When I started this blog way back last month, I had intended to stay away from discussing the prison abuses in Irag, Afganistan and 'Gitmo despite the fact that its obvious the abuses were casued by the Bush administrations "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" and open approval for torture (sorry Monthy Python http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/python/monty.html; here is the script of the skit but it sure losses a lot in just a bare reading! http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/python/Scripts/NudgeNudge,KnowWhatIMean) .
But now that Newsweek is being blamed for the riots in Afganistahn, I am compelled to at least mention it.
"The story about Americans abusing the Koran in order to enrage prisoners has been out there for quite some time. "
"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."
"...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." For the rest of the article:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/22026/
I found another story on this issue:
"If there is a political playbook for right-wing conservatives these days, it no doubt begins, Step #1: Whenever possible, blame the news media.
What to do if the U.S. invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have sparked a persistent and bloody resistance that eats away at the president's political capital?
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 Koran at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo."
"First, it's not clear whether U.S. guards in Guantanamo or other prisons have placed copies of the Koran on a toilet or thrown pages (or a whole Koran) 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 Koran stories could be true." read the whole article: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/22022/
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
None of this need have happened.
The furor over Newsweek's use of an unverified "source" for its paragraph
on the torturers throwing Korans in the toilet in order to soften up
prisoners, seems misdirected. In the event that the Bush White House had
not created intelligence to fit their policy -- as stated in the leaked
Downing Street memo from British Intelligence, the American public would
not have been hoodwinked into believing that we needed to invade Iraq. If
we had not invaded Iraq, we would not be imprisoning Iraqis in Saddam
Hussein's dreaded Abu Ghraib. If we were not incarcerating people in Abu
Ghraib, we would not be torturing them or desecrating their holy books.
Therefore, Newsweek and other publications would not be describing the use
of Korans to soften up prisoners, and would not need to authenticate their
sources. And the White House would not be attempting to distract us from
the smoking gun memo.
I think we need to look at the real culprits in this fiasco -- Bush,
Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, etc.
Henry Van Zandt
Henry, I don't know you who are or how you found my blog, but thanks for the comment. You are the first one to publish a comment. Maybe you are the first reader for all I know!!
Post a Comment