News 'Newsweek' retracts Koran desecration story

[russ_watters]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-05-16-newsweek-usat_x.htm

Newsweek magazine formally retracted on Monday a story published last week that said U.S. interrogators of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Koran.

Newsweek's admission of error in publishing the story, which was followed by protests by Muslims around the world and riots that resulted in at least 15 deaths in Afghanistan, came after a day of sharp criticism from the Bush administration.

Honestly - do reporters even consider the ramifications of their actions? Or is everything including, obviously, integrity, and now the value of life itself, secondary to selling magazines/ad space?

I don't want to minimize the deaths caused by this journalistic fraud, but the media's faud, especially lately, appears to be focused on trashing the US. Why is that?

Regardless, this sets a new low - I mean, at least Dan Rather didn't get anyone killed - he just tried to subvert an election. Unbelievable.

 

[plover]

Post Newsweek ergo propter Newsweek?

Newsweek is mostly just being gutless now that the administration is having a hissy fit. Whether or not their particular source knows what he's talking about, the allegation itself isn't news:

Contrary to White House spin, the allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo published by Newsweek on May 9, 2005, are common among ex-prisoners and have been widely reported outside the United States. Several former detainees at the Guantanamo and Bagram prisons have reported instances of their handlers sitting or standing on the Koran, throwing or kicking it in toilets, and urinating on it. Prior to the Newsweek article, the New York Times reported a Guantanamo insider asserting that the commander of the facility was compelled by prisoner protests to address the problem and issue an apology.

One such incident (during which the Koran was allegedly thrown in a pile and stepped on) prompted a hunger strike among Guantanamo detainees in March 2002. Regarding this, the New York Times in a May 1, 2005, article interviewed a former detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, who said the protest ended with a senior officer delivering an apology to the entire camp. And the Times reports: “A former interrogator at Guantanamo, in an interview with the Times, confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans.”

Other earlier reports:

• http://home.btclick.com/caab/Guantanamo.htm
• http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/docs/Gitmo-compositestatementFINAL23july04.pdf (pdf)
• Human Rights Watch, October 2004

On http://www.modernprometheus.com/despectaculis/archives/000757.html:

The Newsweek article doesn't tell us anything new, but it clearly provided a trigger. No one is - or should be - taking "Newsweek as the cause of the riots" at face value. There are other reasons for riots right now. As reported in the article from the Times, upcoming elections are one.

Another - that we ignore at our peril - is the increasing pressure on the drug trade. Two surveys released in April suggest poppy cultivation is way down this year. Karzai's government, strongly supported by the UN, Britain, and the US, has led the reduction efforts, which have included both eradication and alternative economic incentives for farmers.

The province of Nangarhar has been the focal point of these plans. The provincial capital is Jalalabad – the city where the riots began this week.

-----------------

You can be sure that the Pentagon has followed to stories about what goes on in Guantanamo. You might even reasonably expect our military leaders to keep close track of the conditions at a very high – internationally renowned, even - profile prison. Stories about the desecration of the Koran began surfacing in 2003. Yet the investigation begins after there is violence half a world away. Further, the debunking of the story begins within days after it was used to promote riots – and far too soon for an investigation to be complete.

Why does our military always seem to be reacting and not anticipating? What a way to run a war.

-----------------

http://www.careinternational.org.uk/newsroom/media_release.php?id=447 also released a report in April about counter-narcotics strategies. They emphasized the need for long-term and sufficient funding. One of CARE's offices was targeted in the rioting.

An Afghan writer told Radio Free Europe that the riots there may have been manipulated:

... the allegations about the Koran -- though serious in themselves -- were an excuse to cause trouble for Karzai's government.

"Jalalabad has a big population, and this issue is a very sensitive religious issue," Yoon said. "Naturally, people get very excited and emotional when it comes to religious issues. It is possible that some people who had a hand in these demonstrations and organized them were aiming to create violence."

or as http://www.needlenose.com/node?from=15&PHPSESSID=9245cacb73c85500790707adf2556920:

Wait, slow down and let me see if I understand this. You mean to say that people are cynically using religion to manipulate the general public into supporting political goals?

Most of the information above I picked up via http://coldfury.com/reason/?p=511 ).

What I want to emphasize right now is the speed and ambitiousness of the propagandists’ game here. In less than a day, they have targeted all of these issues, using the Newsweek mistake (if indeed it was one) as their freshest ammunition:

— Minimizing to the point of non-existence all abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib

— Minimizing to the point of non-existence all abuse and torture at Guantanamo

— Reinforcing the idea that the mainstream media is not to be trusted on matters of national security, and that it is fundamentally anti-American

— Introducing the idea that “some people” think the media has finally gone “too far,” which carries the unavoidable implication that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!

[...]

Of course, they “regret” that censorship might be necessary. It’s a terrible shame and all that. But damn it, if magazines like Newsweek ARE GOING TO GET PEOPLE KILLED…well, what can we do? We obviously have to shut them up. They brought it on themselves. It’s their own damned fault. Of course, we’d like to have a free press, but THEY’RE GETTING PEOPLE KILLED!

And please, please don’t say it can’t happen here. It did happen here—during http://coldfury.com/reason/?p=47 . They want to go back to the good old days, when people got thrown in jail for reading the Bill of Rights in public.

[...]

I have to admit that I find this goal altogether laughable. Given the media’s craven willingness to allow Bush, et al. to get away with anything—even blatant, repeated lies that led to an entirely unnecessary war (to say nothing of Judith Miller’s propaganda releases from Chalabi dutifully printed by the NYT, injecting fear and paralysis of thought directly into the public’s arteries and gearing everyone up for war against the non-existent threat of Iraq)—I don’t see how much more craven the general media could be. But obviously the hawks’ standards and mine on this question, as on so many others, are hardly the same. So I’m certain that the hawks would greatly prefer that the mainstream media assume a completely supine pose, and remove whatever tiny sliver of spine they have left while they’re at it.

 

[Astronuc]

Honestly - do reporters even consider the ramifications of their actions?

Apparently not!

Neither Newsweek nor the Pentagon foresaw that a reference to the desecration of the Koran was going to create the kind of response that it did. The Pentagon saw the item before it ran, and then they didn't move us off it for 11 days afterward. They were as caught off guard by the furor as we were.

attributed to Michael Isikoff, whose article has been blamed for rioting in Pakistan and Afghanistan in which at least 17 people were killed. Is he kidding!? Where has this moron been the last 10 years?

It is blatantly obvious that such an article would do exactly that!

I don't want to minimize the deaths caused by this journalistic fraud, but the media's fraud[sic], especially lately, appears to be focused on trashing the US. Why is that?

I think it is just arrogance on part of some in the media, and the drive to sell a story and generate revenue/profit.

Regardless, this sets a new low - I mean, at least Dan Rather didn't get anyone killed - he just tried to subvert an election. Unbelievable.

Yes, I would agree.

 

[Pengwuino]

That final paragraph make sme wonder about the credibility of all of that post. The media pounds the Bush administration on even the simplest mistakes and even has to make up stuff to get articles to sell that are anti-bush. I have yet to see a mistake by the administration not get plastered on every front page newspaper this side of the LA times. Even scholarly studies showed there was 2x as many negative articles printed during the months up to the election against Bush then there were against Kerry. Plus democrat voter fraud went absolutely un-noticed such as this case... http://www.ac4vr.com/news/acvrnews032105.html . How exactly is there a blatant media bias in favor of Bush anyhow? I've never actually been at a place where i could ask and actually expect an intelligent answer.

 

[SOS2008]

It's a difficult balance to maintain a "free press" and at the same time having a media that will not jeopordize national security, or in this case, a media showing lack of judgement with regard to a volatile political environment.

However, an anti-Arab/Islam sentiment does exit, and insensitivity of such kind seems quite plausible, especially in view of other reports in this vein that have been substantiated. With regard to the role of a free press in a democracy, it is disconcerting that the story was retracted due to pressure by the Bush administration.

Was the story true? Probably. Should the story have been printed? No. But maybe there is a problem of racism, and maybe there should be concern about checks and balances in our country (i.e., the watch dog role of the press).

 

[plover]

It is blatantly obvious that such an article would do exactly that!

