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MSNBC Reporter Demands Resignation of White House Spokesman Scott McClellan

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Posted by: 97silverlsc

MSNBC Reporter Demands Resignation of White House Spokesman Scott McClellan
Keith Olbermann, MSNBC
Posted 2005-05-17 01:57:00.0

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240

The resignation of Scott McClellan

SECAUCUS -- I smell something - and it ain’t a copy of the Qu’ran sopping wet from being stuck in a toilet in Guantanamo Bay. It’s the ink drying on Scott McClellan’s resignation, and in an only partly imperfect world, it would be drifting out over Washington, and imminently.

Last Thursday, General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Donald Rumsfeld’s go-to guy whenever the situation calls for the kind of gravitas the Secretary himself can’t supply, told reporters at the Pentagon that rioting in Afghanistan was related more to the on-going political reconciliation process there, than it was to a controversial note buried in the pages of Newsweek claiming that the government was investigating whether or not some nitwit interrogator at Gitmo really had desecrated a Muslim holy book.

But Monday afternoon, while offering himself up to the networks for a series of rare, almost unprecedented sit-down interviews on the White House lawn, Press Secretary McClellan said, in effect, that General Myers, and the head of the after-action report following the disturbances in Jalalabad, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, were dead wrong. The Newsweek story, McClellan said, “has done damage to our image abroad and it has done damage to the credibility of the media and Newsweek in particular. People have lost lives. This report has had serious consequences.”

Whenever I hear Scott McClellan talking about ‘media credibility,’ I strain to remember who it was who admitted Jeff Gannon to the White House press room and called on him all those times.

Whenever I hear this White House talking about ‘doing to damage to our image abroad’ and how ‘people have lost lives,’ I strain to remember who it was who went traipsing into Iraq looking for WMD that will apparently turn up just after the Holy Grail will - and at what human cost.

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

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

I’m always warning about the logical fallacy - the illusion that just because one event follows another, the latter must have necessarily caused the former. But when I wondered tonight on Countdown if it applied here, Craig Crawford reassured me. “The dots connect.”

The real point, of course, is that you’d have to be pretty dumb to think that making a threat at Gitmo akin to ‘Spill the beans or we’ll kill this Qu’ran’ would have any effect on the prisoners, other than to eventually leak out and inflame anti-American feelings somewhere. Of course, everybody in the prosecution of the so-called ‘war on terror’ has done something dumb, dating back to the President’s worst-possible-word-selection (“crusade”) on September 16, 2001. So why wouldn’t some mid-level interrogator stuck in Cuba think it would be a good idea to desecrate a holy book? Jack Rice, the former CIA special agent and now radio host, said on Countdown that it would be a “knuckleheaded” thing to do, but “plausible.”

One of the most under-publicized analyses of 9/11 concludes that Osama Bin Laden assumed that the attacks on the U.S. would galvanize Islamic anger towards this country, and they'd overthrow their secular governments and woo-hoo we've got an international religious war. Obviously it didn't happen. It didn't even happen when the West went into Iraq. But if stuff like the Newsweek version of a now two-year old tale about toilets and Qu’rans is enough to set off rioting in the streets of countries whose nationals were not even the supposed recipients of the ‘abuse’, then weren’t those members of the military or the government with whom Newsweek vetted the plausibility of its item, honor-bound to say “you can’t print this”?

Or would somebody rather play politics with this? The way Craig Crawford reconstructed it, this one went similarly to the way the Killian Memos story evolved at the White House. The news organization turns to the administration for a denial. The administration says nothing. The news organization runs the story. The administration jumps on the necks of the news organization with both feet - or has its proxies do it for them.

That’s beyond shameful. It’s treasonous.

It’s also not very smart. While places like the Fox News Channel (which, only today, I finally recognized - it’s the newscast perpetually running on the giant video screens in the movie “1984”) ask how many heads should roll at Newsweek, it forgets in its fervor that both the story and the phony controversy around it are not so cut-and-dried this time.

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

And larger still, in terms of politics, this isn't well-defined, is it? I mean Conservatives might parrot McClellan and say ‘Newsweek put this country in a bad light.’ But they could just as easily thump their chests and say ‘See, this is what we do to those prisoners at Gitmo! You guys better watch your asses!’

