Possibly. Because even they seem to be reading Newsweek . According to one of their leaflets opposing Laura Bush’s visit to the Al Aksa Mosque:
“In principle, we are not against a visit to Al Aqsa Mosque, but the visit of Ms. Bush is aimed at improving US image in the Islamic world after US army officers tore the papers of Quran before prisoners at the Guantanamo detention camp,” it said.
Well, yes, Hamas is apparently backtracking (like Newsweek) from holy book flushing to page tearing, but do we know if even that desecration occurred? Are there any sworn witnesses? If so, is there any reason to believe those witnesses are doing anything more than deliberately distributing disinformation, as many of them have been taught? Of course they seem to have their willing parrots these days.
Enough. We have an Internet with plenty of space. If these media outlets expect readers to give currency to their reporting, they should post unedited sources on line along with their “analyses”. Otherwise, they are simply insulting our intelligence.
MEANWHILE: Superb analysis from Wretchard.
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21 Comments
1. Doug:…But,
Some nice lady said she was paralyzed for weeks after 911 when some B..tid wrote somethin Naughty in her Koran. I read it with my own eyes:
It’s true.
She froze.
(might have dropped it: Instant Death.)
Oh! The Humanity!
This country really, really, SUCKS!
May 22, 2005 - 7:46 am 2. Doug:“In principle”
THAT’S Good!
May 22, 2005 - 7:50 am 3. Anthony C:Two of the sworn statements (by US military personnel) in the Abu Ghraib investigation refer to an interrogation method called “Pride and Ego Down”, which involves taking a copy of the Koran, throwing it to the ground and stamping on it. In the second testimony this is referred to as having started a prison riot.
The testimonies are somewhat confusing, though in each case they seem to disapprove of the practice and certainly point to it having been phased out. Clearly is WAS employed however. Not quite the same as flushing it down the toilet, but it’s hard to argue that the thinking behind it was any different.
May 22, 2005 - 7:51 am 4. Roger:Anthony C., I think readers here would like to see a link to that testimony (I know I would). Do you know of one?
May 22, 2005 - 8:01 am 5. Anthony C:Can do.
http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/030905/DOD565_615.pdf
Pages 22 and 27.
It’s worth noting that if you read the context bits, in neither case does the person testifying particularly approve of the practice (in one case they note that it started a riot, in the other it comes in the context of explaining to somebody what they’re NOT allowed to do). Seems pretty clear it has happened though (to the extent that they’ve got their own in-house name for it).
Personally, I haven’t decided where I stand on the Newsweek issue. I’ve heard pretty solid arguments on both sides.
May 22, 2005 - 8:12 am 6. JK Ribera:I don’t understand, Anthony C. You are “undecided” about anonymously sourced material that was eventually retracted by its source?
May 22, 2005 - 8:22 am 7. RBMN:What if they throw down a copy of Bill Clinton’s “My Life,” and just tell the “suspect” that it’s the Holy Koran?
When that detainee gets out of prison, the story won’t be true, but the teller may believe it happened. There are dozens of reasons not to believe these prisoners, but sometimes you can’t believe even the ones who think they’re telling the truth.
May 22, 2005 - 9:02 am 8. Mike_Nargizian:JUST WATCHED THE MCLAUGHLIN GROUP WITH
Eleanor Clift
Washington Times reporter
Bill Press
Pat Buchanan
You should have seen the a** kissing they all gave on the story on Galloway.
Buchanan, Press, Mclaughlin and Clift. With Clift even criticizing Wolfowitz agreeing with Galloway’s demogoguic false defense of the US theft of 8 billion missing during the first 18 months of our occupation.
Only the Washington Times guy tried to make a weak counter against Galloway’s bull**it.
Even Buchanan said he agrees with Galloway and slightly with the Times reporter… but Buchanan was glowing and loved it and even said as well as Clift, Press and Mclaughlin that just because the Jordanian, who was best man at his wedding, is implicated you can’t implicate him. And Clift rebuffed the Times reporter by stating that the London paper had to stand down on its accusation.
Of course, that’s not true and Galloway didn’t deny the report either… per British laws, plus its being appealed.
Not 1 attacked Galloway for his bullshit and demagoguery only bootlicked at his thugish sideshow.
Mike
PS I wish I taped it, the transcript wouldn’t do it justice.
May 22, 2005 - 9:04 am 9. Cynic:“..after US army officers tore the papers of Quran before prisoners at the Guantanamo detention camp,”
Where was the outrage when Arafat’s thugs tore up holy manuscripts for toilet paper and committed other anti Christian acts?
Oooh! I forgot, more important was drawing cartoons of Sharon in his tank threatening the Christ Child!
May 22, 2005 - 9:05 am 10. joe citizen:Flushing down the toilet or tearing pages out of, the qu’ran, are not reasons to kill people. They are not reasons for rioting or issueing death threats to the entire non-muslim population of the planet.