Then why did none of the earlier articles cited in my post above do it? The Newsweek story was actually the third report of the incident in a major English language source this month. References to a May 1 New York Times story and a May 2 BBC story can be found here. The same source also notes a report in a French language Moroccan paper from April, and has other references going back to 2003. And people want to blame this on Newsweek rather than the people responsible for Camp X-Ray? Just because Americans may be unaware of what's been reported by released Gitmo detainees, that doesn't mean Muslims around the world are similarly unaware. And just because an agitator in Jalalabad chose this particular detail from Newsweek to use as a rallying cry – one which he could just as easily have found in other publications – doesn't make Newsweek responsible for his actions. I would certainly agree that there is very little in the way of thoughtlessness and venality that the press had hasn't sunk to at some point, I just think that ascribing this particular situation to that kind of cause almost certainly obscures what the real dynamics being played out may be.

 

[russ_watters]

plover - perhaps no one believed the prisoners. They don't exactly make the most credibile witnesses, and even terrorists know that. The Newsweek story supposedly came from a government source.

 

[polyb]

Q: Do either one of you have anything about the demonstrations in Afghanistan, which were apparently sparked by reports that there was a lack of respect by some interrogators at Guantanamo for the Koran. Do either one of you have anything to say about that?

GEN. MYERS: It's the -- it's a judgment of our commander in Afghanistan, General Eikenberry, that in fact the violence that we saw in Jalalabad was not necessarily the result of the allegations about disrespect for the Koran -- and I'll get to that in just a minute -- but more tied up in the political process and the reconciliation process that President Karzai and his Cabinet is conducting in Afghanistan. So that's -- that was his judgment today in an after- action of that violence. He didn't -- he thought it was not at all tied to the article in the magazine.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2005/tr20050512-secdef2761.html

Michael Isikoff-When reporter Michael Isikoff brought the Paula Jones sexual-harassment case to his editors at the Washington Post, they refused to run the story. So he quit and joined Newsweek. There he broke the Monica Lewinsky story in January 1998. After the maelstrom settled, Isikoff wrote a book about his pursuit of the Lewinsky story, called Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story. According to one review: "Isikoff gives more attention to the supposedly distinguishing characteristics of the presidential penis than to a serious examination of Starr's many probes."

http://www.nndb.com/people/859/000043730/

 

[C1ay]

This rag did the same thing as yelling fire in a crowded theatre. When are they going to hold some of these media airheads accountable for the consequences others pay for their actions.

 

[Pengwuino]

However, an anti-Arab/Islam sentiment does exit, and insensitivity of such kind seems quite plausible, especially in view of other reports in this vein that have been substantiated. With regard to the role of a free press in a democracy, it is disconcerting that the story was retracted due to pressure by the Bush administration.

Was the story true? Probably. Should the story have been printed? No. But maybe there is a problem of racism, and maybe there should be concern about checks and balances in our country (i.e., the watch dog role of the press).

Soldiers from the front lines in afghanistan are even psised off because it was relatively peaceful there until all of a sudden, this newsweek story came out (which makes me wonder how true all the other things being said in thsi thread are; supposedly this isn't the first news of this happening yet this is the first time some action was taken in the form of a riot...) and effectively, in their own words, ruined years of struggling for the US military to establish a peace. And no it wasnt retracted because of the bush administration unless you can actually bring some evidence of it. And no, the story for all intensive purposes, was false because no one can be sourced for it. This is a science forum, its like saying "oh aliens have to exist! who cares if the sources are fake/not credible". We rely on facts, we don't just go with what we want to believe right?

 

[polyb]

Soldiers from the front lines in afghanistan are even psised off because it was relatively peaceful there until all of a sudden, this newsweek story came out (which makes me wonder how true all the other things being said in thsi thread are; supposedly this isn't the first news of this happening yet this is the first time some action was taken in the form of a riot...) and effectively, in their own words, ruined years of struggling for the US military to establish a peace. And no it wasnt retracted because of the bush administration unless you can actually bring some evidence of it. And no, the story for all intensive purposes, was false because no one can be sourced for it. This is a science forum, its like saying "oh aliens have to exist! who cares if the sources are fake/not credible". We rely on facts, we don't just go with what we want to believe right?

Not according to General Myers!

Yeah, like 'Newsweek' has such a large circulation in the M.E.?

 

[faust9]

It's simplistic to think a single story like this set the ball rolling. There are deeper issues here, and I find it funny(scary funny not haha funny) that the issues surrounding the events are taking a back seat to a sensational story. I find it more percular that well educated people immediatly blame the story rather than ask "why would one story like this cause mass rioting?"

This is a fundamental flaw with todays American culture in that people don't want to look past the yellow journalism spread by the likes of Fox and MSNBC and CNN or any of the other 'news' sources. Well, maybe not 'yellow' but defenitly egg shell. I mean just watch your local news and see how many stories of substance you get versus the scare and shake "is your child in danger? The truth about dihydrogen monoxide tonight at 11!" stories. It's disgusting to say the least.

Well, I'm getting off of my soap box here in a bit. One story does not a crumbeling Middle East make. To think that requires that you share a box with Marcel Marceau, isolated from reality. The reality being political and social issues coupled with a US backed dictator(good or bad) does not bode well for anyone.

My thoughts not yours.

[edit]I'd like to add that the current trend of thinking in dichotomies--good and evil, black and white, sausage or bacon---is as distressful to me as the yellow journalism rampant today. The world is filled with shades of gray and this issue is a perfect example of latching onto the black while the problem lives in the gray.

 

[plover]

That final paragraph make sme wonder about the credibility of all of that post. The media pounds the Bush administration on even the simplest mistakes and even has to make up stuff to get articles to sell that are anti-bush. I have yet to see a mistake by the administration not get plastered on every front page newspaper this side of the LA times. Even scholarly studies showed there was 2x as many negative articles printed during the months up to the election against Bush then there were against Kerry. Plus democrat voter fraud went absolutely un-noticed such as this case... http://www.ac4vr.com/news/acvrnews032105.html . How exactly is there a blatant media bias in favor of Bush anyhow? I've never actually been at a place where i could ask and actually expect an intelligent answer.

One bit of context to keep in mind perhaps: Silber is a hardcore libertarian of some stripe or other. I haven't read a lot by him, but I've read enough to know that he has no love of liberals, and that he takes a very strong stance on free speech and free press. From what I've read of your posts, my guess has been (and of course I could be wrong) that your politics are fairly close to libertarianism. If I'm right, then it seems to me your curiosity might be well served by a look around Silber's site – I would guess that he provides an articulate case for why some people are upset at the media's treatment of Bush from a standpoint that you might be sympathetic to (whether or not you agree with him in the end).

One thing I might add is that, in the paragraph you refer to, Silber is claiming that the media gives Bush a pass, but he says nothing about who else they may or may not be doing that for. Also, I would say that for mainstream sources his criticism focuses (as would my own) on their cowardice and incompetence rather than bias per se.

When you refer to 'the credibility of all of that post', I'm not sure whether you're referring to my post or the one I'm quoting, but in any case, I think the important point for the current topic is that the idea that the deaths in Afghanistan have much to do with Newsweek, or American media in general, requires ignoring a lot of the available evidence and discounting the complexity of public sentiment and activism in other countries. Discussions extending from that (such as the quote I ended with) are secondary.

 

[SOS2008]

...ruined years of struggling for the US military to establish a peace.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0505/17/ldt.01.html

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld...saying that people had died because of the "Newsweek" article, even as Pentagon officials conceded that there was evidence the protests would have happened anyway.

...And no it wasnt retracted because of the bush administration unless you can actually bring some evidence of it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7864705/

White House slams media role in Quran furor
Newsweek at first apologized for its story and then retracted it under heavy pressure from the administration.

...This is a science forum, its like saying "oh aliens have to exist! who cares if the sources are fake/not credible". We rely on facts, we don't just go with what we want to believe right?

Who is "we" that "don't just go with what we want to believe," and who provides sources to back up our comments? If you would take time to read various news stories/sources, and then provide quotes/links, it would be helpful.

 

[wasteofo2]

Just wondering, whom exactly was killed in these riots? Were Americans in Afghanistan killed in a deliberate act intended to be a retaliation for America's alleged disrespect for the Koran, or was it more like people who were participating in the riot were killed by general riot actions?

