Cowardly Press Waves A White Flag, Disgraces First Amendment, American Heritage

This was stupid yesterday, and it gets dumber by the minute:

WASHINGTON, May 17 - The Bush administration kept up the pressure today on Newsweek magazine to do something beyond retracting an article asserting that investigators had confirmed the desecration of a Koran by American interrogators trying to unsettle Muslim detainees.

"There is lasting damage to our image because of this report," the chief White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said at a news briefing. "And we would encourage Newsweek to do all that they can to help repair the damage that has been done, particularly in the region."

The lasting damage.  Particularly in the region.  That Newsweek caused.  That Newsweek should help repair.

In case you only get your news from FOX, here's a couple of things Newsweek didn't do in the region that might just have damaged our image a little bit more...

Pose with dead Muslims, while giving the ol' Flyin' Tigers thumbs up!

Sik dogs on naked Muslims in their custody.

Administer first aid to dog attacked, naked Muslims by painfully restraining them on the floor.

Force naked Muslims to engage in embarrassingly and religiously offensive simulated homosexual couplings.

Blow the arms off of small Muslim children, while killing their entire families, in order to rid Saddam of his awesome stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction, which, unfortunately, he didn't actually, ahem, have.

Though, in the Bush administration's defense, it's not their fault that Saddam didn't have any Weapons of Mass Destruction.  After all, the Bush administration relied in good faith on an anonymous source for that information.  It's not their fault that that source was wrong.

Not like Newsweek!  I mean, at least Newsweek actually spoke to their anonymous source.  While the Bush administration didn't even bother to do that before launching a war.  And, as everybody knows, if you speak to your anonymous source, you should be held to a higher standard of accountability than if you just accept what your anonymous source says without question.

If you never even meet your anonymous source, like the Bush administration, well, it's hardly your fault if they're wrong!

What else might have damaged our image, particularly in the region?

Well, the Preznit, an alarmingly stupid history major, characterized our "War on Terra" as a "crusade", something that's, you know, kind of damaged the image of Western culture in the region since about the 11th century.

Maybe having the Bush administration promote General William Boykin to deputy undersecretary of defense after saying crazy shit like this damaged our image in the region:

During a January church speech in Daytona, Fla., Boykin recalled a Muslim fighter in Somalia who bragged on television the Americans would never get him because his God, Allah, would protect him: “Well, you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.”

Maybe having barking mad right wing "pundits"--and best selling right wing authors!--advocating racial profiling and internment of Muslims might have damaged our image.  Or maybe having right wing "pundits", best selling authors, frequent television personalities, and Time magazine cover people like Ann Coulter suggesting that "[w]e should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" might have somewhat damaged our image, particularly in the region.

Maybe our image got somewhat damaged when, while the Bush administration was talking about Weapons of Mass Destruction and establishing democracy and ridding the world of brutal tyrants, just about the first thing they did was hold a fire sale of Iraqi businesses for foreign investors, which some people called "the second looting of Iraq".

Maybe our image was already damaged when the Bush administration, while again talking about liberation and democracy and Weapons of Mass Destruction, secured the Oil Ministry as the rest of Baghdad and Iraq descended into a month long orgy of looting and violence.

Maybe we took a ding at reports that Afghanistan prisoners had been sufficated in cargo containers and buried in mass graves.  Though, I think Newsweek reported that one...so...it's hard to just blame it on the Bush administration.

So that's all stuff that the Bush administration did, and it's just a partial list.  I'm sure there's plenty more that I forgot, though people around the world may not have.  And all that stuff's horrible and counter-productive to what gave the incredibly unpopular and probably never elected Bush adminstration the freedom to go wild in America's name in the first place--which was making America safer from terrorist attacks.

And what did Newsweek do?  What did Newsweek do that was so awful that it inflamed Muslims around the world?  What did Newsweek do to deserve chiding comments from Condi Rice and Scott McClellan and Donald Rumsfeld?

Did it make an outrageous, unfounded accusation that the Koran had been desecrated by American interragators?

No.

Those accusations had been made years ago.  In papers like the Washington Post and the New York Times, and the Guardian, and little known news organizations like the BBC.  It wasn't any secret.

Newsweek didn't make it up.  And Newsweek certainly wasn't the first news organization to report it.  Well, then, what the heck did Newsweek do that suddenly ruined our image in the Muslim world?  What horrible, irresponsible thing did Newsweek do that's got Condi, and Rummy, and the rest of the Primate House screeching and throwing feces?

What did Newsweek do?  They simply wrote that these two year old, world wide published stories had actually been confirmed by a source at the Pentagon.  And Newsweek offered the Pentagon a chance to confirm or deny the story before it was published and the Pentagon declined to comment.

