Betsy's Page

Sunday, May 15, 2005

I was reading recently about the unification of Germany and Bismarck's role in altering the famous Ems Telegram to make it look like the Prussian King had insulted the French so as to incite the French into declaring war on Prussia, thus beginning the Franco-Prussian War. This all comes to mind when reading about how Newsweek reported an unsourced, anonymous rumor that guards at Guantanamo Bay had torn up a Koran and flushed some pages down the toilet. Predictably, rent-a-mobs in the Islamic world have begun rioting and calling down jihads against the United States. So, far nine people have been killed in these riots.

Except, oops. Newsweek is now backtracking on their source. They're no longer so sure about it.
Late last week Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita told NEWSWEEK that its original story was wrong. The brief PERISCOPE item ("SouthCom Showdown") had reported on the expected results of an upcoming U.S. Southern Command investigation into the abuse of prisoners at Gitmo. According to NEWSWEEK, SouthCom investigators found that Gitmo interrogators had flushed a Qur'an down a toilet in an attempt to rattle detainees. While various released detainees have made allegations about Qur'an desecration, the Pentagon has, according to DiRita, found no credible evidence to support them.

How did NEWSWEEK get its facts wrong? And how did the story feed into serious international unrest? While continuing to report events on the ground, NEWSWEEK interviewed government officials, diplomats and its own staffers, and reconstructed this narrative of events:

At NEWSWEEK, veteran investigative reporter Michael Isikoff's interest had been sparked by the release late last year of some internal FBI e-mails that painted a stark picture of prisoner abuse at Guantánamo. Isikoff knew that military investigators at Southern Command (which runs the Guantánamo prison) were looking into the allegations. So he called a longtime reliable source, a senior U.S. government official who was knowledgeable about the matter. The source told Isikoff that the report would include new details that were not in the FBI e-mails, including mention of flushing the Qur'an down a toilet. A SouthCom spokesman contacted by Isikoff declined to comment on an ongoing investigation, but NEWSWEEK National Security Correspondent John Barry, realizing the sensitivity of the story, provided a draft of the NEWSWEEK PERISCOPE item to a senior Defense official, asking, "Is this accurate or not?" The official challenged one aspect of the story: the suggestion that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, sent to Gitmo by the Pentagon in 2001 to oversee prisoner interrogation, might be held accountable for the abuses. Not true, said the official (the PERISCOPE draft was corrected to reflect that). But he was silent about the rest of the item. The official had not meant to mislead, but lacked detailed knowledge of the SouthCom report.

....On Friday night, Pentagon spokesman DiRita called NEWSWEEK to complain about the original PERISCOPE item. He said, "We pursue all credible allegations" of prisoner abuse, but insisted that the investigators had found none involving Qur'an desecration. DiRita sent NEWSWEEK a copy of rules issued to the guards (after the incidents mentioned by General Myers) to guarantee respect for Islamic worship. On Saturday, Isikoff spoke to his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Qur'an, including a toilet incident. But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report. Told of what the NEWSWEEK source said, DiRita exploded, "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?"

Exactly. But that doesn't stop Newsweek from continuing to report rumors from sources who have a definite interest in making the United States look bad.
In the meantime, as part of his ongoing reporting on the detainee-abuse story, Isikoff had contacted a New York defense lawyer, Marc Falkoff, who is representing 13 Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo. According to Falkoff's declassified notes, a mass-suicide attempt—when 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves in August 2003—was triggered by a guard's dropping a Qur'an and stomping on it. One of Falkoff's clients told him, "Another detainee tried to kill himself after the guard took his Qur'an and threw it in the toilet." A U.S. military spokesman, Army Col. Brad Blackner, dismissed the claims as unbelievable. "If you read the Al Qaeda training manual, they are trained to make allegations against the infidels," he said.

More allegations, credible or not, are sure to come.
And Newsweek will do their utmost to bring them, credible or not, to the world's attention.

So, what's going on at Newsweek. They surely knew what an incendiary story this would be and the potential for violent repercussions. They knew it was thinly sourced. But they went ahead anyways. Did they just want to be the first with a sensational story? Were they just careless? Or did they like the idea that, if there were violence, all the stories reporting it would have to mention their publication as the source? Or, were they more malevolent? Did they like the idea of sparking violence across the Muslim world and making American gains in that part of the world more difficult?

Which brings me to Bismarck's deviousness to get France to declare war on Prussia. Bismarck knew exactly what he was doing and got the outcome he desired: France appearing to be the aggressor and declaring war on Prussia. Could Newsweek be getting exactly the reaction that it hoped for?

