The Newsweek Story: Titanic Struggle or Tempest in a Teapot?
Reported by Marie Therese - May 19, 2005
In his Talking Points Memo last night (5/18/05) Bill O'Reilly attacked the "liberal media" because, in their editorials on the Newsweek story, they used language that he described as "eerie" in its similarity. "Reading these editorials is like walking through a liberal theme park," O'Reilly stated. He lambasted the editorial staffs of the New York Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Oregonian (so what else is new?) because they all echoed the same theme, i.e., that the Bush administration is trying to deflect attention from its dismal record of prisoner abuse by blaming Newsweek magazine for the recent riots in Afghanistan.
What strikes me as odd isn't that O'Reilly and the other news outlets that I listen to (CBS, CNBC) picked up on the Newsweek story. That was to be expected in a 24-hour news cycle. The truly amazing - and disturbing - thing is that, to date, I have yet to hear any mention that on May 12th the U. S. military exonerated Newsweek of any complicity in the riots or the deaths at a press conference. Last time I looked, "press conferences" were held in front of members of the PRESS. Isn't the "press" comprised of reporters? Journalists? Correspondents? People who make their living reporting the news?
Could it be that a headline that reads "Epic Struggle Between President and Newsweek" is a lot sexier and grabs more audience than the title of the State Department's report, which is "Afghan Riots Not Tied to Report on Quran Handling, General Says"?
Let me repeat that title.
"Afghan Riots Not Tied to Report on Quran Handling, General Says."
Why is Newsweek going along with this whole charade? Clearly, the magazine knows its reporting did not cause those riots in Afghanistan. And, unless they are nitwits, the rest of the news gatherers know this as well.
So, what gives here? Just like the Downing Street memo, pertinent facts are being withheld from the American public by those charged with the task of gathering critical information and disseminating it in a timely manner.
As if that isn't enough, there are now reports that the State Department, in direct contradiction of the military, now blames Newsweek for the Afghanistan riots. AP reported yesterday that "[the] State Department, moving to undo damage it says was caused by a Newsweek article alleging U.S. desecration of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, is telling its embassies to spread the word abroad that America respects all religious faiths." (AP, 5/18/05)
NewsMax and other right-wing sites are all over this, using it as ammunition to further denigrate Newsweek. Yet, nowhere in any of these anti-Newsweek reports do they say that the American military acquitted Newsweek and laid the blame on economic and political conditions in Afghanistan itself.
Is it any wonder that the American public is confused? Without access to the internet, a willingness to spend a lot of time researching and a healthy dose of happenstance, I would not have had enough information to write this post.
Why can't the people who get PAID to inform us actually do so?
For your information:
EXCERPT from International Information Programs website of the U. S. Department of State (Created May 12, 2005. Updated May 13, 2005.)
Afghan Riots Not Tied to Report on Quran Handling, General Says
Army investigating allegations of mishandling at Guantanamo Bay facility
By Jacquelyn S. Porth
Washington File Staff Writer
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.
Meanwhile, Myers said the U.S. military has assigned Army General Bantz Craddock to investigate allegations about the handling of the Quran at Guantanamo. Craddock brings the full weight of his responsibility as commander of the U.S. Southern Command to this effort.
Myers said the International Committee of the Red Cross has approved the edition of the Quran that has been distributed to Muslim detainees in Guantanamo. Craddock has been investigating the claim that proper respect was not given to the Koran. There are now some 550 enemy combatants at the military installation, which is designed to isolate individuals whom the military has identified as likely to have valuable intelligence about international terrorism.
Craddock and his team have examined the prisoner interrogation logs and Myers said they cannot confirm yet that there ever was a case of a U.S. interrogator flushing a Quran down the toilet. He did say there is another unconfirmed log reference to a guard report that a detainee tore pages from the Quran and flushed them in an attempt to flood the holding area as a form of protest.
Myers answered questions about the alleged Quran incident on the same day that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice addressed the issue during an appearance before the House International Relations Committee.
She said disrespect for the Quran will never be tolerated by the United States and such disrespect is abhorrent to us all. Pakistan has voiced its concerns about the alleged incident, and Rice said the United States understands and shares the concerns of its Muslim friends. She went on to voice this request: I am asking that all our friends around the world reject incitement to violence by those who would mischaracterize our intentions.
EXCERPT from Transcript of U. S. State Department Daily Press Briefing, Tuesday, May 17, 2005
QUESTION: Can you talk about the cable that was reportedly sent out last night to embassies about the Newsweek article and are you trying to address it in the region?