In fact, neither the Pentagon nor the White House addressed the original stories two years ago, nor the Newsweek story before it was published.

The Bush administration, who now claims the story was so irresponsible that it's resulted in people being killed, waited until ten days after the Newsweek story came out to say anything about it.

So, again, Newsweek didn't originally report the two year old story, a Pentagon source confirmed it, the Pentagon and White House passed on an opportunity to deny it prior to publication, and now these incompetent, irresponsible, bullshitting clowns we call the executive branch are pretending to blame Newsweek for damage to our image in the Muslim world???

Hey, shitheads!  Why didn't you deny the story before it went to print?  Or, better yet, why didn't you deny the story two years ago?  Or, even better yet, why didn't you take steps to ensure a story like this would never even have been credible in the first place???

Oh, that's right.  The Bush administration says it did take such steps:

"There is a need to inform people, inform people what the facts are, inform people what our policy is," the State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said today. "Yesterday, we sent out another cable to our embassies giving the text of the Newsweek retraction, explaining further that our inquiries had shown nothing like this, and reiterating once more that there are policies in place, detailed policies in place, among the military for the guards in terms of the handling of the Koran, in terms of showing respect for the religious rights and practices of the detainees."

And the Washington Post dutifully typed up the proof this morning:

The three-page memorandum, dated Jan. 19, 2003, says that only Muslim chaplains and Muslim interpreters can handle the holy book, and only after putting on clean gloves in full view of detainees.

The detailed rules require U.S. Muslim personnel to use both hands when touching the Koran to signal "respect and reverence," and specify that the right hand be the primary one used to manipulate any part of the book "due to cultural associations with the left hand." The Koran should be treated like a "fragile piece of delicate art," it says.

Anybody--or everybody--see the problem with that little bit of Pentagon P.R.?

Yeah, that's right.  The detailed policies of the Pentagon for treating the Koran with respect and reverence are dated January 19, 2003.  That's a little over a year after all them Muslims were rounded up in Afghanistan in late 2001 and shipped off, in hoods, to Camp XRay.  January 2003 is about a month before the detainees at Camp XRay, the very same ones who made the allegations about the Koran being flushed down the toilet, were released. 

And, of course, once they were released, they started telling the world about Korans being flushed down the toilet.  But, strangely enough, a month before their release, the Pentagon comes out with a year overdue memoradum on the respectful and reverential treatment of the Koran.

You notice there's no Pentagon memo from 2001.

It's weird, huh?  The Bush administration had a strict policy of treating the Koran with reverence and respect from the fall of 2001, when the United States began taking and interrogating these Muslim prisoners, but for some crazy reason, felt the need to put that policy in writing in late January 2003, about a month before those prisoners were released and began relating their stories about how American interrogators had desecrated the Koran right in front of their faces.

Does everybody get this???  CYA.  Put a memo in the file.  Before the shit gets out.

Does it mean it happened?  Does it mean it didn't happen?  I don't know.  But it doesn't look good.  It looks weird.  It would look bad in court.  It would look squirrely in front of an insurance adjuster.

You know what looks even worse?  This:

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…

They have looked through the logs, the interrogation logs, and they cannot confirm yet that there were ever the case of the toilet incident, except for one case, a log entry, which they still have to confirm, where a detainee was reported by a guard to be ripping pages out of a Koran and putting in the toilet to stop it up as a protest.  But not where the U.S. did it.

Now, there -- so it's something we're going to look at.  That's still unconfirmed; it's a log entry that has to be confirmed.  There are several log entries that show that the Koran may have been moved to -- and the detainees became irritated about it, but never an incident where it was thrown in the toilet.

Number one, you have General Myers saying Newsweek has nothing to do with violence in Afghanistan.  Though, who cares?  I wouldn't believe General Myers if he handed me his driver's license and said, "Hi, I'm General Myers."  So forget that.

But number two, you have General Myers saying, amazingly, that there is only one instance of a Koran being destroyed and shoved into a toilet in the interrogation logs, and that was done by a detainee!

Yes, a Koran was shredded and stuffed in a toilet.  That's a fact.  According to General Myers.  But it was done by one of these devout Muslims who regard the Koran to be the actual word of God and who believe the punishment for desecrating the Koran is death.

One of those guys shoved his Koran in the toilet.  To protest.

Sure.  Why not?  That sounds reasonable.  Ask any cop.  You'll hear countless stories about cops stopping drivers, late at night, in cars they don't own.  And the drivers tell the cops, reasonably, "Well, the owner gave me the keys.  At a stop light.  As a protest.  A libertarian, or something.  Didn't much believe in traffic lights."

But the weirdest thing in Myers' comment comes at the end:

There are several log entries that show that the Koran may have been moved to -- and the detainees became irritated about it, but never an incident where it was thrown in the toilet.