Ultimately, though, the administration may have effected its biggest mistake over this saga, in making the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs look like a liar or naïf, just to draw a little blood out of Newsweek’s hide. Either way - and also for that tasteless, soul-less conclusion that deaths in Afghanistan should be lain at the magazine’s doorstep - Scott McClellan should resign. The expiration on his carton full of blank-eyed bully-collaborator act passed this afternoon as he sat reeling off those holier-than-thou remarks. Ah, that’s what I smelled.

Posted by: Kbob

My take is that the administration feared that acknowledging the story as the reason for the riots last week would have further inflamed the situation. The rioters would have taken it as a confession, when in fact most officials weren't sure at the time. Then when they were sure, they blasted the faulty story. Not quite something worth resigning for.

Poor Keith Olbermann. I never understood why people liked him. He speaks and writes with high-brow wit that really isn't funny at all. He impresses himself with his writing style, but it's very hard to follow requiring several readings to get the meaning. He really thought he had something profound with this editorial. Unfortunately, it's as ridiculous as he is. Too bad he won't do us all a favor and resign. His personality is more suited for entertainment, not news. He needs a talk show like Dennis Miller or John Stewart.

Posted by: JohnnyBz00LS

The excerpt from the transcript of the 5/12 press conference.........

Quote:

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.

General Craddock, our commander of Southern Command, has been in Guantanamo for the last couple of days digging into this issue to see if there was a time when the Koran was not respected. I can tell you that the version of the Koran that we provide to detainees is approved by the ICRC. So we're very careful about that. 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.

So, it sounds to me like our military officials had already dismissed any connection between the riot-related deaths in Afghanistan to the Newsweek article (in fact they offered a logical connection to the "reconciliation process that President Karzai and his Cabinet is conducting in Afghanistan"), but now the white house is blowing this way out of proportion and vilifying Newsweek and the media in general? I don't know for sure as I haven't read the original Newsweek article myself, but this sounds like SSDD.

Posted by: Kbob

Nope. Seems pretty obvious to me that the US govt. was scared the allegations were true and wanted to downplay the consequences of it. Now that the Newsweek article is known to be bogus, blasting Newsweek was the best way to quiet the situation in Afghanistan as that got more media attention. A good side effect is that reporters will be more careful in getting their facts straight. Remember guys (left, right, and middle) that misinformation against the U.S. is not good for any of us. We're all on the same team.

Posted by: 97silverlsc

Smells like some texas

to me. This article points out the history of the accusations about the qoran, and recent detainees released have reported similar incidents.
Don't Blame Newsweek
By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate

Tuesday 17 May 2005

Austin, Texas -- As Riley used to say on an ancient television sitcom, "This is a revoltin' development." There seems to be a bit of a campaign on the right to blame Newsweek for the anti-American riots in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Islamic countries.

Uh, people, I hate to tell you this, but the story about Americans abusing the Koran in order to enrage prisoners has been out there for quite some time. The first mention I found of it is March 17, 2004, when the Independent of London interviewed the first British citizen released from Guantanamo Bay. The prisoner said he had been physically beaten but did not consider that as bad as the psychological torture, which he described extensively. Jamal al-Harith, a computer programmer from Manchester, said 70 percent of the inmates had gone on a hunger strike after a guard kicked a copy of the Koran. The strike was ended by force-feeding.

Then came the report, widely covered in American media last December, by the International Red Cross concerning torture at Gitmo. I wrote at the time: "In the name of Jesus Christ Almighty, why are people representing our government, paid by us, writing filth on the Korans of helpless prisoners? Is this American? Is this Christian? What are our moral values? Where are the clergymen on this? Speak up, speak out."

The reports kept coming: Dec. 30, 2004, "Released Moroccan Guantanamo Detainee Tells Islamist Paper of His Ordeal," reported the Financial Times. "They watched you each time you went to the toilet; the American soldiers used to tear up copies of Koran and throw them in the toilet. ..." said the released prisoner.