 

[Pengwuino]

Im sorry but people from the front line said it was entirely that articles fault that caused the riot. You believe some news story if you want.

http://austinbay.net/blog/index.php?p=323

I’m on my way back to Kabul, as I typically do every summer, but my family is completely opposed to my travel and work this year in Afghanistan even though I’ve safely transited there, in and out of State and UN/NGO service for nearly 20 years. The word I receive from Kabuli friends is that Isikoff has singlehandedly turned US triumph in the country to a total disaster. It was thought an anamoly last summer that some wonderful–and tragically forgotten–American DynCorps workers (mostly ex-military and my good friends) were killed in an environment that was pro-American to the core. That could be seen as a terrible tragedy, an unreasonable sad event impinging on an overall positive atmosphere–a last ditch effort by desperate Al Qa’eda remnants from outside Afghanistan to vent anger at the overwhelming success of the Americans. Now thanks to one Bush-hating reporter (google Isikoff if you doubt his intentions,) the recidivist Taliban-Pathans of southeast Afghanistan once again have an issue to de-legitimize the Karzai-US alliance. This is a disaster perpetrated by a single reckless reporter…will he ever be required to answer for his sins? Fifteen dead so far…how many more? The streets of Afghanistan, just days ago filled with pro-American citizens, are now roiled with hatred. What has Newsweek wrought? Who will call Isikoff to answer in courts or Congress for his destruction of an important alliance? GW…it’s time for you to step up to the plate and talk directly about this issue, this renegade journalist, to both the American public and the Afghan people.

Theres one reaction from someone who might know a little more about the situation

Plus that article does actually prove your point but there's still something you really miss. They would have re-tracted it anyways since they had obviously killed people by publishing it. You think they wouldn't have taken it back if the administration said nothing? as if people would stand for false reporting? Which it is of course. This still all of course amounts to nothing because teh fact of the matter is that they used a single source (big no-no in journalism) and didnt check it and now your trying to defend the magazine telling everyone about it.

 

[Pengwuino]

When you refer to 'the credibility of all of that post', I'm not sure whether you're referring to my post or the one I'm quoting, but in any case, I think the important point for the current topic is that the idea that the deaths in Afghanistan have much to do with Newsweek, or American media in general, requires ignoring a lot of the available evidence and discounting the complexity of public sentiment and activism in other countries. Discussions extending from that (such as the quote I ended with) are secondary.

I meant the one being quoted... definitely should have made that more clearer, sorry.

 

[SOS2008]

Regardless, this sets a new low - I mean, at least Dan Rather didn't get anyone killed - he just tried to subvert an election. Unbelievable.

Here is another topic that seems to be repeated. In an earlier and/or other threads I've shown: 1) That the story about Bush not completing his obligation in the National Guard was substantiated by other news sources (and though the "memo" could not be proven valid, it could not be proven invalid either); 2) That the statistics showing a larger number of stories about Bush and the Guard were mostly about Dan Rather and apologies thereof; 3) That the unsubstantiated stories by the "Swifties" about Kerry's military service had more effect in subverting the election in Bush's direction (who won?).

 

[Pengwuino]

Well since Kerry never actually released his military records as promised, there's no proof that the swift boat whatevers were lieing. I mean... its a simple form for someone in that kind of situation (running for prez)... if you don't havea nything to hide... get my drift ;) lol i dunno, elections are dumb, democracy blows, too much work to do :D. Theres also many other sources that came out saying Bush had done his service and didnt do anything bad enough to warrant any real investigation by superiors.

 

[russ_watters]

Here is another topic that seems to be repeated. In an earlier and/or other threads I've shown: 1) That the story about Bush not completing his obligation in the National Guard was substantiated by other news sources (and though the "memo" could not be proven valid, it could not be proven invalid either); 2) That the statistics showing a larger number of stories about Bush and the Guard were mostly about Dan Rather and apologies thereof; 3) That the unsubstantiated stories by the "Swifties" about Kerry's military service had more effect in subverting the election in Bush's direction (who won?).

And what part of that changes the fact that Rather's story was fabricated and intended to swing the election?

btw, SOS - pot/kettle: I agree with people who think it was wrong for Bush to manipulate the evidence regarding Iraq - so why is it ok for Dan Rather (and now Newsweek) to manipulate evidence regarding Bush?

 

[plover]

plover - perhaps no one believed the prisoners. They don't exactly make the most credibile witnesses, and even terrorists know that. The Newsweek story supposedly came from a government sourc.

The NYT story (http://truthout.org/docs_2005/050105D.shtml not behind their toll gate) says that "a former interrogator at Guantanamo" confirmed the story of the detainee they interviewed. For the purpose of fomenting riots, their unnamed source is just as credible (so to speak) as Newsweek's. And it seems unlikely that significantly more Afghanis read Newsweek than the NYT or that the Afghanis who read Newsweek are more likely to start riots.

However, it also seems that the antiwar.com article was badly edited. The incident as reported in the NYT was "a protest of guards' handling of copies of the Koran, which had been tossed into a pile and stepped on", which makes more sense than the weird and euphemistic sounding phrase in the quote I included. Juan Cole's judgement of the circumstances reported in the NYT versus the incident in Newsweek:

I don't think the crowds protesting in Afghanistan and Pakistan would be less outraged by US soldiers stomping on the Koran on the floor.

To put this in context: the simple distribution of Qu'rans to detainees has often become an issue as apparently there are problems with non-Muslims even touching them under some circumstances (nothing I've seen so far has clarified the arcana of this though).

Sgt. Erik Saar, an Army Intelligence linguist who worked as a translator at Guantánamo, is the co-author of a new book, Inside the Wire, about his experiences there. He doesn't say anything about any incidents of flushing Qu'rans but does report that religiously motivated humiliations visited on prisoners were quite pervasive. A Christian Science Monitor article has some details:

Army Sgt. Erik Saar couldn't wait to get to Guantánamo Bay to help ferret information from the terrorists being held there. When the intelligence linguist arrived, however, he was startled to hear the Muslim call to prayer. Why, he wondered, would America make such a "concession to the religious zealotry" of the detainees?

Yet as he worked as an interpreter in the cell blocks and interrogation rooms, Sergeant Saar's attitude changed. Methods that demeaned Islamic beliefs and tried to make detainees feel separate from God struck him as counterproductive. They not only failed to produce information, he says, but also fueled the sense there and abroad that the US is at war with Islam.

"We say we're trying to win the hearts and minds of Muslim people around the world, yet they can see we are using their religion against them," says Saar in a phone interview. "I don't think that's in line with our values."

[...]

How America employs religion in interrogation strategy holds long-term consequences for its struggle against terrorism and for relations with the Muslim world, critics say. "The people doing the interrogating [at Guantánamo] know nothing about Islam and not much about interrogation... You couldn't have a greater recipe for failure," says Col. Patrick Lang, former head of military intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and an expert on the Middle East.

[...]

In his book, Saar describes a tumultuous atmosphere made more intense than usual because of religious tensions. US personnel, he wrote, routinely tempted detainees to look at pornographic magazines and videos, which Islam forbids. Female interrogators, sometimes dressed provocatively, violated Islamic strictures by rubbing against detainees and even leading one to believe he was being wiped with menstrual blood.

"Had someone come to me before I left for Gitmo and told me we would use women to sexually torment detainees to try to sever their relationships with God, I probably would have thought that sounded fine," writes Saar. "But I hated myself when I walked out of that room... We lost the high road... There wasn't enough hot water in all of Cuba to make me feel clean."

[...]

"The best way to build a relationship is to speak to that person's identity and values," says Chris Seiple, who heads the Institute for Global Engagement, a think tank dealing with faith and international security. "Instead of using Islamic culture to demean them, take Islam as a faith to defang the principles that condone terrorism. Islamic theology must be a component in building the relationship."

Saar tells of an interrogator from a nonmilitary agency who engaged a detainee on that basis. While the detainee refused to talk about Islam with the woman, he responded to questions put through Saar, eager to discuss his beliefs and where they led him. From then on, he talked more readily.

The linguist lost his enthusiasm for the Guantánamo mission, he says, because the situation was in sharp contrast to public perception. "I thought these were 'the worst of the worst' hardened terrorists, but I soon realized many didn't fit that category, not only by talking to detainees, but by having access to intelligence which said that," he says.

[...]

