Three weeks ago, in Who Started the Fire?, I asked (rhetorically) why the Bush administration attacks information rather than wrongdoing. Despite honestly thinking that Newsweek got it wrong when they reported Qu'ran abuses, I blasted the White House for being too defensive to take charges seriously. Now, as I'm sure you all well know, while the actual flushing of the Qu'ran was done by an inmate, American guards have been desecrating the Muslim holy book plenty, including urinating on one. Newsweek retracted the original story, not because it was fundamentally wrong, but because the government leak they relied upon came back and said, "Oops, my bad. I lied." Personally, I think protecting the identity of anonymous sources ends once they admit lying to you to discredit your organization. But maybe that's why I'm not a journalist and will never interview anyone more important than the cashier at Target when I'm ringing up my toilet paper and shampoo.
The result of all this is that Newsweek still comes out looking both discredited and partisan, despite the fact that their article was well researched and had only a single sourcing problem that can probably be traced back to the government. Nobody takes the incidents seriously, because the administration defused the whole thing when everyone thought it was a hoax, and blamed worldwide unrest on it besides. Even now when newspapers report the truth, they are attacked because of that violence, which frankly looked orchestrated. I mean, I know you love your Qu'ran and all, but when you've got Iraqis hooked up to an electrical generator by their nuts and American soldiers desecrating mosques, this kind of outrage over an allegation of one Qu'ran in the toilet is not only overboard, it looks very suspicious.
So when does Bush come out and say, "Oops - I was wrong when I said these allegations were absurd"? Probably never. The level of disinformation and smear jobs on the media is unprecedented. Nixon is probably smiling in his grave. It's ironic that at the same time we learn the identity of Deep Throat, the anonymous informant who helped expose White House corruption, the current President is making sure it can never happen again by peppering the news organizations with false leaks designed to discredit them. Don't forget that CBS relied on government leaks to support their report on Bush's National Guard records. Even though we don't know who the source was, CBS knows, and they decided that the source was well enough placed to know the truth. Too bad they didn't know just how well placed the source was...
10 comments:
A whole Qu'ran? In one flush?!? Evidently, Gitmo isn't using low-flows.
A few things wrong here. One, I believe Bush said the "Gulags to Guantanamo" comparison was absurd, not the Koran crap. Two, the report I saw from the investigation clearly said that the guard did not intend to pee on the Koran, he just meant to pee in an A/C vent, and he was soon removed from such a position and reprimanded. There were like four other incidents, and only two were intentional, and they were as mild as knocking a Koran on the ground. You seem to want to bring down an entire administration for a couple of isolated incidents. Altogether I'd say these people live far better than many prisoners in the U.S. prison system.
I know you love your Torah and all, but when one gets videos showing American's heads being cut off, when one sees people chanting, "Death To America," when one sees he priests of a major religion talking about Jihad and killing Americans, one no longer GIVES A DAMN IF TWO KORANS FALL ON THE GROUND. I certianly wouldn't care this much of a Torah was desecreated by Saudis (oh wait, that probably happens all the time already). It's not me, in the end it's just a book, and life is more important. Not only do I not care about these isolated, super-mild incidents, I think you're crazy for caring.
On to the CBS story. The anonymous source was known and revealed, thus not anonymous. Bill Burkett, a very partisan man with an ax to grind, supplied the docs. Google it, I'm sure you'll find it.
You say the Newsweek related violence looked orchestrated? If it was orchestrated, it was by the Islamist agitators over there. You know they orchestrated it, and they did it in order to make the U.S. look as bad as possible. You know this, you know they (fundamentalist Muslims) are your enemy (they want you dead, whatever you think of them), and yet you let them manipulate you against your country anyway. Amazing.
Basically your entire post about "lies" was you twisting, stretching, and ignoring the truth yourself.
Ben, I don't hold the Administration responsible for the soldier's actions. I hold them responsible for their own actions. And their own actions told the American public that it was Newsweek that was the villain, that they blamed the report for damaging our reputation abroad.
The Truth is that if we hadn't been abusive of prisoners in the first place (blessed by Bush and Alberto Gonzalez as "almost-torture, but not quite"), this latest incident wouldn't have evoked such a strong reaction. And the probablility that these violent demonstrations were staged didn't stop the administration from blaming them on Newsweek, despite that they probably knew Newsweek wasn't the real cause.
Korans fell on the ground? I thought Bush repealed the law of gravity as part of the Patriot Act.
I took Scott's comment to be an outrage on the administration's "handling of the truth" not outrage at any holy book desicration. Looks like we're trying to spin the debate away from analyzing how the administration is not exactly forthcoming with accurate, or perhaps just complete information. Ben claims we're letting the "fundamental muslims" manipulate us against our own country with misinformation. I dunno George Bush seems to be doing a fine job of that as well.
Shannon, did you ever suspect you'd be writing about how George Bush did a fine job of something?
See guys, we're making progress on inter-party relations!
Where was this innaccurate information Bush spread on this issue? He said the Newsweek article was untrue, and that their did not course it well. That's true exactly. The report said American soldiers put Korans in the toilet, and that it was done deliberately. Now we know that only prisoners put Korans in the toilet, and the only time and American soldier's urine came in contact with a Koran was when a soldier peed, the wind blew the pee in an A/C vent, and some of it got on a Koran. I find it hard to believe that the soldier knew exactly where his urine would land. I sure don't know where the other end of my A/C vent goes. So there was no misinformation in what Bush said in relation to this story. Next argument?
The guy who peed into the A/C vent should not be allowed to pee standing up for one year.
Standing up to pee is a privilege -- not a right!
Bush may have drove the left "insane". Insert eyeroll. But the way how the GOP behave, you'd think they didn't win the election because they are just as whiny as the left. I think Canis on his blog said it right: "you guys won, so just lead ... who cares what the "whiny" left have to say, prove to the world that you're leader ship material instead of playing tit-for-tat with the lefties". Or to quote Kathy Bates (in About Schmidt): "... drink your #$%&ing milk and shut the #$%& up".
So it seems in the end that were are at least three times more documented occurences of Gitmo detainees desecrating their own Korans as there are reports of soldiers deliberately desecrating Korans. Who can blame our soldiers for following the example set by the detainees? Perhaps after seeing a prisoner rip up his own Koran, a soldier merely thought that was what was supposed to be done.
Post a Comment