On Jan. 9, 2005, Andrew Sullivan, writing in The Sunday Times of London, said: "We now know a great deal about what has gone on in U.S. detention facilities under the Bush administration. Several government and Red Cross reports detail the way many detainees have been treated. We know for certain that the United States has tortured five inmates to death. We know that 23 others have died in U.S. custody under suspicious circumstances. We know that torture has been practiced by almost every branch of the U.S. military in sites all over the world -- from Abu Ghraib to Tikrit, Mosul, Basra, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

"We know that no incidents of abuse have been reported in regular internment facilities and that hundreds have occurred in prisons geared to getting intelligence. We know that thousands of men, women and children were grabbed almost at random from their homes in Baghdad, taken to Saddam's former torture palace and subjected to abuse, murder, beatings, semi-crucifixions and rape.

"All of this is detailed in the official reports. What has been perpetrated in secret prisons to 'ghost detainees' hidden from Red Cross inspection, we do not know. We may never know.

"This is America? While White House lawyers were arguing about what separates torture from legitimate 'coercive interrogation techniques,' the following was taking place: Prisoners were hanged for hours or days from bars or doors in semi-crucifixions; they were repeatedly beaten unconscious, woken and then beaten again for days on end; they were sodomized; they were urinated on, kicked in the head, had their ribs broken, and were subjected to electric shocks.

"Some Muslims had pork or alcohol forced down their throats; they had tape placed over their mouths for reciting the Koran; many Muslims were forced to be naked in front of each other, members of the opposite sex and sometimes their own families. It was routine for the abuses to be photographed in order to threaten the showing of the humiliating footage to family members."

The New York Times reported on May 1 on the same investigation Newsweek was writing about and interviewed a released Kuwaiti, who spoke of three major hunger strikes, one of them touched off by "guards' handling copies of the Koran, which had been tossed into a pile and stomped on. A senior officer delivered an apology over the camp's loudspeaker system, pledging that such abuses would stop. Interpreters, standing outside each prison block, translated the officer's apology. 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."

So where does all this leave us? With a story that is not only true, but previously reported numerous times. So let's drop the "Lynch Newsweek" bull. Seventeen people have died in these riots. They didn't die because of anything Newsweek did -- the riots were caused by what our government has done.

Get your minds around it. Our country is guilty of torture. To quote myself once more: "What are you going to do about this? It's your country, your money, your government. You own this country, you run it, you are the board of directors. They are doing this in your name. The people we elected to public office do what you want them to. Perhaps you should get in touch with them."

Posted by: JohnnyBz00LS

Posted by: MonsterMark

Quote:

Originally Posted by 97silverlsc

Get your minds around it. Our country is guilty of torture. To quote myself once more: "What are you going to do about this? It's your country, your money, your government. You own this country, you run it, you are the board of directors. They are doing this in your name. The people we elected to public office do what you want them to. Perhaps you should get in touch with them."

I'm going to send them more money and tell them to keep up the good work.

Posted by: barry2952

Bryan,

You truly are a JACKASS.

Posted by: Kbob

There is no doubt about many of those accusations above. But you CANNOT give credibility to every single allegation as being the truth. That is my point. There is enough against the US out there that we don't need faulty stories printed in magazines. These things continue to be minimized and reduced. There are bad cops out there as well, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight crime in general. Is the real point of this anti-Iraqi war from you guys is that you don't believe in war period? Because the stuff that you're jumping on is stuff that happens in every war, from the Revolutionary War to WWI and II to today. Again, by no means am I condoning it. I'm against it. But the things you guys are pointing out are not conducive to peace. Where is the outcry about Christian Bibles not even being allowed in certain countries because of religious sensitivities? You don't hear me crying about how unfair it is. Take a good, long, objective look. We're the good guys. You may not know it and that is the sad part. We're not perfect, but we are the good guys.

Posted by: JohnnyBz00LS

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kbob

There is no doubt about many of those accusations above. But you CANNOT give credibility to every single allegation as being the truth. That is my point. There is enough against the US out there that we don't need faulty stories printed in magazines. These things continue to be minimized and reduced.

But apparently the Newsweek story was NOT "faulty" after all. What pisses me off about this is not so much the tortuing stuff (as you said, it happens in every war, although the tortuing still pisses me off, we as americans SHOULD be above that), but the bullying from the white house to censure the facts and the villifying of the media from the GOP........ when the MEDIA is NOT THE VILLIANS HERE, it's those loose cannons tortuing the prisoners. This smacks of communism and is undeniably UN-AMERICAN. All the white house has done is to exasperate (sp?) the problem by finger pointing and blame dodging. Go ahead GW, keep digging your grave.

