more on this and is not to be missed. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7873141/#050516b
Olbermann's language in this blog entry is strong; he is clearly deeply outraged. He calls for Scott McClellan's resignation.

In the blog entry, Olbermann cites a DOD transcript (http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2005/tr20050512-secdef2761.html) for the general's statements on the cause of the violence. He is very careful to source everything he says. And no wonder - this is real journalism, and that is a dangerous occupation these days.

Truth-speaking like this will not be tolerated for long by the neofascists in the White House and their corporate and Fristian enablers. But until it is suppressed (there are already plans afoot for moving Olbermann from prime time), it is to be cherished.

[Nothing Without Hope]

26. See also this other DU thread of collected Quran defilement stories:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3669550
Thread title: “Stories of Korans tossed into Gitmo toilets as early as **March 2003**”

[Nothing Without Hope]

27. Olbermann points out that the primary reporter on the Newsweek story

has helped the GOP in the past. Olbermann doesn't suggest in this blog entry that the article was a setup from the first, but I do have to wonder if this might be true. After all, not only is Isikoff a proven friend to the right wing, he also chose a source that COULD be questioned, whilie others have reported Koran desecration stories as well. Here's part of this MUST-READ Olbermann blog entry;

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7873141/#050516b
(snip)

Newsweek’s version of this story has varied from the others over the last two years - ones in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, and British and Russian news organizations - only in that it quoted a government source who now says he didn’t have firsthand knowledge of whether or not the investigation took place (oops, sorry, shoulda mentioned that, buh-bye). All of its other government connections - the ones past which it ran the story - have gone from saying nothing like ‘don’t print this, it ain’t true’ or ‘don’t print this, it may be true but it’ll start riots,’ to looking slightly confused and symbolically saying ‘Newsweek? Newsweek who?’

Whatever I smell comes from this odd sequence of events: Newsweek gets blasted by the White House, apologizes over the weekend but doesn't retract its story. Then McClellan offers his Journalism 101 outdoor seminar and blasts the magazine further. Finally, just before 5 PM Monday, the Dan Rather drama replaying itself in its collective corporate mind, Newsweek retracts.

(snip)

...{T}he principal reporter on the Gitmo story was Michael Isikoff - “Spikey” in a different lifetime; Linda Tripp’s favorite journalist, and one of the ten people most responsible (intentionally or otherwise) for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Spikey isn’t just a hero to the Right - the Right owes him.

(snip)

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

28. wow

thanks newsguyatl :hi: