U. S. State Department: Afghan Riots NOT Connected to Newsweek
Reported by Marie Therese - May 17, 2005
Yesterday (May 16, 2005) Bill O'Reilly, dressed in a pin-striped suit reminiscent of Edward G. Robinson in "Little Caesar," aired yet another show populated by stories of traitorous media, murderous brown people, tacky black people, beleaguered sainted Republican congressmen, nefarious district attorneys and stupid liberal e-mailers, topped off by his daily self-serving huckstering at the end of the show. As usual in his Talking Points Memo he went along with the GOP spin on the Newsweek as demon story:
"American media is far too cavalier when it comes to publicizing alleged wrongdoig by the USA. I criticized the New York Times for running 53 stories about Abu Ghraib. Most of us got the message after the first FORTY! ... American's tend to catch on quick."
After accusing the general media of running anti-military stories for the sole purpose of embarrassing the Bush administration, O'Reilly noted:
"Ideological reporting is rampant in this country.... The media has to be very careful in reporting on alleged torture, abuse or bad behavior by the military. Mistakes happen in every war and every one of those mistakes will be used by our enemies to hurt us. ... we don't need rumors, unverified allegations and irresponsible conjecture. Let the ideological nuts run with that stuff on the net. The big time media needs to be SURE of what it reports and if the source is anonymous it must be vetted very carefully. Obviously, Newsweek made a major, major mistake. We hope the lesson is not ignored."
COMMENT:
O'Reilly and the entire media establisment have reported on this story over and over, every single one of them adopting the Bush administration talking points.
However, none of them has apparently bothered to go to the actual website of the Department of State:
Washington - The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says a report from Afghanistan suggests that rioting in Jalalabad on May 11 was not necessarily connected to press reports that the Quran might have been desecrated in the presence of Muslim prisoners held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Air Force General Richard Myers told reporters at the Pentagon May 12 that he has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else.
According to initial reports, the situation in Jalalabad began on May 10 with peaceful student protests reacting to a report in Newsweek magazine that U.S. military interrogators questioning Muslim detainees at the Guantanamo detention center "had placed Quran s on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book." By the following day the protests in the city had turned violent with reports of several individuals killed, dozens wounded, and widespread looting of government, diplomatic and nongovernmental assets.
However, Myers said an after-action report provided by U.S. Army Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, commander of the Combined Forces in Afghanistan, indicated that the political violence was not, in fact, connected to the magazine report.
Duh?!
Thanks to our good friends at Buzzflash for discovering what the rest of our highly trained,well-financed journalistic establishment deliberately (it would seem) didn't report, preferring instead to sacrifice one of their own to protect the American public from yet another disturbing truth, i.e., that the Afghans are very, very unhappy with what's going on in their country and may be on the verge of a rebellion.