Posted by: Kbob

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyBz00LS

But apparently the Newsweek story was NOT "faulty" after all.

If that were true, there would not have been a retraction. There are too many examples that support this. I don't have any problem with the govt. bullying the media to be responsible when they're wrong. The media certainly doesn't pull any punches with the govt. This is another check in our system. If the US media were more objective, they'd be doing more stories on the atrocities committed against US citizens and Iraqi's by the insurgents. But all is quiet on that front. But then that would help George Bush wouldn't it. Makes me want to puke.

Posted by: JohnnyBz00LS

You don't read the paper? Everyday there are headlines about how many Americans are killed by insurgent car bombings or whatever. Seems pretty "objective" to me. Yet, if the GOP had their way, we would NOT hear about these stories either.

Anyone have a link to the Newsweek story and the retraction? I'd like to see it for myself before I put my foot in my mouth. Although, as you well know, I'm not afraid to taste my shoe leather once in awhile.

Posted by: MonsterMark

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyBz00LS

How about some stories of all the good we are doing in Iraq, and for that matter, around the world. You never hear about it. If the media gave equal time to the good and the bad, then fine. But they don't. We hear about every single US person killed in Iraq but we never hear about the new school full of kids paid for by us. Thousands of good deeds are being done and we hear of none of them. Why? Because then support for our actions in Iraq would be 90% and Bush's approval ratings would be 75% and conservatives and Republicans would be able to keep a foothold in directing this country in the right direction and keeping us safe.

Torturing prisoners? Sure it sucks. If somebody has information and we need it, bring in Jack Bauer. What about the torture those people in the towers felt. Knowing you were either going to be burned to death or crushed. What about those people? That wasn't torture?

Tearing off some pages from a book! Too f-in bad. They have no problem burning our flag, do they? We should make a huge pile of these books and make them light the match and let them watch it burn, baby burn. An eye for eye, tooth for tooth. We are trying to protect humanity. They are trying to destroy it. Suicide missions and virgins in heaven. Who the hell do you think we are dealing with? I fully support whatever it is the government has to do to get the information we need to stop the bad guys from killing us.

Like I said. Way to go and keep up the good work. You have my support. Gitmo guys...

Posted by: 97silverlsc

We need to stop going back to the WTC attack for justification, whether it be for the Iraqi war or torture, because it's been shown there was NO CONNECTION between the WTC attacks and Iraq. Stop regurgitating Shrubs lies!

Posted by: MonsterMark

Quote:

Originally Posted by 97silverlsc

We need to stop going back to the WTC attack for justification, whether it be for the Iraqi war or torture, because it's been shown there was NO CONNECTION between the WTC attacks and Iraq. Stop regurgitating Shrubs lies!

OK, I'll go back to Saddam attacking Kuwait without provocation. Then fighting, losing and surrendering. Then snubbing his nose at the world as he tried and succeeded in accumulating WMD. Then challenging us to find it. Then fighting again and losing and having his a s s pulled from a hole in the ground. That sounds about right to me.

We needed to go to Afganistan anyway. If Clinton the pussy had taken care of business when it needed to be tended to, GW wouldn't have had to deal with it. All you lefties are so ready to turn the other cheek and get your butt handed to you again. I'm not willing to allow anybody for any reason to use a WMD of any kind on any innocent US civilians, ever!

Posted by: barry2952

According to Bryan lies are just bent truths and those are OK for a CIC.

Posted by: MonsterMark

Quote:

Originally Posted by barry2952

According to Bryn lies are just bent truths and those are OK for a CIC.

And according to Bary, truths are lies just waiting to be bent.

Posted by: barry2952

Now you've proven yourself to be a bully and a liar. Show me where I've used those words.

Posted by: MonsterMark

Quote:

Originally Posted by barry2952

Now you've proven yourself to be a bully and a liar. Show me where I've used those words.

Man, here's the smiley.

.

It was a joke. You know, humor. A play on words. Tit for tat. Just having fun. I'll make sure to stay out of your posts in the future.

BTW, you called Bush a Liar because he bent the truth. I'll go find that thread and reread and post what you wrote. OK?

Posted by: MonsterMark

Man, here's the smiley.

.

It was a joke. You know, humor. A play on words. Tit for tat. Just having fun. I'll make sure to stay out of your posts in the future.