Nah, that would be just a crazy conspiratorial theory. Media people don't hope that violence results from one of their stories, do they? I guess we'll just have to go with the careless theory. I'm sure that's it. They were just dang careless. However, as Michelle Malkin has said,
Newsweek Lied: People Died

Gee, that's not something that those careless bloggers who write without any editors could even manage. I guess we have to wait for the mainstream media to muck things up this badly.

Check out The Anchoress for a good, righteous rundown on this story. Scott Johnson at Powerline is also not impressed with the way that Newsweek acknowledges that it reported dangerous rumors and then proceeds to report some more in the same mea culpa.

It's as if to say, "Sorry, we got those other rumors wrong, folks. And it's a shame that people died. But, here are some more unsubstantiated rumors to chew on while you're rioting against the Great Satan."

I'm sure that is just carelessness too, right?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:31 PM 0 comments

Comments:

I was reading recently about the unification of Germany and Bismarck's role in altering the famous Ems Telegram to make it look like the Prussian King had insulted the French so as to incite the French into declaring war on Prussia, thus beginning the Franco-Prussian War. This all comes to mind when reading about how Newsweek reported an unsourced, anonymous rumor that guards at Guantanamo Bay had torn up a Koran and flushed some pages down the toilet. Predictably, rent-a-mobs in the Islamic world have begun rioting and calling down jihads against the United States. So, far nine people have been killed in these riots.

Except, oops. Newsweek is now backtracking on their source. They're no longer so sure about it.

Late last week Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita told NEWSWEEK that its original story was wrong. The brief PERISCOPE item ("SouthCom Showdown") had reported on the expected results of an upcoming U.S. Southern Command investigation into the abuse of prisoners at Gitmo. According to NEWSWEEK, SouthCom investigators found that Gitmo interrogators had flushed a Qur'an down a toilet in an attempt to rattle detainees. While various released detainees have made allegations about Qur'an desecration, the Pentagon has, according to DiRita, found no credible evidence to support them.

How did NEWSWEEK get its facts wrong? And how did the story feed into serious international unrest? While continuing to report events on the ground, NEWSWEEK interviewed government officials, diplomats and its own staffers, and reconstructed this narrative of events:

At NEWSWEEK, veteran investigative reporter Michael Isikoff's interest had been sparked by the release late last year of some internal FBI e-mails that painted a stark picture of prisoner abuse at Guantánamo. Isikoff knew that military investigators at Southern Command (which runs the Guantánamo prison) were looking into the allegations. So he called a longtime reliable source, a senior U.S. government official who was knowledgeable about the matter. The source told Isikoff that the report would include new details that were not in the FBI e-mails, including mention of flushing the Qur'an down a toilet. A SouthCom spokesman contacted by Isikoff declined to comment on an ongoing investigation, but NEWSWEEK National Security Correspondent John Barry, realizing the sensitivity of the story, provided a draft of the NEWSWEEK PERISCOPE item to a senior Defense official, asking, "Is this accurate or not?" The official challenged one aspect of the story: the suggestion that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, sent to Gitmo by the Pentagon in 2001 to oversee prisoner interrogation, might be held accountable for the abuses. Not true, said the official (the PERISCOPE draft was corrected to reflect that). But he was silent about the rest of the item. The official had not meant to mislead, but lacked detailed knowledge of the SouthCom report.

....On Friday night, Pentagon spokesman DiRita called NEWSWEEK to complain about the original PERISCOPE item. He said, "We pursue all credible allegations" of prisoner abuse, but insisted that the investigators had found none involving Qur'an desecration. DiRita sent NEWSWEEK a copy of rules issued to the guards (after the incidents mentioned by General Myers) to guarantee respect for Islamic worship. On Saturday, Isikoff spoke to his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Qur'an, including a toilet incident. But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report. Told of what the NEWSWEEK source said, DiRita exploded, "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?"

Exactly. But that doesn't stop Newsweek from continuing to report rumors from sources who have a definite interest in making the United States look bad.

In the meantime, as part of his ongoing reporting on the detainee-abuse story, Isikoff had contacted a New York defense lawyer, Marc Falkoff, who is representing 13 Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo. According to Falkoff's declassified notes, a mass-suicide attempt—when 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves in August 2003—was triggered by a guard's dropping a Qur'an and stomping on it. One of Falkoff's clients told him, "Another detainee tried to kill himself after the guard took his Qur'an and threw it in the toilet." A U.S. military spokesman, Army Col. Brad Blackner, dismissed the claims as unbelievable. "If you read the Al Qaeda training manual, they are trained to make allegations against the infidels," he said.