A conservative Evangelical, Saar says he can't reconcile what he's seen with his own faith. Others in that Christian community, however, have called him unpatriotic for criticizing US interrogation practices.

Saar's book was vetted by the Army, which implies they are not contesting his story. They are also investigating his allegations.

Anyway, whether or not "the terrorists" think released detainees are reliable witnesses, popular opinion in any country is rarely fastidious about these things. If these demonstrations were a spontaneous popular reaction to these particular issues, they would most likely have happened a long time ago. If the demonstrations were engineered, however, then there are any number of things agitators could have used as a material to provoke a crowd.

The blogger Riverbend, a secular Iraqi woman in Baghdad, has this to say:

We've been watching the protests about the Newsweek article with interest. I’m not surprised at the turnout at these protests- the thousands of Muslims angry at the desecration of the Quran. What did surprise me was the collective shock that seems to have struck the Islamic world like a slap in the face. How is this shocking? It's terrible and disturbing in the extreme- but how is it shocking? After what happened in Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons how is this astonishing? American jailers in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown little respect for human life and dignity- why should they be expected to respect a holy book? [...]

Now Newsweek have retracted the story- obviously under pressure from the White House. Is it true? Probably… We've seen enough blatant disregard and disrespect for Islam in Iraq the last two years to make this story sound very plausible. On a daily basis, mosques are raided, clerics are dragged away with bags over their heads… Several months ago the world witnessed the execution of an unarmed Iraqi prisoner inside a mosque. Is this latest so very surprising?

Detainees coming back after weeks or months in prison talk of being forced to eat pork, not being allowed to pray, being exposed to dogs, having Islam insulted and generally being treated like animals trapped in a small cage. At the end of the day, it's not about words or holy books or pork or dogs or any of that. It's about what these things symbolize on a personal level. It is infuriating to see objects that we hold sacred degraded and debased by foreigners who felt the need to travel thousands of kilometers to do this. That's not to say that all troops disrespect Islam- some of them seem to genuinely want to understand our beliefs. It does seem like the people in charge have decided to make degradation and humiliation a policy.

By doing such things, this war is taken to another level- it is no longer a war against terror or terrorists- it is, quite simply, a war against Islam and even secular Muslims are being forced to take sides.

It is interesting to put these observations alongside her reactions to Abu Ghraib from a year ago.

 

[Pengwuino]

All the crap I've heard coming from US personel at Gitmo about the **** the prisoners do makes me think a lot of this crap is just back and forth mudslinging. Unfortunately the media just ignores when military personel tell of having feces thrown at them and being attacked at the base. And why don't we ever hear about when Christian religious symbols are desecrated? Such as... http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?article_id=44324

What a horrible media we have.

 

[Smurf]

You're as bad as they are Pengwuino.

 

[Pengwuino]

And i did... what?

 

[plover]

Im sorry but people from the front line said it was entirely that articles fault that caused the riot. You believe some news story if you want.

[...]

Theres one reaction from someone who might know a little more about the situation

Right, so the post you're quoting says what isn't in dispute: that some people involved in the riots invoked the Newsweek article, and that this has ended up becoming the prevailing explanation for them. I would guess from context that this person's contacts were probably not involved in any demonstrations, and are reporting what they've heard – without more detail it's impossible to know. I would contrast this with the http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2005/tr20050512-secdef2761.html (also quoted by polyb above) concerning what someone else on the front lines has to say:

It's the -- it's a judgment of our commander in Afghanistan, General Eikenberry, that in fact the violence that we saw in Jalalabad was not necessarily the result of the allegations about disrespect for the Koran -- and I'll get to that in just a minute -- but more tied up in the political process and the reconciliation process that President Karzai and his Cabinet is conducting in Afghanistan. So that's -- that was his judgment today in an after- action of that violence. He didn't -- he thought it was not at all tied to the article in the magazine.

I would imagine that Gen. Eikenberry has an established local intelligence network to contribute to such assessments.

Plus that article does actually prove your point but there's still something you really miss. They would have re-tracted it anyways since they had obviously killed people by publishing it.

Actually, I thought I was arguing that it is precisely that that wasn't obvious.

You think they wouldn't have taken it back if the administration said nothing?

That's a different question. The circumstances certainly make a clarification or retraction even more imperative than with most stories. That's just normal journalistic integrity – it's a separate issue from blaming Newsweek for deaths.

as if people would stand for false reporting? Which it is of course.

Is it? How do you know? Not that I would argue it's true either. The patterns of what is well established to have taken place in US detention centers make it plausible (see e.g. the article about Erik Saar quoted in my previous post), but there's no solid proof.

This still all of course amounts to nothing because teh fact of the matter is that they used a single source (big no-no in journalism) and didnt check it and now your trying to defend the magazine telling everyone about it.

I'm not defending Newsweek's journalism. I'm saying that, given the state of what we know, condemning Newsweek for deaths in Afghanistan is a post hoc argument built on shaky inferences. I'm also saying that the issue of the truth of Newsweek's claim and the issue of any connection between that claim and the Afghan demonstrations need to be disentangled to reduce confusion. Those are the substantive bits anyway. There's a practical issue here too which could be mentioned: whether or not some appropriately chosen person at Newsweek (or in the government) falling on their sword would produce any meaningful healing of the breach with the Afghanis. It's not at all clear that it would, but it's almost certainly worth considering, whatever the underlying truth of the situation.

As for Newsweek's journalism: single sourcing serious allegations? Bad idea. Not much to argue about there. Perhaps, they went ahead with it because the source originally said the incident was mentioned in a forthcoming Southern Command report – if so, obviously not a good call.

Their attempts at retraction are also a bit muddy. Juan Cole wrote on Monday:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7857407/site/newsweek/page/2/ in response to Pentagon queries,

"On Saturday, Isikoff spoke to his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Qur'an, including a toilet incident. But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report."
​

Isikoff's source, in other words, stands by his report of the incident, but is merely tracing it to other paperwork. What difference does that make? Although Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita angrily denounced the source as no longer credible, in the real world you can't just get rid of a witness because the person made a minor mistake with regard to a text citation.

and followed up Tuesday:

It is being yet again alleged that Newsweek has formally retracted the Guantanamo Koran desecration story, under enormous pressure from the White House. But here is what exactly the magazine's statement said:

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said in a statement issued here.'
​

So far this is the same "retraction" as Sunday's, which is that they were wrong to source the story of Koran desecration to a forthcoming Southern Command white paper on Guantanamo. It says nothing about whether the Koran desecration occurred, or whether their government source accurately reported seeing a US government text documenting it.

But then there is this:

' As it turned out, Newsweek now says, there was one source. And Whitaker said that because that source had "backed away" from his original account, the magazine could "no longer stand by" it. "I did not want to be in the position of splitting hairs," Whitaker said, "to look like we were being evasive or not fully forthcoming." '
​

Well, I find this still not fully forthcoming. What account is Whitaker backing away from? That there was Koran desecration? Or that the SouthCom report would mention it?

So, what are they really trying to say? Is the source backing off his statement or just confused about where he read it? Is Newsweek backing off its statement or not? Whatever it is, given the circumstances, they do need to stop dancing around making themselves look like irresponsible asses.

 

[russ_watters]

All the crap I've heard coming from US personel at Gitmo about the **** the prisoners do makes me think a lot of this crap is just back and forth mudslinging. Unfortunately the media just ignores when military personel tell of having feces thrown at them and being attacked at the base. And why don't we ever hear about when Christian religious symbols are desecrated? Such as... http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?article_id=44324

What a horrible media we have.

Yeah, I wasn't even going to bring up the insanity of starting a riot over the desecration of a book - but Muslims do it all the time and it doesn't cause Christians to riot. Heck, we barely care. But yes, the media is two-faced regarding such things. It seems its only newsworthy if its anti-US. I'm really starting to think the media actually is anti-American. Again, with the removal of [Canadian] Dan Rather, hopefully that'll start to change.

 

[2CentsWorth]

Maybe all this isn't anti-American, but anti-bad governmental practices. Even you had difficulty finding positive things to say about Bush. That is what a free press is for. To question these practices. Dan Rather's departure will make no difference. Better government is what will make a difference.