I seem to recall you calling Bush a liar because he bent the truth. I'll go find that thread and reread and post what you wrote. OK?

And I would consider your calling me both a bully and a liar a personal attack. No big deal. I've been called worse in my life but I think you know where this name calling gets us. Nowhere. So I'll end with... Sticks and stones may break my bones...

but words will never hurt me.

Posted by: barry2952

It was a personal attack.

Posted by: Kbob

Quote:

Originally Posted by barry2952

It was a personal attack.

You mean like this one?:

"Bryan,

You truly are a JACKASS."

Posted by: barry2952

What's your beef? Am I wrong?

Posted by: Kbob

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyBz00LS

You don't read the paper? Everyday there are headlines about how many Americans are killed by insurgent car bombings or whatever. Seems pretty "objective" to me.

Oh yeah, real objective. Article reads something to the effect of: "suicide bombing kills 30 people . . . no end in sight . . . US forces hindered . . . bloodbath . . . Yankee go home . . . quagmire." I've read them alright. They minimize and ridicule the US military at almost every turn.

Posted by: Kbob

Quote:

Originally Posted by barry2952

What's your beef? Am I wrong?

Just pointing out the obvious personal attack you made.

Posted by: MonsterMark

Quote:

Originally Posted by barry2952

It was a personal attack.

Sorry you feel that way. My apologies. It was not intentional. I can delete it if you would like?

Posted by: Kbob

Quote:

Originally Posted by MonsterMark

Sorry you feel that way. My apologies. It was not intentional. I can delete it if you would like?

Good idea. Delete his personal attack as well. Delete mine, too, cause I'm getting worked up and I may start cursing at any moment. Before I forget:

Posted by: barry2952

I'm confused Bryan. What are you apologizing for?

Posted by: MonsterMark

Quote:

Originally Posted by barry2952

I'm confused Bryan. What are you apologizing for?

Hummm. I was apologizing for offending you in post Number 17 where I was being funny for intentionally misspelling your name as you did mine on your prior post and then taking your post and twisting the words you had wrote. I believe the part you found offensive was your feeling I had intentionally quoted something that you had said verbatim whereas that was not the case, at least intentionally. Hence the apology to make peace.

Posted by: JohnnyBz00LS

children, back on topic..........

Posted on Fri, May. 20, 2005

U.S. deflects killings blame by demonizing Newsweek

By Robert Jensen and Pat Youngblood

If there is a political playbook for right-wing conservatives these days, it no doubt begins, “Step No. 1: Whenever possible, blame the news media.”

What to do if the U.S. invasions/occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have sparked resistance in those countries because people generally don’t like being occupied by a foreign power that has interests in exploiting their resources and/or geopolitical value? Blame journalists.

That’s exactly what the Bush administration and its rhetorical attack dogs are doing with the “scandal” over Newsweek’s story on the desecration of the Quran at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo. In a short item in its May 9 issue, Newsweek reported that U.S. military investigators had found evidence that U.S. guards had flushed a copy of the Quran down a toilet to try to provoke prisoners. This week, the magazine retracted, saying not that editors knew for sure that such an incident didn’t happen but that, “Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay.”

Meanwhile, after the original story ran, Afghan and U.S. forces fired on demonstrators in Afghanistan, killing at least 14 and injuring many others.

The conventional wisdom emerged quickly: Newsweek got it wrong, and Newsweek is to blame for the deaths. The first conclusion is premature; the second is wrong.

First, it’s not clear whether U.S. guards in Guantanamo or other prisons have placed copies of the Quran on a toilet or thrown pages (or a whole Quran) into a toilet. Detainees have made such claims, which have been reported by attorneys representing some of the men in custody and denied by U.S. officials. Newsweek’s retraction is ambiguous, suggesting they believe the incident may have happened but no longer can demonstrate that it was cited in the specific U.S. government documents, as originally reported.

Given the abuse and torture – from sexual humiliation to beatings to criminal homicide – that has gone on in various U.S. military prison facilities, it’s not hard to believe that the Quran stories could be true. Given that last month U.S. officials pressured the United Nations to eliminate the job of its top human-rights investigator in Afghanistan after that official criticized violations by U.S. forces in the country, it’s not hard to be skeptical about U.S. motives.