More allegations, credible or not, are sure to come.

And Newsweek will do their utmost to bring them, credible or not, to the world's attention.

So, what's going on at Newsweek. They surely knew what an incendiary story this would be and the potential for violent repercussions. They knew it was thinly sourced. But they went ahead anyways. Did they just want to be the first with a sensational story? Were they just careless? Or did they like the idea that, if there were violence, all the stories reporting it would have to mention their publication as the source? Or, were they more malevolent? Did they like the idea of sparking violence across the Muslim world and making American gains in that part of the world more difficult?

Which brings me to Bismarck's deviousness to get France to declare war on Prussia. Bismarck knew exactly what he was doing and got the outcome he desired: France appearing to be the aggressor and declaring war on Prussia. Could Newsweek be getting exactly the reaction that it hoped for?

Nah, that would be just a crazy conspiratorial theory. Media people don't hope that violence results from one of their stories, do they? I guess we'll just have to go with the careless theory. I'm sure that's it. They were just dang careless. However, as Michelle Malkin has said,

Newsweek Lied: People Died

Gee, that's not something that those careless bloggers who write without any editors could even manage. I guess we have to wait for the mainstream media to muck things up this badly.

Check out The Anchoress for a good, righteous rundown on this story. Scott Johnson at Powerline is also not impressed with the way that Newsweek acknowledges that it reported dangerous rumors and then proceeds to report some more in the same mea culpa.

It's as if to say, "Sorry, we got those other rumors wrong, folks. And it's a shame that people died. But, here are some more unsubstantiated rumors to chew on while you're rioting against the Great Satan."

I'm sure that is just carelessness too, right?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:31 PM 0 comments