 

[Yonoz]

Yeah, I wasn't even going to bring up the insanity of starting a riot over the desecration of a book - but Muslims do it all the time and it doesn't cause Christians to riot. Heck, we barely care. But yes, the media is two-faced regarding such things. It seems its only newsworthy if its anti-US. I'm really starting to think the media actually is anti-American. Again, with the removal of [Canadian] Dan Rather, hopefully that'll start to change.

It's just that people have come to expect this sort of behaviour.
For example, when you start a new job, if you create too good an impression at first you will be expected to retain that level. If you start mediocre and then show an impressive improvement, you'll probably be rewarded.
It's just human nature.

 

[faust9]

It's stories like this that lead me to believe the Newsweek story was in fact correct except the source recanted about which documents he/she got the information from.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/19/detainee.abuse/index.html

Documents released under a FOI request show that to this day US military personel are violating regs by staging mock executions and using religious items as weapons. I don't find it too much of a stretch to think the same psychological tactics would be used to interrogate detainees BEFORE these incidents first came to light. Hell, I'd be surprised if these tactics were not still in use.

What do you think Russ, and Pengwuino? Is it too much of a stretch or am I a fool for believing documents released by our own government?

 

[plover]

All the crap I've heard coming from US personel at Gitmo about the **** the prisoners do makes me think a lot of this crap is just back and forth mudslinging. Unfortunately the media just ignores when military personel tell of having feces thrown at them and being attacked at the base.

You want to license reprisals by soldiers in a situation where they have complete control over every aspect of detainees' lives?!? Whether or not this is what you intended, it is what you have described. If it is indeed what you intended, then I'm sorry, but it indicates either a contentment with authoritarian brutality or a staggering ignorance of how power dynamics work in such situations. Metaphorically, when you have your boot on someone's throat, and they curse you or scratch your leg, you don't then proceed to piss in their mouth. At least not if you have even a minimum of humanity and honor.

And to countenance this kind of action is to repudiate one of the proudest aspects of US military tradition:

... if you know the tradition of the United States Army, one thing has been consistent and that is that we are aggressive and tough on the field of battle, but when you take prisoners they are treated humanly and with respect. That's the rule that was set by George Washington in the battle of Trenton on Dec. 25, 1776. The soldiers of the continental army took the Hessians and said these soldiers are mercenaries and we should take retribution on them. They wanted the Hessians to run the gauntlet and they would beat them with sticks. General Washington said we will not do this. He said these people will be treated with respect and dignity and they will suffer no abuse or torture, because to do otherwise would bring dishonor upon our sacred cause. That's one of the first orders given to the continental army and that antedates the United States. It has been military tradition for [230 years] ...

 

[Pengwuino]

They throw feces at gaurds and occasionally attack guards. How is that compltely control over their lives? Hell if this happened in a federal prison and the guards beat the crap out of the guy, you would think entirely different. None of this is being condoned but there's always pressure to retaliate when stuff like that is happening to you as a guard. Unless you can prove that if you were in teh same situation, you wouldn't at all be inclined to fight back.. then you really need to come up with a different reason to be mad at these soldiers.

 

[SOS2008]

And what part of that changes the fact that Rather's story was fabricated and intended to swing the election?

btw, SOS - pot/kettle: I agree with people who think it was wrong for Bush to manipulate the evidence regarding Iraq - so why is it ok for Dan Rather (and now Newsweek) to manipulate evidence regarding Bush?

It isn't okay for stories to be fabricated. There were other reports showing Bush did not serve his full term in the Guard, and the CBS memo was never proven as being not valid. In the meantime, no one lost their job or had their careers affected for the stories about Kerry's military service. As a result, there was more negative affect on Kerry than on Bush, so how was the election subverted against Bush? This is why I take issue with such statements, which will no doubt be made again in a few months.

 

[Pengwuino]

What are you talking about. It was proven by hundreds of people that the documents were fake and they could not be sourced.

 

[plover]

They throw feces at gaurds and occasionally attack guards. How is that compltely control over their lives? Hell if this happened in a federal prison and the guards beat the crap out of the guy, you would think entirely different. None of this is being condoned but there's always pressure to retaliate when stuff like that is happening to you as a guard. Unless you can prove that if you were in teh same situation, you wouldn't at all be inclined to fight back.. then you really need to come up with a different reason to be mad at these soldiers.

Well, I'm glad you're not condoning it at least.

But your answer makes it sound like there's some meaningful question of personal ego. That it's a question of showing the prisoners who's boss. When someone is backed up by the entire apparatus of a detention facility, there's no question who's boss. Taking revenge is just petty, bullying, indiscriminately authoritarian, and on a personal level, mostly just shows a guard is insecure and/or doesn't know they're doing.

What do you think complete control is? The guards control a detainee's access to food, water, light, contact with other people, medical treament, whether or not they get out of their cell. Detainees can have their sleep disrupted. The power is all on one side. Detainees are going to be defiant, they're going to be psychologically traumatized – in some cases to the point of being irrational. But unless a guard has already done something stupidly provocative, it's not personal.

The power is all on one side. In such circumstances, all means to abuse that power must be prohibited. Do precisely what is necessary to maintain order, no more. Human beings are infinitely inventive when it comes to self-justification. When the issue is overt cruelty, don't give them the chance.

And this doesn't even address any of the practicalities of interrogation. If a skilled interrogator has spent a couple of days or weeks manipulating a detainee's mood and loyalties, has manouvred the prisoner into believing it's in his best interest to tell the interrogator what he wants, the last thing he wants is the entire process to be derailed because some yobbo guard felt insulted and beat the prisoner up. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then I would guess you don't know much about real interrogation practices (as opposed to what they usually show on TV).

As for federal prisons, no, I wouldn't feel much differently about this happening there. (Why would I?) But, beyond the simple fact of being a situation of prisoners and guards, there are numerous differences between a prison for criminal offenders and a military detention facility – the most obvious being how and why the prisoners ended up where they are, and the (fairly common, I would suspect, for military detainees) problem of the guards and prisoners having no common language and no common cultural understandings. However, I do think holding the military to the highest possible standard on these issues is even more important than for correctional facilities since 1) it's far easier to make mistakes when the guards and prisoners don't understand each other, and 2) what they do directly affects perceptions of the U.S.: what we stand for, what our sense of honor is.

And this is not about being "mad at these soldiers". It's not hard to train people to be good guards, but the training has to be appropriate for the situation. And from what I've seen concerning Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram (in Afghanistan), the training for soldiers in those facilites was not appropriate. You don't need to take my word for this, as I quoted above from the article on Erik Saar:

How America employs religion in interrogation strategy holds long-term consequences for its struggle against terrorism and for relations with the Muslim world, critics say. "The people doing the interrogating [at Guantánamo] know nothing about Islam and not much about interrogation... You couldn't have a greater recipe for failure," says Col. Patrick Lang, former head of military intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and an expert on the Middle East.

A somewhat separate issue from detainment practices, but which is intertwined in both causes and effects, is the problem that a good percentage of the people in these facilities were entirely innocent and unconnected to any terrorist activity. Prisoners at Abu Ghraib were often picked up in indiscriminate raiding operations. A number of Afghan detainees have turned out to be scapegoats turned over by warlords looking to save their own asses – you can imagine the experience of an innocent Afghan farmer, shipped off to Guantánamo for no reason that he's aware, being interrogated by guards with no understanding of his religion or culture, and who have been told he is one of the "worst of the worst" terrorists. While there are inevitably a few of our soldiers who are thugs, the vast majority of them certainly are not. By putting them in situations where their skillsets are inadequate and with orders that blur the boundary between what is and isn't appropriate, their services have failed them (at what level of planning and policy this might have occurred is best left to a different discussion).

 

[Pengwuino]

You've unfortunately got it backwards. Humiliating and annoying some prisoners isn't much compared to having human feces thrown at you. It prevents a huge health hazard and obviously shows that they arent in 'total control'. This isn't just being "annoyed" or being "insecure". I am not sure if you've ever even been or known about any real prison-like situations, but most people who get crap thrown at them don't react with "oh well, let's not over-react... let's study their religion instead". I notice how you show immense amounts of sympathy for these people yet they are the same ones declaring holy wars on a religion they know nothing about. They also of course, do all the crap I've brought up and your practically defending it.

I'd also like to see some proof over how a majority of those people are innocent by the way.