And given that even the human-rights commission of the generally compliant Afghan government is blocked by U.S. forces from visiting the prisons, it’s not hard to believe that the U.S. officials may have something to hide.

Until we have more information, definitive conclusions are impossible. But if you go on a popular right-wing Web site, you’ll find the verdict that administration supporters are trying to make the final word: “Newsweek lied, people died.”

Yes, people died during demonstrations, and political leaders in the Muslim world have cited the Quran stories to spark anti-U.S. feeling. But reporters outside the United States have pointed out that these demonstrations have not been spontaneous but were well-organized, often by groups of students. The frustration with U.S. policy that fuels these demonstrations isn’t limited to the Quran incident, and to reduce the unrest to one magazine story is misleading. Indeed, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a news conference last week that the senior commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Carl Eichenberry, reported that the violence “was not at all tied to the article in the magazine.”

So, why the focus on the Newsweek story? It’s part of the tried-and-true strategy of demonize, disguise and divert. Demonize the news media to disguise the real causes of the resistance to occupation and divert attention from failed U.S. policies.

The irony is that the U.S. corporate news media deserve harsh criticism for coverage of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – not for possibly getting one fact wrong, but for failing to consistently challenge the illegality of both wars and the various distortions and lies that the Bush administration has used to mobilize support for those illegal wars. We should hold the news media accountable when they fail. But we should defend journalists when they are used by political partisans who are eager to obscure their own failures.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Jensen is on the board and Pat Youngblood is coordinator of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin, Texas. They can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu and pat@thirdcoastactivist.org . They wrote this for the political newsletter Counterpunch.

Posted by: JohnnyBz00LS

Quote:

Originally Posted by MonsterMark

If I were you, I'd be glad we don't read so much about "all the good we do abroad"......... right across the same page as all the f-ups that are going on right here at home. It would just piss off the general US public more than they already are.

Posted by: MonsterMark

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyBz00LS

I'll take that chance. Let's do it. Left side of page, the screw ups...Right side, all the good stuff. Only problem is the left side pages will be blank after page 2 and right side will be a volume like War and Peace.

But if you seriously think we do more harm than good, I'm willing to bet there is some vacant beach-front property in the middle of the Indian Ocean that has your name on it.

Posted by: Kbob

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyBz00LS

children, back on topic..........

Sorry. Took my Ritalin today so I'm good to go.

Posted by: 97silverlsc

Back on subject:
The International Committee of the Red Cross documented what it called credible information about U.S. personnel disrespecting or mishandling Korans at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and pointed it out to the Pentagon in confidential reports during 2002 and early 2003, an ICRC spokesman said Wednesday.

Representatives of the ICRC, who have played a key role in investigating abuse allegations at the facility in Cuba and other U.S. military prisons, never witnessed such incidents firsthand during on-site visits, said Simon Schorno, an ICRC spokesman in Washington.

But ICRC delegates, who have been granted access to the secretive camp since January 2002, gathered and corroborated enough similar, independent reports from detainees to raise the issue multiple times with Guantanamo commanders and with Pentagon officials, Schorno said in an interview Wednesday.

Following the ICRC's reports, the Defense Department command in Guantanamo issued almost three pages of detailed, written guidelines for treatment of Korans. Schorno said ICRC representatives did not receive any other complaints or document similar incidents following the issuance of the guidelines on Jan. 19, 2003.

The issue of how Korans are handled by American personnel guarding Muslim detainees moved into the spotlight after protests in Muslim nations, including deadly riots in Afghanistan, that followed a now-retracted report in Newsweek magazine. That story said U.S. investigators had confirmed that interrogators had flushed a Koran down a toilet.

The Koran is Islam's holiest book, and mistreating it is seen as an offense against God.

Following the firestorm over the report and the riots, the ICRC declined Wednesday to discuss what kind of alleged incidents were involved, how many there were or how often it reported them to American officials prior to the release of the 2003 Koran guidelines.

"We don't want to comment specifically on specific instances of desecration, only on the general level of how the Koran was disrespected," Schorno said.

Schorno did say, however, that there were "multiple" instances involved and that the ICRC made confidential reports about such incidents "multiple" times to Guantanamo and Pentagon officials.

In addition to the retracted Newsweek story, senior Bush administration officials have repeatedly downplayed other reports regarding alleged abuses of the Koran at Guantanamo, largely dismissing them because they came from current or former detainees.