In America, these actions are not even relevant to anything. These actions are mine or yours to perform. In fact, our military is fighting in iraq to ensure these freedoms of expression continue to be ours to exercise.
When muslims burn the American flag, do citizens of America run into the streets screaming and yelling and generally making fools of themselvs? When christian churches and all the attendant trappings of christianity inside the church are burned to the ground by muslims, do christians wage a propaganda war of lies and obfuscation? I didn’t think so.
muslims and islam are losing the fighting war but they are killing us with their understanding of propaganda as the best means to OUR end.
H
May 22, 2005 - 10:43 am 11. Buddy Larsen:Clift is Newsweek and only the presentation lifts her above the base leftoidus colossus-worshipper.
Not that it should be germane–this isn’t a tit-for-tat war–but just for curiosity’s sake, does anyone have a link to the desecrations at the Church of the Nativity?
Roger, your concluding para is strong–thanks for that.
May 22, 2005 - 10:58 am 12. Terrye:Buddy:
Clift is one of the reasons I stopped reading Newsweek long ago.
She is obnoxious.
That money they are bitching about is the money spent the first months in Iraq when the soldiers were handing out money to people to help cleanup etc and when the CPA was getting up and running. I saw Bremer respond to this kind of crap and he said they had an economy flat on its back and people in the government getting shot at there was no way to keep books the way these people are saying they should have. He said they wanted up to 100 accountants for each department and the Iraqis said that was a waste of time and money.
I read the summary of the report and they said they were not accusing the CPA of stealing the money, but of bad management.
If Galloway and Clift and company want to see it some other way I assume they are free to make the charge. They might ignore blatant thievery on the part of the UN and the Iraq but I can not imagine they would miss an oppurtunity to trash people who are risking life and limb to rebuild Iraq.
I do think that the folks at newsweek are in enough trouble without sucking up to a communist like Galloway.
May 22, 2005 - 11:30 am 13. Buddy Larsen:Terrye, in the usual fashion, Clift & co utterly de-context the issue, isolate an ancillary, and then drill deep with rhetoric.
A lucid appreciation of context would ask what more efficient and effective stimulus/response could CPA have done, with the bullets flying, than putting stimulus in the hands of those whose lives depended on measuring immediate and proximate results?
What was more critical than a bottoms-up stop-gap to slow bad momentums and speed good ones?
May 22, 2005 - 1:40 pm 14. Buddy Larsen:No need for a fantastically over-staffed top-heavy fifty-year old organization like the UN to account for a misplaced $30,000,000, but woe be unto an ad-hoc on-the-run combat mission–fighting for liberty against slavery BTW–to lose track of a pocketful of change.
May 22, 2005 - 1:53 pm 15. Buddy Larsen:Jeeez…don’t miss the Wretchard (Roger-linked) post. Way way good.
May 22, 2005 - 2:51 pm 16. richard mcenroe:DEFINITELY time to boycott Newsweek (via Instapundit)
May 22, 2005 - 3:11 pm 17. Richard Nieporent:Why do we play into the hands of the Left by worrying about what, if anything, we did to the Koran? When Muslims start acting like humans as opposed to some alien beings that only know how to kill then I will start worrying about whether or not we are showing the proper respect for their religion. In case anyone has forgotten we are in a war with radical Islam. During WWII did we worry about whether we showed the proper respect for the Japanese Emperor? After all the Japanese worshiped him as a god. Is there any other religion in the US that is showed such deference? For this issue to be worthy of our concern shows how far along the dhimmitude of the US has progressed.
May 22, 2005 - 3:41 pm 18. Terrye:Buddy:
Yes, Galloway can sneer aobut the Marines and the walking around money but that did more to stimulate that economy to help the locals than giving the money to some one like him.
I would rather see it used to help feed people there and than buy Galloway a villa in Portugal.
And of course they have no real evidence or alternative just he usual bitch bitch bitch.
May 22, 2005 - 4:46 pm 19. Buddy Larsen:Amen, Terrye…you can almost see ‘em scratching around the barnyard like chickens looking for something to gobble on.
Richard, there’s some dhimmitude for sure, but a lot of it may be plain old manners and decency–for which we ought to be at least a little proud.
Well, ‘proud’’s not the right word but you know what I mean. Respect for others’ beliefs–we have a pretty good bit of that in this country. It’s a strength, of course. IMHO.
May 23, 2005 - 7:48 am 20. Richard Nieporent:Buddy,
Do you really believe that manners and decency are the real motives behind the attacks on the treatment of the Gitmo prisoners by the MSM and the Democrats?
May 23, 2005 - 2:34 pm 21. Buddy Larsen:Nosiree…I was on different subject…I must’ve read your post obliquely, I meant to refer to the generally respectful attitude of Americans toward foreign magic, science and religion.
May 23, 2005 - 2:52 pm