MR. BOUCHER: We have done a number of things, in terms of trying to address this -- this Newsweek article, which Newsweek has now retracted. So you have an article that never should have appeared to begin with involving facts that have not been substantiated and, indeed, our investigation or inquiries into this matter conducted by the Defense Department have produced no evidence to substantiate this kind of charge. Nonetheless, it has very sad and regrettable implications overseas -- shocking, to some extent, to see that an article be published so -- well, an article like this would be published and one that can involve potential violence and deaths overseas as this one did.
That said, we recognize that there is a need to inform people, inform people of what the facts are an inform people of what our policy is. And so since the article hit about a week ago -- Monday, I think it came out -- began to see violence and riots about Tuesday. So early on, we sent out a telegram to our embassies reiterating our commitment to look into the matter, to emphasize a respect that we show for religious rights and obligations of prisoners and gave them information that they could then use to inform governments and encourage them to be out on the media and elsewhere to tell people what the facts were.
On Thursday (5/12/05), I guess it was, Secretary of State made a very clear and definitive statement on the issue of respect for Islam and the fact that we would condemn and not tolerate in any way the kind of disrespect that had been reported. So we then sent that out to the embassies, again, encouraging embassies to be out there. A number of us, including myself, have done a series of interviews with media from the Middle East and south Asia to try to get that message out more directly.
We've sent the Secretary's message far and wide. It's gone out in, I think, seven languages on the websites. It's been translated and passed out by embassies in many more languages than that. And then yesterday (5/16/05) we sent out another cable to our embassies, giving the text of the Newsweek retraction, explaining further that our inquiries had shown nothing like this and reiterating once more that there are policies in place, detailed policies in place among the military for the guards, in terms of the handling of the Koran, in terms of showing respect for the religious rights and practices of the detainees.
QUESTION: Have you -- we're asking the Pentagon, of course, I mean, what -- it was my understanding, perhaps I'm wrong, that among the things that the embassies were told is that the Pentagon is conducting an investigation and that if there's any, you know, wrongdoing or punishment and all.
MR. BOUCHER: That's right. That's what we've all been saying. Yeah.
QUESTION: Thats still the view?
MR. BOUCHER: Yeah. That's still the view. We have done -- I think there's two aspects to this and you can get more details from the Pentagon in terms of looking into these matters. There was an inquiry that was under way because of the FBI emails that was looking into practices involved in those emails and they uncovered nothing like this. And I think the Pentagon has said that even in those emails, there was no charge like this and that's where fundamentally, the Newsweek story falls on its face as being untrue. And then, in addition to that, when the charges came out, they asked -- the Pentagon asked their people to look even more at the specific question of desecration of the Koran. And so they looked into that. And at this point, I would say they have done a lot of different research on this matter, have not found anything to substantiate it. At what point the Pentagon will think -- to feel comfortable that they have done their homework enough to say "absolutely not, it didn't happen," I'll leave to them. But we have done extensive -- they've looked into this matter thoroughly or extensively at this point and found nothing to substantiate it.
QUESTION: Richard, just to follow up on the timeline -- and excuse me if I'm wrong -- it's not a week from Monday, I think it was two weeks from Monday that the actual Newsweek thing came out, right?
QUESTION: The 9th.
QUESTION: No, the 9th.
MR. BOUCHER: It was the issue of --
QUESTION: It was the issue of the 9th, but wouldn't that have been --
QUESTION: No, no, no. It comes -- the magazine comes out on Sunday night/Monday.
QUESTION: Okay. But there was -- first, there was some demonstrations and some protests in Pakistan and it was like several days before anybody would confirm there was an investigation going on. There was really no strong statement made until the Secretary made her statement on Thursday, and that was like the space of about four or five days. Is there any attention being given to that period of time there that maybe there should have been more proactive reaction?
MR. BOUCHER: Peter, I think if you look at the timeline I've given you, I believe our first telegram went on the 11th. It might have been the 10th. I'll have to double-check that. But the 11th, I'm pretty sure. I started -- we started speaking about this here. We started doing interviews on it right away. I think we did react quickly, unlike -- well, let me not say unlike. But we are very careful when we put out information that we know it to be true, and maybe that means we're not as fast as we'd like to be. Maybe that means we can't go out right away and say there's nothing to this, it's absolutely untrue, or describe an inquiry that hasn't quite gotten under way yet. But when we do put out the information, it's solid and it's good, to the best of our ability. And so yeah, maybe that makes us a little bit slower than we'd all like to be, but I think we were pretty quick in this case.
QUESTION: Richard, on this media subject, there is a editor and publishers newspaper association which says there's a 22 percent gap between what the press and the public perceive. And also do you have any feelings on a prestigious journalism award that Dan Rather and CBS News received, including the producers for their 60 Minutes story?
MR. BOUCHER: My answer to the first question is, "Huh?" And my answer to the second is no.
QUESTION: All right.
