Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Newsweek retraction
Looks like the owners of Newsweek don't like controversy, because they are acting like cowards. This seems to indicate that the story is reasonable, and possibly quite accurate, but the magazine is been intimidated. Wimps.
Jax
After a drumbeat of criticism from the Bush administration and others, Newsweek magazine yesterday went beyond an apology it issued Sunday and retracted an article published May 1 that stated that American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had tried to rattle Muslim detainees by flushing a Koran down a toilet. . .
An article in the current Newsweek said the original report, written by a veteran investigative reporter, Michael Isikoff, and the magazine's national security correspondent, John Barry, relied on a "longtime reliable source" who told Mr. Isikoff that a new report on prisoner abuses at Guantánamo would include a mention of a Koran being flushed down a toilet. The magazine said it showed the original article to a Pentagon official who challenged one aspect of the story but not the report about the desecration of the Koran.
Because of other reports about prisoner abuses there, the magazine said, the toilet incident "seemed shocking but not incredible."
In fact, complaints from released inmates that the Koran had been thrown into a toilet go back at least two years.
Among the more detailed accounts of United States soldiers mishandling copies of the Koran were depositions from three Britons who were released from Guantánamo in the summer of 2004. Asif Iqbal, one of the men, who were from Tipton, England, and had been captured in Afghanistan, said that guards "would kick the Koran, throw it in the toilet and generally disrespect it."
Military officials dismissed the complaints as commanders at Guantánamo conducted media tours of the facility during which they emphasized steps taken to demonstrate respect for Islam. Inmates, they noted, were given copies of the Koran along with a cloth surgical mask, which they used as a kind of sling to suspend the book from the wire mesh walls to ensure it did not touch the floor.
The official accounts of Guantánamo began fraying in later months, as the International Committee of the Red Cross charged in a confidential report in November that the procedures at Guantánamo amounted to torture, and F.B.I. memorandums disclosed in December portrayed harsh and abusive treatment by interrogators. The F.B.I. memorandums, disclosed in a lawsuit, did not mention any mishandling of the Koran.
Last month, a former American interrogator confirmed to The New York Times an account given in an interview by a former Kuwaiti detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, who said that mishandling of the Koran once led to a major hunger strike. The strike ended only after a senior officer expressed regret over the camp's loudspeaker system, which was simultaneously translated by linguists at the end of each cell block, the former interrogator said.
In that case, the accusations were of copies of the Koran being tossed on the floor in a pile and treated roughly, but there was no assertion that any had been put in the toilet. (Link)
Jax
After a drumbeat of criticism from the Bush administration and others, Newsweek magazine yesterday went beyond an apology it issued Sunday and retracted an article published May 1 that stated that American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had tried to rattle Muslim detainees by flushing a Koran down a toilet. . .
An article in the current Newsweek said the original report, written by a veteran investigative reporter, Michael Isikoff, and the magazine's national security correspondent, John Barry, relied on a "longtime reliable source" who told Mr. Isikoff that a new report on prisoner abuses at Guantánamo would include a mention of a Koran being flushed down a toilet. The magazine said it showed the original article to a Pentagon official who challenged one aspect of the story but not the report about the desecration of the Koran.
Because of other reports about prisoner abuses there, the magazine said, the toilet incident "seemed shocking but not incredible."
In fact, complaints from released inmates that the Koran had been thrown into a toilet go back at least two years.
Among the more detailed accounts of United States soldiers mishandling copies of the Koran were depositions from three Britons who were released from Guantánamo in the summer of 2004. Asif Iqbal, one of the men, who were from Tipton, England, and had been captured in Afghanistan, said that guards "would kick the Koran, throw it in the toilet and generally disrespect it."
Military officials dismissed the complaints as commanders at Guantánamo conducted media tours of the facility during which they emphasized steps taken to demonstrate respect for Islam. Inmates, they noted, were given copies of the Koran along with a cloth surgical mask, which they used as a kind of sling to suspend the book from the wire mesh walls to ensure it did not touch the floor.
The official accounts of Guantánamo began fraying in later months, as the International Committee of the Red Cross charged in a confidential report in November that the procedures at Guantánamo amounted to torture, and F.B.I. memorandums disclosed in December portrayed harsh and abusive treatment by interrogators. The F.B.I. memorandums, disclosed in a lawsuit, did not mention any mishandling of the Koran.
Last month, a former American interrogator confirmed to The New York Times an account given in an interview by a former Kuwaiti detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, who said that mishandling of the Koran once led to a major hunger strike. The strike ended only after a senior officer expressed regret over the camp's loudspeaker system, which was simultaneously translated by linguists at the end of each cell block, the former interrogator said.
In that case, the accusations were of copies of the Koran being tossed on the floor in a pile and treated roughly, but there was no assertion that any had been put in the toilet. (Link)
Comments:
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Amen and Amen! I couldn't agree more. Newsweek has totally wimped out. In fact, I wonder where this so-called "liberal" press we've been hearing the likes of Ann Coulter and other white trash rant about really is. It is a sad day when the only truly liberal - and objective - news I can find is in the Village Voice.
I also object, stridently, to the characterizing of political and social conservatives as evangelical Christians. As a minister (with two advanced graduate degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary) who has labored hard for the gospel for nearly 30 years, I am insulted that these types can get away, even with calling themselves "Christian." They are little different than the national church of Germany in the 1930s which fell lock, stock and barrel behind that "wonderful" champion of "Christian" family values and patriotism - Adolf Hitler. Are these people much different? I think not.
M. Renauf, Philadelphia, Pa.
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I also object, stridently, to the characterizing of political and social conservatives as evangelical Christians. As a minister (with two advanced graduate degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary) who has labored hard for the gospel for nearly 30 years, I am insulted that these types can get away, even with calling themselves "Christian." They are little different than the national church of Germany in the 1930s which fell lock, stock and barrel behind that "wonderful" champion of "Christian" family values and patriotism - Adolf Hitler. Are these people much different? I think not.
M. Renauf, Philadelphia, Pa.
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: 5/25/2005 08:10:00 p.m.
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