This time the get-America mentality of the mainstream media has cost dozens of people their lives.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newsweek magazine said on Sunday it erred in a May 9 report that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to the victims of deadly Muslim protests sparked by the article.Editor Mark Whitaker said the magazine inaccurately reported that U.S. military investigators had confirmed that personnel at the detention facility in Cuba had flushed the Muslim holy book down the toilet.
The report sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza. In the past week it was condemned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and by the Arab League.
It's not exactly like the Muslim crazies need much of an excuse to riot, kill people, and burn the American flag, but Newsweek is still responsible for fanning the flames that led those deaths and injuries. It's particularly egregious because the magazine obviously intended to set this wildfire, and they're only apologizing because the crap they printed turned out to be false. Is it unpatriotic for an American magazine to purposefully incite hatred and violence against our country? Signs point to yes.
"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst," Whitaker wrote in the magazine's latest issue, due to appear on U.S. newsstands on Monday.
Oh, good job, I'm sure that'll solve the problem. Moron. People died, and heads shold roll at Newsweek.
Whitaker told Reuters that Newsweek did not know if the reported toilet incident involving the Koran ever occurred. "As to whether anything like this happened, we just don't know," he said in an interview. "We're not saying it absolutely happened but we can't say that it absolutely didn't happen either."
Wow, that's some spectacular content you've got in your magazine. Good thing you respected media elites have editors like Mark Whitaker to maintain that exalted maybe/maybe-not standard that all we bloggers marvel at.
The magazine said other news organizations had already aired charges of Koran desecration based "only on the testimony of detainees."
And what motive could Islamofacist terrorists detained for acts of terrorism against the United States possibly have to lie?
Oddly amusing is this threat:
On Sunday, Afghan Muslim clerics threatened to call for a holy war against the United States.
Didn't we cross this bridge, like, three and a half years ago?
Jim Geraghty at the excellent TKS (née KerrySpot) has a lot of links, and says this story will end up being bigger than Rathergate. Makes sense, what with all the dead bodies and all.
And something tells me this one is going to be bigger than Rather. There was something goofy and absurd about the whole CBS memo mess – their ludicrous claim of Burkett as an ‘unimpeachable source,’ the tale of memos passed at a rodeo, Rather’s stubborn insistence that 1972 typewriters could perfectly match Microsoft Word default settings.This latest journalistic train wreck is just ugly. Dead Afghans, calls for jihad, threats of more violence, Islamists rejecting the Newsweek retraction… This can still get worse, and there will be no laughs in this one.
Still, Jay Tea at Wizbang thinks that some people are overreacting by blaming Newsweek for the deaths.
As noted below and elsewhere, there is a lot of heat going around right now about Newsweek and its erroneous story about a Koran being flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo. And while I agree with a lot of it, I have to argue against the most severe sanctions people are proposing against Newsweek -- in particular, lawsuits for the deaths of those killed in the ensuing riots.The purpose of such lawsuits is to hold people liable for reasonable and predictable reactions to their actions, and I don't think the riots and deaths fall into that category.
I willingly grant the "predictable" element, but I draw the line at "reasonable." The use of that is to justify the unjustifiable. The riots were a completely irrational and wrong response, and Newsweek should not be held responsible for what a bunch of religious, West-hating whackos do. Those lunatics are simply atrocities waiting to happen, and anything -- anything -- can be the trigger. One might as well find the woman who rejected Ted Bundy and blame her for all the women he subsequently murdered.
But it should be realized that the riots weren't just "predictable", they were intended. If the woman who rejected Ted Bundy was purposefully manipulating him to commit murder, she would bear some responsibility. The thing about responsibility is that by putting some blame on Newsweek we don't have to lessen the blame we put on the rioters -- it isn't a zero-sum game.
HE!D!, a female American veteran, mocks the Muslims for being so thin-skinned.
The BBC is reporting that the Americans are at it again - mercilessly torturing the “innocent detainees” of Guantanamo Bay. Even despite the panty-waist PC strictures placed on interrogations, the evil Americans have found a way to subvert the law and *gasp* horribly scar the gentle souls of the Muslim prisoners!!!Pakistani officials say they are “deeply dismayed” over reports that the Koran was desecrated at the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay.The latest edition of the American Newsweek magazine said such tactics were used to rattle suspects.
“Rattle the suspects”? Wow - I bet crucial information just started POURING out of them once they were “rattled”! Who could possibly withstand such powerful interrogation techniques?!
Sounds right to me. I'm about to go riot right now because of those burning flags; I can hardly contain myself.
Update:
Hey Glenn, thanks for quoting Clayton Cramer's piece starting immediately after the sentence where he links to me.
The bes tpoint about this I heard on Prager:
How many Buddhists rioted and killed people when the Taliban blew up Buddhists statues?
How many Jews rioted and killed people when Jewish graves were turned into bathrroms and Jewsish Temples were burned?
How many Catholics rioted when beasiality films were made with Priests and Nuns, or 'art' was made when a Cross was put in urine?
Your (and the rest of the right-wing bloggers', and Scott McClellan's, and Condoleeze Rice's) outrage toward people whose dishonest actions have led to a damaged US reputation in the muslim world is curiously selective. Did you all just wake up this morning with selective amnesia regarding the events of the last few years? Because if not, I don't see how you can offer up outrage for Newsweek while excusing the role that your guy's policies have had in bringing about things like Guantanamo, the WMD snipe hunt, Abu Ghraib, the secret Tony Blair memo from July of 2002, and about 50 other things I could mention without even trying.