The Koran may have been moved to...and, uh, we stop.  But we note that the detainees were irritated about it.

Moved to where?  Why were the detainees irritated?  Was it moved somewhere without the respectful and reverential treatment that Scott, and Condi, and Rummy and the well overdue file memos had come to expect?

Because, you know, some of the detainees, the same ones who claimed that Korans ended up in the toilet, also alleged that Korans were thrown on the ground and sat or stood on.  Where, General Myers, were the Korans moved to?

Very strange.  Very weird. A good lawyer, in front of any jury--even the dumbass O.J. jury--would kill the Bush administration.

And yet this story rolls on.  In the very same newspapers and magazines, and on the very same television stations that have already reported the same allegations that Newsweek merely reported were confirmed.

And the "liberal" media keeps pretending that it isn't as stupid and ridiculous, and, frankly, insulting as it is.  The very people who have mindlessly and stupidly, and needlessly wrecked American prestige and honor around the globe, all the while mocking the objections of Americans who were mortified at what was being done in our good name, are now blaming one redundant magazine article for the entirely predictable blowback from four years of idiocy.

I know people in the "media".  They really don't seem this stupid when you talk to them.  How do they even pretend this kind of silliness might even in a comic book be true???

The Bush administration has damaged the image of America, particularly in that region, for at least the rest of my life.  Everyone knows that.  Democrats knew it while it was happening.  The nutty Bush people are just figuring it out now.

And this, this ridiculous attempt to deflect the mideast disaster that is the Bush administration on Newsweek is not only laughable and insulting, but it's as cowardly as nearly everything else Bush has done.

People are being killed.  America's image in the Muslim world is horrible.  And someone is responsible.  But it ain't Newsweek, for crying out loud.

Again, did the Koran thing happen?  Did it not happen?  I don't know.  Does it really make a difference?  Go back and look at those pictures.  Read the accounts of what did happen.  If you were a Muslim, why on earth would you believe that these right wing nuts in the Bush administration would show any kind of reverence or respect to the Koran when they've showed so little respect for actual real live Muslims?

They wouldn't flush a Koran down the toilet, but they'd put a real live Muslim, human being in a "stress position" until they died???

This is exactly what it seems like:  one more stupid, incompetent, failed conservative dream that cost the country billions of dollars.  And when it's become clear to the architects of this disaster that the "reality" based liberals who were all along telling these clowns what a fiasco we were about to mire ourselves in were right, rather than look or work for a solution, these gutless rats are going to pull the reserve chute--find a scapegoat and claim it would have all been so beautiful, so perfect, so easy if not for Newsweek.

And Newsweek goes along with it.

Dumb, and dumber, and dumber.

Comments

[Janis]

Thank you, ricky, for exposing the hypocrisy and expressing the outrage so well. This Newsweek thing makes me want to scream! I tried explaining its significance to my husband and some friends - you bring it all home so well, I should just send them here to BoB.

[cookie]

Wow, that was great Ricky! After reading that, I feel post-orgasmic. I don't even smoke, and I feel like I need a cigarette. Thanks!

[Margaret]

I guess the standards must be way different for Bush and his crowd than for everyone else. The hypocrisy of it makes me want to scream.

[Roxanne]

Longest. Post. Ever.

And a good one, too.

[ricky]

Actually, I had to cut it short. The pirogues were done.

Even furious liberals have to eat.

[lex icon]

The silliest part of this story is that the world of Islam seemed more annoyed at the Koran being flushed than at the prisoners being abused, especially since the story is so absurd to begin with. I mean, have you ever tried to flush a book down the toilet? Trust me, it doesn't go down as easy as a bag of coke.

[mary]

Ewww pirogues, yuk. Must have gotten a bad batch. Anyway - excellent, as usual. The Bush crowd makes me feel like I've eaten a bad batch of pirogues. New term I read today BSS disease (Bush Stress Syndrome). I think I've got it.

[trueleigh]

Have you ever been in an in argument with someone who is overly defensive? (In this case Bush and his party of imbeciles.) Telltale sign of a liar. And we all know Bush never read the Telltale Heart because it didn't have any pictures. Bushliar keeps talking about Newsweek because he's desperate.

[Jerry]

Have to disagree. That Newsweek might have been wrong about the Koran thing proves it never happened, and what did happen is insignificant. Just like the fact that the memos reported by Rather might have been forged proves that the Yellow Rose served nobaly and courageously and Kerry was a cowardly, murderous swine.

[anan]

I just wanted to mention a couple of things; not being a US citizen perhaps i'm being untoward by saying that the only sure thing i can see in this situation is that Bush and co. is trying to curtail the freedom of the press. If i lived in the US, that would be an important flare to my sense of personal liberty, if the Patriot Act and national id card etc. hadn't already sent off the alarm.