 

[russ_watters]

There were other reports showing Bush did not serve his full term in the Guard, and the CBS memo was never proven as being not valid.

That isn't good enough and you know it. Even CBS admitted that (which is why they retracted the story). The memo must be proven valid - not just not be proven not valid - to be a credible/usable source. Again, (same as in the recent discussion about debate tactics), you're trying to present a binary and equal burden-of-proof situation where none exists. You can't prove a negative, but CBS's own experts did the next best thing: they said they could not authenticate the documents. Proving them forgeries (while one CBS examiner implied it, he stopped short of actually saying it) is not necessary (which is why CBS eventually retracted the story and fired all those people).

In the meantime, no one lost their job or had their careers affected for the stories about Kerry's military service.

That's because that story wasn't fabricated by the media. They were simply reporting on the claims of others. Remember, the SBV were just one of dozens of such groups operating on both sides of the election. In fact, IIRC, Kerry had something like four times the soft-money attack ads going for him as Bush did (~$40 million iirc). MoveOn.org, alone had something like twice the budget all the anti-Kerry groups had (the SBV had something like $500k). It just happens that MoveOn.org alienated people and the SBV touched a nerve.

As a result, there was more negative affect on Kerry than on Bush, so how was the election subverted against Bush?

Its one of the true ironies of the situation - big miscalculations by Kerry and CBS. Nevertheless, I didn't say the election was subverted, I said the story was intended to subvert the election. That comes from the gleefully toned emails sent by the producer prior to airing the story. The words were something to the effect of 'this could swing the election'. Whether she hoped it would because she didn't like Bush or she hoped it would because she wanted a Pulitzer doesn't much matter to me. Her (and, more importantly, Rather's) dislike of Bush certainly played a role in their willingness to leave their integrity at home.

 

[plover]

Humiliating and annoying some prisoners isn't much compared to having human feces thrown at you.

I doubt you could find a social scientist (a reputable one anyway, though I'm not sure the shills would even argue this one) that would agree with you. The psychological effects of the power dynamics in prison situations are well documented. To the degree you are making an argument, and not just repeating yourself, you seem to be making an argument from machismo. My arguments have touched on preventing authoritarian abuses, promoting effective interrogation, the wider context of military detention, and the training and sense of duty of soldiers. Your response addresses none of these.

It prevents a huge health hazard and obviously shows that they arent in 'total control'.

You have neither shown why the situations you've mentioned violate my definition of 'total control', nor proposed a different one.

I'd also like to see some proof over how a majority of those people are innocent by the way.

You don't get to put words in my mouth. I did not say 'a majority'. I said 'a good percentage', the implication being: not a few isolated cases of mistakes, but, rather, enough to constitute a systematic problem that needs addressing. I don't know whether it is a majority or not. As an example, about a quarter of the detainees at Abu Ghraib were released without charges last June. Do you have evidence a substantial number of these releases were mistakes?

The rest of your post is pretty much boilerplate liberal baiting and Muslim bashing. Air your prejudices if you like, but if you are not going to make a real argument and give support for it, there is little point in continuing this.

 

[Pengwuino]

I have not responded to the latter 3 as i agree that there should be changes in how those are handled but no, this is not machismo as you stated. You have failed to even hint at the idea that throwing feces at guards are bad and seem to imply that "since there prisoners, they should be able to do that".

The fact that these people have attacked and have thrown stuff at guards demonstrates that the guards are not in "total control". Nevermind the reports of being shot at from off-base by Cubans that the soldiers have had to deal with from day 1. Total control would mean these detainees would not be able to do anything and being able to attack a guard or throw something at one woudl be a simple pipe dream.

And if you can provide any evidence that these people were actually innocent (and not simply released on pressure from the international community), I would take to heart such an accusation.

Also, i am showing about as much anti-muslim hatred as you are showing anti-christian hatred. You declare that all of this is done because we don't care to learn about their religion and I am saying basically the same thing on the other side of the coin, we have such huge problems because there's a large amount of people who don't care to learn about the other sides religion. Vent all your hatred of Americans that you want if you need to.

 

[plover]

I have not responded to the latter 3 as i agree that there should be changes in how those are handled but no, this is not machismo as you stated.

Ok.

You have failed to even hint at the idea that throwing feces at guards are bad and seem to imply that "since there prisoners, they should be able to do that".

This is inaccurate. First of all, my original argument had nothing to do with what the prisoners "should" (or should not) be allowed to do, it was about allowing guards to make arbitrary reprisals. (Perhaps, first of all should be to say that you've never even provided a citation to show that an incident like the one you're discussing actually occurred. I've just let that pass, as it does not sound like a particularly unlikely incident for any prison.) Secondly, I said above: "Do precisely what is necessary to maintain order, no more." Preventing attacks on guards is part of that. Under harsh conditions, one expects prisoners to be defiant, and to use whatever limited means they have toward that end. There are numerous methods for guards to use to ensure their own safety – seriously, a lot of effort has been put into coming up with procedures to ensure the safety of both guard and prisoner in these kinds of circumstances. For the most part, incidents such as the ones you describe mean that the guards are either being careless or are inadequately trained.

The fact that these people have attacked and have thrown stuff at guards demonstrates that the guards are not in "total control". Nevermind the reports of being shot at from off-base by Cubans that the soldiers have had to deal with from day 1. Total control would mean these detainees would not be able to do anything and being able to attack a guard or throw something at one woudl be a simple pipe dream.

As far as I can tell, your definition is based on an after-the-fact analysis, i.e. if no guards were attacked, they had total control. My definition is based on what the circumstances make possible: all the power is on the side of the guards, they have the force to back up whatever they want to do (such as e.g. leave prisoners tied up in a fetal position for a day or two lying in their own excrement as the FBI reported happening). I would say that if no guards were attacked, they used good enough judgement and procedures to keep themselves safe. And that this is a separate question as to whether their judgement was equally good and their procedures equally appropriate so as also to prevent abuse of the prisoners.

Actually this is where a citation about the feces throwing you're talking about becomes important. If it happened once, then the incident is almost certainly meaningless in terms of drawing any conclusions about the prisoners (less certain, but still quite likely is that it says nothing about the guards either). The circumstances at Gitmo could easily lead to some prisoners losing their minds. On the other hand, if this was a pattern of defiance, why was nothing done to prevent it after the first or second incident?

Just because you want to be angry about this incident doesn't mean there's anything to be angry about.

And if you can provide any evidence that these people were actually innocent (and not simply released on pressure from the international community), I would take to heart such an accusation.

"Innocent until proven guilty" – it's not a principle that changes with religion or skin color. The burden of proof is on the side that wants to show someone is guilty. If we want rule of law in Iraq, shouldn't we provide a good example?

Also, i am showing about as much anti-muslim hatred as you are showing anti-christian hatred. You declare that all of this is done because we don't care to learn about their religion and I am saying basically the same thing on the other side of the coin, we have such huge problems because there's a large amount of people who don't care to learn about the other sides religion. Vent all your hatred of Americans that you want if you need to.

Does it not occur to you how silly this stuff sounds? How does parroting Ann Coulter et al. serve this discussion?

None of the arguments I've made about detention procedures have anything to do with religion. The guards or their charges could have any religion or none at all – as a matter of principle, I want prisoners to be treated humanely. And I don't believe this will happen if random reprisals by guards are tolerated in any way. Is this what you're calling "anti-Christian"?

I don't know what your real opinion of Islam or Muslims is. I do know that your statements about "these people" and their holy wars etc. are distorted, stock generalizations often used for expressing anti-Muslim sentiments. If such sentiments do not reflect your feelings, I would suggest not using such rhetoric; if you do use it, don't be surprised if you're viewed as prejudiced.

I'm not sure what the "all of this" might be that you say results from an unwillingness to learn about an unfamiliar religion on one side or the other. It's way too vague. And considering that I haven't been talking about religion and what might or might not be attributable to it, I have no idea where you're getting this from. Attributing opinions to me on topics I haven't been talking about is useful, how?

Looking at the arguments I've given, in so far as they relate to America rather than to more general prison issues, a summary of what I've said might run: inadequate planning has forced our military to put our soldiers into situations where their skills and training have been inadequate to allow them to uphold the standard of honor set for U.S. forces by George Washington. Is this what you're calling "anti-American"?