Yeah, we've got a major public relations problem with muslims. But Newsweek's journalistic ethics are a microscopic part of that problem.
Matthew 7:5, Luke 6:42.
John, I have absolutely no idea what your point is, or even what you're talking about.
John,
I'm confused about your reference to John 7:5. That passage is talking about Jesus and how his own brothers weren't believing him. Are you saying that Michael is Christ-like and he sharing truth that people around him refuse to believe? From your other statements I doubt that you'd be giving Michael such a compliment, so please explain what that verse has to do with your argument.
The second bible verse you mention is Luke 6:42. Again, I'm not sure how this relates to the rest of your post. This verse discusses how people from Jesus' hometown struggled to believe he was the Son of God because they knew him and his family. This just shows the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of the unbelievers.
And, frankly, the impression I get from Michael is that he's not concerned over the damaged reputation the U.S. has overseas. Instead, I think he's concerned over the loss of lives over mistakes printed in the U.S. press.
In all sincerity, I think it's time to stage a few hundred Qur'an bonfires across the United States, publicize them internationally, and see what develops -- after first announcing a policy of nuclear retaliation for the next terrorist act committed by a Muslim against an American citizen, of course.
It's never a surprise when savages act like savages. I ceased being surprised long ago. What puzzles me is the indulgence we of the West are continuing to show them, when it's clear that all they understand is the taste of the lash.
Pirate: Exactly, it's called maturity, and John C might recognize it as oen sign of a superior civilization.
John C: I don't get it either. Aside from the points of confusion listed by BB and Megan, there's a huge difference between people who intend to cause mayhem and destruction for profit, like Newsweek, and people who act on uncontested, widely believed data such as Bush et al (even aside from the fact that WMD were hardly our main reason for going into Iraq in the first place, no matter how much the left would like to pretend that way post hoc).
FWP: As Instapundit said, where are the Muslim Andres Serranos?
Megan: It wasn't John 7:5 I mentioned, but Matthew 7:5. KJV: Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. And Luke 6:42 (again from the KJV): Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.
I'm sorry BB doesn't see how ludicrous it is for supporters of George Bush to claim to be upset that Newsweek would recklessly threaten the reputation of the US in the Arab and muslim world, while giving Bush a pass for doing the same thing, only several orders of magnitude more dramatically, for the last several years.
If it's not the anti-US sentiment that Michael's talking about, but the loss of innocent life that resulted from the ensuing violence, Newsweek would have to keep at it for something like the next several thousand years (and fail to acknowledge and correct their mistakes the whole time) before they'd be able to match Bush's record when it comes to innocent bloodshed resulting from mistakes (if you really want to pretend that that's what they were) or dishonesty (if you're talking to grownups) in this particular area.
Maybe you all are inhabiting some kind of alternate reality? That would at least explain Megan's problem with looking up verses in her Bible, at least.
Michael: Bush's WMD data were "uncontested"? And the WMD "were hardly our main reason for going into iraq in the first place"?
Yeah; definitely gotta be an alternate reality.
This is, without a doubt, a major fuck-up by Newsweek.
John, you're right, I accidentally cited John 7:5 instead of Matthew. I must've been thinking of your name and I didn't check before I commented. I apologize. Second, I don't cite KJV because of the numerous errors attributed to that translation. Perhaps that is where some of our differences stem from. Third, no, I'm not in an alternate reality, just California. :)
John: I still don't get it, and it's painful to repeat the obvious hundreds of times. Everyone, including the UN and France and Saddam, said that Iraq had WMD; but, that wasn't why we went in. We went in to destablize the region and give us a base of democracy in the Middle East.
It's not about the loss of life or reputation alone, it's about the intents of the actors. Bush et al intend to help America, whereas Newsweek intends to hurt America.
MW said: "Newsweek intends to hurt America."
That's where the bandwagon loses a wheel... in much the same way as it did when the "Bush Lied, People Died" people accused Bush of having bad intentions. I guess it's appropriate for you to model the title for this post after that of "Bush Lied, People Died".
Was this a major mistake by Newsweek? Absolutely.
Does Newsweek "intend to hurt America"? Doubtful.
Mark: Hm, you don't think Newsweek intended to undermine our international anti-terror efforts with these accusations?
MW: No, I don't. I generally don't put faith in accusations of such malicious intent between fellow Americans.
Then Mark, I would go so far as to say that you don't get out much, do you?
Mark: I guess the only alternative then is that all the egregious mistakes the MSM has been making just happen to be biased towards favoring our enemies. What a coincidence.
Jill: From what I said you jump to that conclusion? And you think *I* don't get out much? Wow... with skills like that, you should be a psychic. At least then you'd have an excuse for such buffoonery.
MW: No, that's not the only other alternative. If anything.. as in the case of Dan Rather.. the writer and/or editor of the story probably have some significant disagreements with President Bush.. and these disagreements led to some pretty bad compromises in journalism ethics. That's not an excuse (because compromising journalism ethics is still wrong).. but an explanation; an explanation that's far more plausible than: "Newsweek hates America and actively intends to hurt America".
Some in the MSM make the mistake of believing it to be okay to publish an unverified story in order to cut down a President they don't agree with... but that doesn't mean their intentions are as you say they are.