Comments: Post a Comment

The truth about Avesil

Cheap Hosting

Atlanta Bankruptcy Attorney

Dallas Bankruptcy Attorney

Wikio

Get exclusive travel deals and book discount cheap flights

Online Bachelors Degree

Sunday, May 15, 2005

		Betsy's Page

HOME Betsy neither necessarily uses, nor endorses, the products advertised on this site. The truth about Avesil Cheap Hosting Atlanta Bankruptcy Attorney Dallas Bankruptcy Attorney Wikio Get exclusive travel deals and book discount cheap flights Online Bachelors Degree Comments from an AP history and government teacher in Raleigh, NC. e-mail betsynewmark AT gmail.com Commissions earned from selling items through Amazon will go towards buying materials for my classes. Thank you. Site Feed		Sunday, May 15, 2005 I was reading recently about the unification of Germany and Bismarck's role in altering the famous Ems Telegram to make it look like the Prussian King had insulted the French so as to incite the French into declaring war on Prussia, thus beginning the Franco-Prussian War. This all comes to mind when reading about how Newsweek reported an unsourced, anonymous rumor that guards at Guantanamo Bay had torn up a Koran and flushed some pages down the toilet. Predictably, rent-a-mobs in the Islamic world have begun rioting and calling down jihads against the United States. So, far nine people have been killed in these riots. Except, oops. Newsweek is now backtracking on their source. They're no longer so sure about it. Late last week Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita told NEWSWEEK that its original story was wrong. The brief PERISCOPE item ("SouthCom Showdown") had reported on the expected results of an upcoming U.S. Southern Command investigation into the abuse of prisoners at Gitmo. According to NEWSWEEK, SouthCom investigators found that Gitmo interrogators had flushed a Qur'an down a toilet in an attempt to rattle detainees. While various released detainees have made allegations about Qur'an desecration, the Pentagon has, according to DiRita, found no credible evidence to support them. How did NEWSWEEK get its facts wrong? And how did the story feed into serious international unrest? While continuing to report events on the ground, NEWSWEEK interviewed government officials, diplomats and its own staffers, and reconstructed this narrative of events: At NEWSWEEK, veteran investigative reporter Michael Isikoff's interest had been sparked by the release late last year of some internal FBI e-mails that painted a stark picture of prisoner abuse at Guantánamo. Isikoff knew that military investigators at Southern Command (which runs the Guantánamo prison) were looking into the allegations. So he called a longtime reliable source, a senior U.S. government official who was knowledgeable about the matter. The source told Isikoff that the report would include new details that were not in the FBI e-mails, including mention of flushing the Qur'an down a toilet. A SouthCom spokesman contacted by Isikoff declined to comment on an ongoing investigation, but NEWSWEEK National Security Correspondent John Barry, realizing the sensitivity of the story, provided a draft of the NEWSWEEK PERISCOPE item to a senior Defense official, asking, "Is this accurate or not?" The official challenged one aspect of the story: the suggestion that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, sent to Gitmo by the Pentagon in 2001 to oversee prisoner interrogation, might be held accountable for the abuses. Not true, said the official (the PERISCOPE draft was corrected to reflect that). But he was silent about the rest of the item. The official had not meant to mislead, but lacked detailed knowledge of the SouthCom report. ....On Friday night, Pentagon spokesman DiRita called NEWSWEEK to complain about the original PERISCOPE item. He said, "We pursue all credible allegations" of prisoner abuse, but insisted that the investigators had found none involving Qur'an desecration. DiRita sent NEWSWEEK a copy of rules issued to the guards (after the incidents mentioned by General Myers) to guarantee respect for Islamic worship. On Saturday, Isikoff spoke to his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Qur'an, including a toilet incident. But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report. Told of what the NEWSWEEK source said, DiRita exploded, "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?" Exactly. But that doesn't stop Newsweek from continuing to report rumors from sources who have a definite interest in making the United States look bad. In the meantime, as part of his ongoing reporting on the detainee-abuse story, Isikoff had contacted a New York defense lawyer, Marc Falkoff, who is representing 13 Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo. According to Falkoff's declassified notes, a mass-suicide attempt—when 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves in August 2003—was triggered by a guard's dropping a Qur'an and stomping on it. One of Falkoff's clients told him, "Another detainee tried to kill himself after the guard took his Qur'an and threw it in the toilet." A U.S. military spokesman, Army Col. Brad Blackner, dismissed the claims as unbelievable. "If you read the Al Qaeda training manual, they are trained to make allegations against the infidels," he said. More allegations, credible or not, are sure to come. And Newsweek will do their utmost to bring them, credible or not, to the world's attention. So, what's going on at Newsweek. They surely knew what an incendiary story this would be and the potential for violent repercussions. They knew it was thinly sourced. But they went ahead anyways. Did they just want to be the first with a sensational story? Were they just careless? Or did they like the idea that, if there were violence, all the stories reporting it would have to mention their publication as the source? Or, were they more malevolent? Did they like the idea of sparking violence across the Muslim world and making American gains in that part of the world more difficult? Which brings me to Bismarck's deviousness to get France to declare war on Prussia. Bismarck knew exactly what he was doing and got the outcome he desired: France appearing to be the aggressor and declaring war on Prussia. Could Newsweek be getting exactly the reaction that it hoped for? Nah, that would be just a crazy conspiratorial theory. Media people don't hope that violence results from one of their stories, do they? I guess we'll just have to go with the careless theory. I'm sure that's it. They were just dang careless. However, as Michelle Malkin has said, Newsweek Lied: People Died Gee, that's not something that those careless bloggers who write without any editors could even manage. I guess we have to wait for the mainstream media to muck things up this badly. Check out The Anchoress for a good, righteous rundown on this story. Scott Johnson at Powerline is also not impressed with the way that Newsweek acknowledges that it reported dangerous rumors and then proceeds to