While you could just be writing sloppily, my impression is that you have very little notion of how I think, why I say things the way I do, and what your own rhetoric means. Without a real ground to work from, your trying to turn my words back on me is unlikely to do anything more than look foolish. I'm not saying this to be nasty, but just pointing out: you can snap back at me, but what does it really accomplish?

And again: do you know anything about the power dynamics I've been talking about, the social psychology results what I've been saying is based on? If not, this and this might be worth a look.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I understand to some degree where Penqwuino is coming from on this.

"Do precisely what is necessary to maintain order, no more."

This is very difficult. If some one gets out of hand not only does the situation need to be resolved as quickly as possible but you need to make sure that the prisoners don't feel they can get away with it. If you do only what is necessary to stop an incident you have done nothing to prevent it from happening again. All it takes is one individual who gets out of hand regularly with little to no punishment to get the others to start getting out of hand too. If the will to defy authority spreads among the prisoners the situation becomes rather volatile and unsafe for both the prisoners and the guards. In a prison you can't predict when these incidents will happen and prevent them. It's almost certain that they will happen and you will have to deal with them. I don't believe that these people have been handling the situation very well but I think a certain amount of problems with the guards and how they handle situations is to be expected as well.
Trying to maintain authority and not over step the bounds can be very difficult to accomplish. Personally I am a security guard. I think that I am a very levelheaded person and can keep my cool in stressful situations yet there has been at least one instance where I overstepped the bounds while dealing with an incredibly defiant individual. You have made several referances to the psychological situation of the prisoners and their lack of control over their environment but you don't seem to really take into account the situation of the guard. I'm sure that their situation is quite stressful and even if the military did put quite a bit of effort into training and screening the people who are simply going to be guarding prisoners there will still be those that make mistakes or just can't hack it.

 

[alexandra]

And if you can provide any evidence that these people were actually innocent (and not simply released on pressure from the international community), I would take to heart such an accusation.

Recent conversations have shown me that I don't know as much about the US as I thought I did. I was just wondering whether the USA's laws also follow the principle common to other western 'democratic' systems of 'innocent unless proven guilty'? Or is it the other way around?

 

[SOS2008]

That isn't good enough and you know it. ...Again, (same as in the recent discussion about debate tactics), you're trying to present a binary and equal burden-of-proof situation where none exists...

As stated before, there were many other reports by reliable sources documenting Bush’s failure to complete his service in the Guard, a couple of examples as follows:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/040920/20guard.htm

9/20/04
The service question
A review of President Bush's Guard years raises issues about the time he served
By Kit R. Roane

But last week the controversy reared up once again, as several news outlets, including U.S. News, disclosed new information casting doubt on White House claims.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/09/08/bush_fell_short_on_duty_at_guard/

Bush fell short on duty at Guard
Records show pledges unmet
September 8, 2004

He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show. The 1973 document has been overlooked in news media accounts. The 1968 document has received scant notice.

Then there is the matter of the CBS memos, and questions as to the timing and method by which these were exposed, such as by the Free Republic (Buckhead’s post within a couple of hours) and FOX News, an example as follows:

We always favor looking at the content and substance over WHO is offering up the information, but in the war that will ensue about WHO gave CBS the potentially phony documents, it is interesting to Note that the right (Drudge, Fox, right-leaning blogs, others) led the way in pointing out the questions we have all been asking — and they were onto the questions, with remarkable detail, relatively soon after the documents were made public.

For more - http://mediamatters.org/items/200409100010

As well as the inability to prove the memos as not valid, an example provided as follows, this controversy remains: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/23/cbs.documents/index.html

Burkett: 'Jury still out' on memos CBS aired
From Ingrid Arnesen
CNN
Friday, September 24, 2004 Posted: 12:17 PM EDT (1617 GMT)
(CNN) -- Bill Burkett, who gave CBS News the alleged documents about President Bush's National Guard service, insists "the jury is still out" on whether those documents are authentic.

"The documents have not been conclusively proven false," Burkett said. "Neither have they been proven authentic. That jury is still out."

In conclusion, Dan Rather’s story was substantiated by other reports, the memos have never been proven false, and if there is a question regarding subversive activities, FOX News and other right-wing sources are just as suspect if not more.

Moving on to the matter of reports about Kerry’s military record, reports involved false documents, as follows:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Truth

Central to the SBVT media campaign has been a reliance on sworn affidavits to be provided as 'evidence' to journalists. However, Patrick Runyon, who provided a statement about the mission for which Kerry was awarded his first Purple Heart, found the interest in his views to be more partisan than neutral. When his statement was returned for his signature, he told the New York Times, references to being fired on had been removed. “It made it sound like I didn't believe we got any returned fire … He made it sound like it was a normal operation. It was the scariest night of my life,” he said. (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/p...t.html?ex=1094005334&ei=1&en=729916e83be2ab35)

Commander George Elliott—who praised Kerry's conduct during the Vietnam War—provided an affidavit criticizing Kerry for being awarded a Silver Star.
However, what appeared at first as a coup for them appeared to backfire when, on August 5, 2004, a Boston Globe article reported that Elliott had recanted his criticism of Kerry. The article quoted Elliott as saying, “It was a terrible mistake probably for me to sign the affidavit with those words. I'm the one in trouble here.” The affidavit states that the incident for which Kerry received the medal was actually shooting “a wounded, fleeing Viet Cong in the back.” Elliott said he felt “time pressure” to sign the affidavit “That's no excuse,” Elliott said, “I knew it was wrong. … In a hurry I signed it and faxed it back. That was a mistake.” (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/06/veteran_retracts_criticism_of_kerry/

Also the reports regarding their claims were found to be faulty, for example:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21239-2004Aug21.html

Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete
Critics Fail to Disprove Kerry's Version of Vietnam War Episode
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page A01

Furthermore, the Swift Boat Veterans were not a neutral, independent organization:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Truth/Complaint_to_the_FEC

In mid-August three campaign finance watchdog groups - Democracy 21, Campaign Legal Center, Center for Responsive Politics - filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission arguing that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were in breach of restrictions applying to 527 committees. (http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0811-03.htm)

The complaint argues SBVT, as a registered 527 committee, should be bound by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 requirements. While noting that SVBT is not registered as a ‘federal political committee’ the three groups argue that it should be. “SBVT is an entity which, as a 527 group, has a ‘major purpose,’ indeed an overriding purpose, to influence candidate elections, and more specifically, federal candidate elections, and which has spent, or is planning to spend, significant amounts of funds to influence the 2004 presidential election,” it stated.

The biased reporting by FOX News was blatant, and yet reporters such as Colmes and O’Reilly did not lose their jobs for reporting untrue stories (there are many examples, but here’s a couple):

Swift Boats Still Anchored on Fox
Friday's Fox News live with Alan Colmes (8/20-8/21) - This is a perfect example of how the media falls into the hands of the conservative spin machine. First, a group like the Swift Boat Vets comes up with a well-funded PR campaign. They go on TV and radio talk shows, especially the right-leaning ones and despite the fact that a lot of facts are not on their side, voila, they have a bona fide issue and a conversation.

The O'Reilly Factor. August 5, 2004. 8:12 PM to 8:19 PM EDT. FOX News aired the ENTIRE ad at the beginning of this interview and then for another two minutes showed it over and over silently during the discussion between O'Reilly and Morris. Despite O'Reilly's claim that the ad is "horribly exploitive", he gives it more FREE air time that the Swift Boat Vets could have hoped for in their wildest dreams.

Did Rather/CBS hope to subvert the election? One can speculate, and even if that was their intent, they did not succeed.

If we examine subversion of elections that have succeeded, we have only to look at Bush’s political track record. We can begin with his background. One in which his education is of question, his use of alcohol/drugs is of question, his business failure is of question up to the age of 40. Lacking any merit, we can look at his campaign techniques beginning with a bid for governorship. Then after serving for only five years as governor—a very brief political career—he runs for president in 2000. We all know the controversy of the 2000 election.

The ugly, polarizing tactics associated with Bush, and now the Republican party as a whole, the list of subversive behavior is so lengthy (talk about a post that would be infinite), suffice it to mention a few items--aside from the now obvious need for election reform--for example, the targeting of Democrat candidates, redistricting, use of religion (e.g., props to ban gay marriage), etc. to manipulate voter turn-out and to divert attention from legitimate issues, etc., etc., etc. Do you really believe Bush is the victim of anything?

