Thursday, May 26, 2005
Was Newsweek Right?
In all the furor over the Newsweek "Periscope" item allegedly that the Quran was desecrated by U.S. personnel at Gitmo (for a nice summary, visit The Daily Kos), one question fell by the wayside. Was the magazine right? Sure, the story was poorly sourced -- the mainstream media deserves to be reprimanded for all the "high placed sources," "unnamed government officials," and the like who leak desirable stories (desirable, that is, to the leakers -- not necessarily desirable at all to anyone looking for the "truth" of the matter).
The Red Cross -- in 2002 and 2003 -- warned about mistreatment of Islam's holy book ("Red Cross warned U.S. over Quran"), and as more and more prisoners are released from Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and other facilities, more testimony emerges about abuse of human rights up to and including torture. Given the photo evidence we saw over the past year of how U.S. soldiers and other officials treated human beings, why would we have so much trouble believing that guards would treat a book -- especially a book seen as sacred by their prisoners -- with blatant disrespect? Hate to say it, but Newsweek lost more credibility by backing off the story under White House (and right wing) pressure than it did by running the initial story itself.
The Red Cross -- in 2002 and 2003 -- warned about mistreatment of Islam's holy book ("Red Cross warned U.S. over Quran"), and as more and more prisoners are released from Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and other facilities, more testimony emerges about abuse of human rights up to and including torture. Given the photo evidence we saw over the past year of how U.S. soldiers and other officials treated human beings, why would we have so much trouble believing that guards would treat a book -- especially a book seen as sacred by their prisoners -- with blatant disrespect? Hate to say it, but Newsweek lost more credibility by backing off the story under White House (and right wing) pressure than it did by running the initial story itself.