report some more in the same mea culpa. It's as if to say, "Sorry, we got those other rumors wrong, folks. And it's a shame that people died. But, here are some more unsubstantiated rumors to chew on while you're rioting against the Great Satan." I'm sure that is just carelessness too, right? posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:31 PM 0 comments Comments: I was reading recently about the unification of Germany and Bismarck's role in altering the famous Ems Telegram to make it look like the Prussian King had insulted the French so as to incite the French into declaring war on Prussia, thus beginning the Franco-Prussian War. This all comes to mind when reading about how Newsweek reported an unsourced, anonymous rumor that guards at Guantanamo Bay had torn up a Koran and flushed some pages down the toilet. Predictably, rent-a-mobs in the Islamic world have begun rioting and calling down jihads against the United States. So, far nine people have been killed in these riots. Except, oops. Newsweek is now backtracking on their source. They're no longer so sure about it. Late last week Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita told NEWSWEEK that its original story was wrong. The brief PERISCOPE item ("SouthCom Showdown") had reported on the expected results of an upcoming U.S. Southern Command investigation into the abuse of prisoners at Gitmo. According to NEWSWEEK, SouthCom investigators found that Gitmo interrogators had flushed a Qur'an down a toilet in an attempt to rattle detainees. While various released detainees have made allegations about Qur'an desecration, the Pentagon has, according to DiRita, found no credible evidence to support them. How did NEWSWEEK get its facts wrong? And how did the story feed into serious international unrest? While continuing to report events on the ground, NEWSWEEK interviewed government officials, diplomats and its own staffers, and reconstructed this narrative of events: At NEWSWEEK, veteran investigative reporter Michael Isikoff's interest had been sparked by the release late last year of some internal FBI e-mails that painted a stark picture of prisoner abuse at Guantánamo. Isikoff knew that military investigators at Southern Command (which runs the Guantánamo prison) were looking into the allegations. So he called a longtime reliable source, a senior U.S. government official who was knowledgeable about the matter. The source told Isikoff that the report would include new details that were not in the FBI e-mails, including mention of flushing the Qur'an down a toilet. A SouthCom spokesman contacted by Isikoff declined to comment on an ongoing investigation, but NEWSWEEK National Security Correspondent John Barry, realizing the sensitivity of the story, provided a draft of the NEWSWEEK PERISCOPE item to a senior Defense official, asking, "Is this accurate or not?" The official challenged one aspect of the story: the suggestion that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, sent to Gitmo by the Pentagon in 2001 to oversee prisoner interrogation, might be held accountable for the abuses. Not true, said the official (the PERISCOPE draft was corrected to reflect that). But he was silent about the rest of the item. The official had not meant to mislead, but lacked detailed knowledge of the SouthCom report. ....On Friday night, Pentagon spokesman DiRita called NEWSWEEK to complain about the original PERISCOPE item. He said, "We pursue all credible allegations" of prisoner abuse, but insisted that the investigators had found none involving Qur'an desecration. DiRita sent NEWSWEEK a copy of rules issued to the guards (after the incidents mentioned by General Myers) to guarantee respect for Islamic worship. On Saturday, Isikoff spoke to his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Qur'an, including a toilet incident. But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report. Told of what the NEWSWEEK source said, DiRita exploded, "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?" Exactly. But that doesn't stop Newsweek from continuing to report rumors from sources who have a definite interest in making the United States look bad. In the meantime, as part of his ongoing reporting on the detainee-abuse story, Isikoff had contacted a New York defense lawyer, Marc Falkoff, who is representing 13 Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo. According to Falkoff's declassified notes, a mass-suicide attempt—when 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves in August 2003—was triggered by a guard's dropping a Qur'an and stomping on it. One of Falkoff's clients told him, "Another detainee tried to kill himself after the guard took his Qur'an and threw it in the toilet." A U.S. military spokesman, Army Col. Brad Blackner, dismissed the claims as unbelievable. "If you read the Al Qaeda training manual, they are trained to make allegations against the infidels," he said. More allegations, credible or not, are sure to come. And Newsweek will do their utmost to bring them, credible or not, to the world's attention. So, what's going on at Newsweek. They surely knew what an incendiary story this would be and the potential for violent repercussions. They knew it was thinly sourced. But they went ahead anyways. Did they just want to be the first with a sensational story? Were they just careless? Or did they like the idea that, if there were violence, all the stories reporting it would have to mention their publication as the source? Or, were they more malevolent? Did they like the idea of sparking violence across the Muslim world and making American gains in that part of the world more difficult? Which brings me to Bismarck's deviousness to get France to declare war on Prussia. Bismarck knew exactly what he was doing and got the outcome he desired: France appearing to be the aggressor and declaring war on Prussia. Could Newsweek be getting exactly the reaction that it hoped for? Nah, that would be just a crazy conspiratorial theory. Media people don't hope that violence results from one of their stories, do they? I guess we'll just have to go with the careless theory. I'm sure that's it. They were just dang careless. However, as Michelle Malkin has said, Newsweek Lied: People Died Gee, that's not something that those careless bloggers who write without any editors could even manage. I guess we have to wait for the mainstream media to muck things up this badly. Check out The Anchoress for a good, righteous rundown on this story. Scott Johnson at Powerline is also not impressed with the way that Newsweek acknowledges that it reported dangerous rumors and then proceeds to report some more in the same mea culpa. It's as if to say, "Sorry, we got those other rumors wrong, folks. And it's a shame that people died. But, here are some more unsubstantiated rumors to chew on while you're rioting against the Great Satan." I'm sure that is just carelessness too, right? posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:31 PM 0 comments Comments: Post a Comment