I wonder if i can comment on some of this content. In Islam, we have a story of a famous scholar who was travelling in a caravan with his library. When a bandit stopped him, he protested that his library should not be taken, as it was the sum of years of study. The bandit laughed and said, 'What kind of knowledge do you have, if it can be taken?'

Qur'ans have been destroyed before, and for just about the same reasons. That is why there are millions of people who strive to be hafiz, or people who can recite the entire Qur'an from memory. Allah has Promised us that He will Preserve the Qur'an intact until the end of time. So far, this has proven to be true. There is one of the original Qur'ans in Topkapi Museum, Turkey, which is the same as the one on my shelf, without a jot or tittle changed.

However, Muslims do not consider the Qur'an to be just a book, even if it is a divine revelation. We see it as a living being; a friend, who will defend us on the Day of Judgement. This incident you refer to would be something akin to Christians watching soldiers dismember an angel messily and flushing it down a toilet piece by piece. Thus the protest.

As for the terrible photographs you have posted here; they really make my heart ache. Those are my brothers and sisters being chopped up over there, and for what reason? Everyone is grieving, but even praying for them (qunut) has been deemed illegal by the US administration. What can we do?

One thing all Muslims know is that whatever tribulation we suffer is either a reward for us in the hereafter, or an expiation of our sins. We have been urged to be patient, and to show kindness to all peoples. This has led to a deadly sort of quietism in the face of what can only be called persecution.

Thank you for your post, and sorry for the long comment.

[ricky]

Anan, no need to apologize for the long comment--look how damn long the post was!

And it's always great to hear from people of other, foreign cultures. And, by that, of course, I mean, Canadians.

I enjoyed reading your thoughts on your religion, as it pertains to these ugly, appalling events.

I find it bizarre that as America, as we're constantly being told by the "liberal" media, is undergoing some new Great Awakening, some new revival of "religion", we Americans have such utter contempt and suspicion for some of the most devoutly religious people on the planet--the Muslims.

We, Americans, are constantly being told by our "liberal" media and our government that secular humanists, like myself, are waging a veritable war against "people of faith".

And yet these same people, like Bill Frist, who are so concerned about the welfare of "people of faith", are not even remotely bothered by American soldiers or American citizens or high profile Republican pundits heaping scorn and contempt, and humiliating people of the Muslim faith.

Who are also "people of faith".

To me, a person of not much faith at all, it all just looks like the Klan riding again. Except instead of keeping the darkies down, through violence and intimidation, they're keeping the camel jockies down.

Instead of making South Carolina safe for White Women, they're making the world safe for White Women.

Where is the outrage from the "religious" right at the assault on these people of faith???

Nowhere. Of course.

These clowns, like Frist, and Dobson, and whoever else, they talk about religion and faith, and the Bible, and blah, blah, blah.

But they're just bigots. They're just good ol' fashioned racists. When they say "people of faith", what they mean is "people like me".

Faith or religion's got nuthin' to do with it. They couldn't give a rat's ass about religion, or God, or faith.

Those pictures, of swarthy foreign Muslims being beaten and humiliated--can you imagine if those were of white Christian men? Can you imagine the howling outrage we'd hear from the right wing in this country if we saw, say, Syrians lumping a bunch of pale white Christian women on the floor like that?

We're not seeing a religious revival in America. We're seeing the mainstreaming of racism.

And why not? The modern Republican party, under Rove, has expressed it's admiration for, and it's desire to return to, McKinley's America.

Well, that's it, isn't it? Where a white Christian male can finally, once again, beat a nigger, a chink, or some camel jockey and not have to pretend to feel bad about it?

Thank Jesus, we've got a man of God in the White House! Thank God we've got people of "faith" in the People's House of Representatives!

Thank God we're gonna have people of "faith" in the Courts!

Wow! What a country this is going to be.

Dumb, mean, racist, and violent. Jesus will be so proud.

[Ellen]

Sad, but true Ricky, and so well said, once again.

[chasmyn]

This is my first time to your blog, and the first post I've read. All I can say is after reading it, you are my new hero. Way to express the outrage. Well-said.

[Michelle]

Incredible post. I somehow continue to be amazed at the nerve of these people. Don't know why though.

[Janis]

I was listening to BBC World News this morning and couldn't believe how much they were toeing the Bush administration line on this story. It looks like Newsweek has learned a harsh lesson:

What happens in Gitmo, stays in Gitmo.

[Critter]

I've been reading you for a while, and just wanted to say - fantastic blog. Well spoken outrage, with documentation. that avoids the gotcha, while nailing it home. Your piece on the GM stock was brilliant, as was this.

Kudos to common sense and logic mystified...

[John Doe]

Those sand niggers got what they deserved

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