BTW – This post is an example of making a case with sources in response to an unsubstantiated claim.

 

[plover]

"Do precisely what is necessary to maintain order, no more."

This is very difficult. If some one gets out of hand not only does the situation need to be resolved as quickly as possible but you need to make sure that the prisoners don't feel they can get away with it. If you do only what is necessary to stop an incident you have done nothing to prevent it from happening again.

It was in no way my intention to downplay the difficulties of these situations, and what you are saying here is included in what I meant by "maintain order".

All it takes is one individual who gets out of hand regularly with little to no punishment to get the others to start getting out of hand too. If the will to defy authority spreads among the prisoners the situation becomes rather volatile and unsafe for both the prisoners and the guards.

I agree with this also. The focus of my comments has been the flipside of this: that under a system where the rules are fuzzy enough to allow guards to take out their frustrations on prisoners or enact personal vendettas, they too will push the envelope of what they can get away with.

In a prison you can't predict when these incidents will happen and prevent them. It's almost certain that they will happen and you will have to deal with them. I don't believe that these people have been handling the situation very well but I think a certain amount of problems with the guards and how they handle situations is to be expected as well.

Yes, these situations are volatile, and the guards are, of course, human – and as with virtually every other human effort, perfection is extremely unlikely. My point is that all the evidence currently indicates that the professionalism of our military detention camps is often falling vastly short of what could be expected from appropriately trained personnel with clear guidelines.

Trying to maintain authority and not over step the bounds can be very difficult to accomplish. Personally I am a security guard. I think that I am a very levelheaded person and can keep my cool in stressful situations yet there has been at least one instance where I overstepped the bounds while dealing with an incredibly defiant individual. You have made several referances to the psychological situation of the prisoners and their lack of control over their environment but you don't seem to really take into account the situation of the guard. I'm sure that their situation is quite stressful and even if the military did put quite a bit of effort into training and screening the people who are simply going to be guarding prisoners there will still be those that make mistakes or just can't hack it.

The psychological dynamics I was talking about concern the guards as well as the prisoners. My purpose above was to object to a conception of these dynamics that seemed to allow far too much opportunity for authoritarian abuses, not to discount the stresses faced by guards. It sounds to me like you yourself most likely take your job seriously, have a clear concept of what is appropriate, and feel responsible for your actions – which is the better part of what is most important for dealing with these types of situations, no?

 

[russ_watters]

As stated before, there were many other reports by reliable sources documenting Bush’s failure to complete his service in the Guard, a couple of examples as follows:

...In conclusion, Dan Rather’s story was substantiated by other reports...

No! That is not correct. In the question of running the story or not running the story, the decision is made based on the new evidence in hand. The new evidence was what the story was about. It was not a story covering the overall picture of Bush's Guard Service, it was a story covering the new memos CBS had received.

If the story had been the story you are describing, then you'd be right - there would have been nothing wrong with it. But that was not the purpose of that 60 Minutes piece.

The burden of proof here was not the burden of proof for Bush's overall guard record, but the burden of proof for those specific memos. If those specific records cannot be positively authenticated - not 50% burden of proof, 95% burden of proof - then the story cannot run. That, sos, is why so many people lost their jobs over the story. They failed to authenticate the story before they ran it.

CBS isn't MoveONpac, SOS (or are they...?) they can't do what you are suggesting they can do. You're incorrectly characterizing the issue.

BTW – This post is an example of making a case with sources in response to an unsubstantiated claim.

Pffft - you're making a case that isn't at issue. Bush's overall guard service is irrelevant here. For what you posted about the specific memos, you posted a link to a quote by the guy who provided the memos. That Burkett thinks "the jury is still out" is irrelevant and its laughable that you would consider that "making a case". You're asking the accused if he's guilty - what do you think he's going to say?

For my part, no, I didn't provide any links in that post. Do you want some? Are there any specific facts you take issue with? I made the assumption that you were familiar with the facts of the issue: I assume that you are familiar with who MoveONpac (and the SBV) is, what they do, and where their money comes from. And I assume that you read CBS's report on the 60 Minutes story. I assumed you had read the memo written by the producer. If you don't already know this stuff...

However, here are some things you really aught to already know:
http://www.campaignaudit.org/articles/527democratsspendmore.html is where you can read about how the Democrats won the "soft money" battle in 2004.

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/cbs_report.pdf is CBS's report on the 60 Minutes story.

http://www.frankpastore.com/runsheetarchives/runsheet-2005-01-10.html you can read quotes from Mapes that show her political motivation for pushing the story.

 

[stoned]

I'm starting to change my mind about Bush administration, they are friggin good players.
Looks like White House administration now proclaimed that America's miserably bad image in the Muslim world is entierly the fault of one or two lines that appeared in a Newsweek magazine story.
The administration has even more or less demanded that Newsweek fix it.
I conclusion the administration is doing everythig perfectly all the fault is in our free and too liberal media.

 

[Yonoz]

You have made several referances to the psychological situation of the prisoners and their lack of control over their environment but you don't seem to really take into account the situation of the guard.

No one ever does these days.

 

[2CentsWorth]

...In the question of running the story or not running the story, the decision is made based on the new evidence in hand...

The first attempt to stop the stories about Bush's service was the release of lies from the White House, but that did not stick. Then Bush support groups tried to diminish the story by focusing accusations on the opponent (Kerry), but that did not stick. So in the end, let's say the memos were forgeries. The question of where the memos originated remains. We are talking about an administration that has had pundits on the payroll as it were. The dirty politics and lies that we have seen can only make one suspect of everything during this administration.

 

[SOS2008]

...The new evidence was what the story was about. It was not a story covering the overall picture of Bush's Guard Service, it was a story covering the new memos CBS had received.

I disagree with your usual black and white view. The story was about new evidence in connection to Bush's failure to serve his full term in the Guard. It was about both.

With regard to your original claim, I quote myself:

It isn't okay for stories to be fabricated.

The story was not fabricated. Separate from this, I agree the memos needed to be valid to be used as evidence. However, it doesn’t help the case that the memos can’t be proven invalid either—I’m sure you’re familiar with the term “shadow of doubt.”

Returning to my point, once again I quote myself:

In the meantime, no one lost their job or had their careers affected for the stories about Kerry's military service. As a result, there was more negative affect on Kerry than on Bush, so how was the election subverted against Bush?

A price was paid by Rather and CBS because of the memos—even though the story itself was true. However, the same can’t be said in regard to false affidavits about Kerry’s service, which were the basis for a story that was also false. This is my case, and I have made it. If you can't see the difference, I'm not going to waste any more time on this.

Furthermore, not only is there hypocrisy in the matter, but also as a result of these two stories, the election was subverted in Bush’s direction. You can’t substantiate intent to subvert the election in Kerry’s favor anymore then I can substantiate that the memos were used as a set-up to subvert the election in Bush’s favor.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

It was in no way my intention to downplay the difficulties of these situations, and what you are saying here is included in what I meant by "maintain order".

I was probably more wordy that necessary. I really only meant to point out that from the looks of it Pengwuino was arguing from the stand point of the guards and you from the stand point of the priosoners.
Thank you for the response.

 

[2CentsWorth]

There was a recent article about Newsweek and the hypocrisy of White House criticism of the media, which was in follow up to this blog article about CBS:

January 11, 2005| 6:30 p.m. ET, "Document flaps" (David Shuster):

...But as concerned as I am about the integrity and credibility of any news organization, I am far more concerned about the credibility of the United States. And to that end, CBS seems to have shown far more courage and accountability than our own government.

...Remember Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi opposition leader in exile who was paid millions of dollars by the Pentagon? He gave the civilian leaders at the Pentagon some documents that were allegedly from Iraqi scientists... documents that allegedly proved Iraq was an imminent threat to the United States. Chalabi also provided written testimony from Iraqis who claimed Saddam was close to completing a nuclear bomb.

Were the documents authenticated? Were the claims confirmed? The answer is "no." Because to do that kind of fact checking might have undermined the story line. Sound familiar?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6679533/

Also interesting are the results of a CNN poll conducted May 25, 2005:

Do you think the Bush White House is trying to control the media?

YES @ 94% (7,700)

NO @ 6% (478)