Pentagon confirms reports

Asked about the ICRC's confidential reports Wednesday night, Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, confirmed their existence but sought to downplay the seriousness of their content. He said they were forwarded "on rare occasions" and called them "detainee allegations which they [the ICRC] could not corroborate."

But that is not how Schorno, the ICRC spokesman, portrayed the reports.

"All information we received were corroborated allegations," he said, adding, "We certainly corroborated mentions of the events by detainees themselves."

`Not just one person'

Schorno also said: "Obviously, it is not just one person telling us something happened and we just fire up. We take it very seriously, and very carefully, and document everything in our confidential reports."

It was not clear whether the ICRC's corroboration went beyond statements made independently by detainees.

The organization has said that it insists on speaking "in total privacy to each and every detainee held" when its delegates and translators visit military detention facilities.

Still, Whitman said there was nothing in the ICRC reports that approximated the information published in the story retracted by Newsweek.

"The representations that were made to the United States military at Guantanamo by the ICRC are consistent with the types of things we have found in various [U.S. military] log entries about handling Korans, such as the accidental dropping of a Koran," he said.

the military's sensitivity about Muslim religious issues, but they did not note that the ICRC had confidentially reported specific concerns before the guidelines were issued.

The procedures outlined in the memorandum, which is entitled "Inspecting/Handling Detainee Korans Standard Operating Procedure," are exacting. Among other things, they mandate that chaplains or Muslim interpreters should inspect all Korans, and that military police should not touch the holy books.

The guidelines also specify that Korans should not be "placed in offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet areas," according to a copy.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan suggested Tuesday that the guidelines should be broadly reported in the wake of the retracted Newsweek story.

"The military put in place policies and procedures to make sure that the Koran was handled, or is handled, with the utmost care and respect," he said.

U.S. credited for response

The ICRC gave U.S. officials credit for taking corrective action at Guantanamo by issuing the guidelines, with Schorno saying Wednesday, "We brought it up to the attention of the authorities, and it was followed through."

He also said, "The memo doesn't mention the ICRC, but we know that our comments are taken seriously."

Still, Schorno did not say the guidelines were issued specifically in response to the ICRC's reports. Schorno's remarks Wednesday represented a departure from the ICRC's customary policy of confidentiality with the governments it deals with in an effort to maintain their trust and the organization's neutrality.

A senior State Department official, speaking only on the condition that he not be named, said Wednesday the issuance of the guidelines followed the ICRC's reports and that they were "a credit to the fact that we investigate and correct practices and problems."

Whitman, the Pentagon spokesman, said he was not aware of "any specific precipitating event that caused the command to codify those in a written policy."

Whitman also said, "The ICRC works very closely with us to help us identify concerns with respect to detainees on a variety of issues, to include religious issues. But I can't make any direct correlation there" between ICRC concerns on the Koran and the issuance of the 2003 guidelines.

Posted by: Punisher

Heh, these threads seems like they repeat themselves everytime. No one wants to admit there side might have been wrong. Its kinda sad how blindly ppl are willing to follow there side....

Posted by: MonsterMark

Quote:

Originally Posted by Punisher

Heh, these threads seems like they repeat themselves everytime. No one wants to admit there side might have been wrong. Its kinda sad how blindly ppl are willing to follow there side....

My side is never wrong. We might bend the rightness time to time, but certainly never wrong.

Posted by: Kbob

If the info was indeed credible, Newsweek would not have retracted the story. The story had no legs.

Posted by: barry2952

The international news says that the retraction is not credible. I'm not saying one way or the other. I don't know who to believe.

Is it not possible that the retraction was stated due to internal or external pressures to quell the disturbance?

Posted by: Kbob

Quote:

Originally Posted by barry2952

The international news says that the retraction is not credible. I'm not saying one way or the other. I don't know who to believe.

It's a sad day when all domestic news organizations are questioned in one fell swoop. I know you guys are sick of hearing it, but this spiral started long ago with the heavily left-leaning news we were fed for so long. The advent of Fox news brought it more into light with their brand of conservative broadcasting. Hopefully both sides will work toward more non-biased reporting and work towards honest news stories without agendas. That being said, the international news organizations seem to have an agenda as well, and it isn't to make the US look good, facts or not.