Allegations that Gitmo prison staff put the Koran in toilets is not exactly new either. The British prisoners who were released last year made similar claims, accusing the staff of routinely throwing the copies of the Koran distributed to the inmates into the buckets they used for toilets. It seems that this latest accusation was just a spark, and if not this news item then something else would have unleashed the bottled up frustration.
Uh, yes - the person who negligently spreads false information that incites violence and death deserves blame for that conduct.
Even aside from the fact that we’re at war, it’s criminal, like calling “fire” in a theatre causing stampeding death.
Newsweek has now published a complete retraction.[/quote]
Which is different from when you start a war on false pretenses and no one is held accountable.[/quote]
But since that’s completely falicious, it’s obviously not comparable.
You may be right on that one, although it doesn’t excuse Newsweek for publishing such an inflammatory comment without credible evidence. Again and again, left-wing media prints stuff that it wants to be true with insufficient evidence - the CBS fraudulent memos, the NYT’s “missing explosives”, regardless of the consequences of inaccuracy. And I don’t understand why you don’t think we’re at war – how many more thousand Americans have to die before you’re sufficiently engaged?
I also don’t think most people here realize how serious the abuse of the Koran is in that culture – they my be outraged by torture, but they also somewhat expect it since it’s endemic in their society, but abusing the Koran is essentially the worst type of blasphemy there is in that culture, and a death penalty offence in fundamentalist states. It may well be the sole cause of the riots and resulting death.
When you call Newsweek “left-wing”, you lose all credibility with me. It isn’t remotely left-wing.
Uh, yes - the person who negligently spreads false information that incites violence and death deserves blame for that conduct.
Even aside from the fact that we’re at war, it’s criminal, like calling “fire” in a theatre causing stampeding death.
Newsweek has now published a complete retraction.[/quote]
Which is different from when you start a war on false pretenses and no one is held accountable.[/quote]
But since that’s completely falicious, it’s obviously not comparable.[/quote]
False information: check!
Disseminated widely: check!
Damage to US image: check!
Ensuing death and destruction: check!
Should’ve known better: check!
Yup, it’s comparable.
Is falicious a lie that’s easier to swallow because it tastes good? Because then I agree, the war on Iraq was a lot more falicious than the Newsweek article.
You may be right on that one, although it doesn’t excuse Newsweek for publishing such an inflammatory comment without credible evidence.
With the current standards for Beltway journalism in general, relying on a single anonymous source who’s proven himself reliable before is about as good as it gets. And that’s the professional journalists; the hacks at National Review, for example, certainly have no such standards. It’s a hell of a time to get into high dudgeon about inflammatory leaks that turn out to be wrong in light of the whore-for-war Judith Miller bullshit at the NYT.
Also note that as pointed out above, only now do we realize how inflammatory it was; with the long stream of shocking information coming out about this, the margin for “you’ll need a high burden of proof for something so shocking” has dropped through the floor. When we actually did…
- Mark prisoners with fake menstrual blood.
- Wrap them in the Isreali flag.
- Force them to masturbate in each other’s mouths.
- Beat them to death and hide the bodies.
- God only knows what other horrors.
- Photograph smiling corpses for the family back home.
…are you really supposed to say “whoa, that’s shocking, that’s unbelievable and needs a higher standard of checking” when “flush the koran down the toilet” is added? Especially as Tim points out above with previous reports.
But since that’s completely falicious, it’s obviously not comparable.[/quote]
Except that the war absolutely was started on false pretenses: Nukes! Chemicals! Aluminum Tubes! Yellow Cake! Mobile Labs! Theyre in the area around Tikrit! Saddam is Al Queda’s buddy! Iraq could attack America! We weren’t planning it all along, honest! We’re not there for the oil! We’re there to protect the people! We’ll rebuild Iraq! Red Alert! Orange Alert. Red Alert!
And who exactly has been held accountable for this? Nobody.
Again, Newsweek is “left wing”?! Also, what of all the right wing outlets spouting of intentionally fabricated propaganda? The examples you list are very much small potatoes on the “jumping to conclusions without evidence” scale.
… but abusing the Koran is essentially the worst type of blasphemy there is in that culture, and a death penalty offence in fundamentalist states. It may well be the sole cause of the riots and resulting death.
Accusations of such blasphemy aren’t exactly new. If they didn’t cause such rioting before, what makes you so sure they did this time? Do you honestly think such riots wouldn’t happen without Newsweek?
The goal is clear. Use your coordianted shock troops to beat down the messenger whenevery possible so you can make sure that it’s disseminating only the messages you want people to hear.
And before you pull out the strawman, here’s the thing; You don’t have to go to ridiculous extremes for this tactic to work. An occasional Dan Rather, or Newsweek story means that you’ll have a much more pliable press the next time you steal the vote.
It also means you can get the press to easily accept your PR campaign to swing public opinion on the fillibuster.
I don’t think the situation we’re in qualifies as war in the traditional sense and I’m not happy simply expanding the definition of war to cover it precisely because it brings with it baggage, such as your argument about restricting the media for the duration. I think the war on terror is no more a war than the war on drugs (see that brilliant and still relevant Boondocks from a couple years back) and the rhetoric and behaviours of war do not apply. If an asteroid hit Cleveland thousands would die, would we be in a war on gravity? More to the point, would anyone other than Chet even care?
What’s bizarre about all this screaming of left-wing media lies is that so much of the media propagated the lies of Bush verbatim. For example the myth that Saddam Hussein kicked out the weapons inspectors in 1998 (and thus caused Clinton to bomb Iraq) was reported over and over again from the New York Times to the Washington Post. The actual truth was that the inspectors were withdrawn by the UN after Clinton announced the bombing campaign to protect them. I wonder how many people who supported the war believed that one of many lies told about Iraq in the “liberal” press?
You’re seeing conspiracies everywhere. The world isn’t that complex, really.
The desire is for the media to act responsibly and professionally, and realize that their bias has unfortunate consequences – this is just a matter of editorializing in the “news”, and not veting and sourcing stories as diligently as you should because you want the story to be true (it leads to crazy attempts at rationalization such as the “false, but accurate” stuff…we just “know” it’s true…“gut feeling”, etc.)
no more a war than the war on drugs (see that brilliant and still relevant Boondocks from a couple years back) and the rhetoric and behaviours of war do not apply. If an asteroid hit Cleveland thousands would die, would we be in a war on gravity?
I don’t think drugs and asteroids aren’t deliberately trying to murder us and attack our way of life, but maybe they are.
Neither is terrorism. Nor is anyone out there dying with “I did it for terrorism!” on his lips. Calling it a “war on terror” is a rhetorical device and extending the rhetoric to imply that we should live as though fighting a war is stupid and dangerous.
The bias is so self-evident it requires no explanation, apparently. And I still haven’t seen a goddamn explanation of TEH LIBERAL BIAS that explains Judith Miller.
You’re seeing conspiracies everywhere. The world isn’t that complex, really. [/quote]
Are you really that naive? Labeling something a “conspiracy” doesn’t automatically make it one, btw. This is just Rove at work. It’s not that complicated, and the blast faxes head out of the RNC every morning.
The desire is for the media to act responsibly and professionally, and realize that their bias has unfortunate consequences – this is just a matter of editorializing in the “news”, and not veting and sourcing stories as diligently as you should because you want the story to be true (it leads to crazy attempts at rationalization such as the “false, but accurate” stuff…we just “know” it’s true…“gut feeling”, etc.)
QUESTION: Does it concern the President that the primary source for the intelligence on the mobile biological weapons labs was a guy that U.S. intelligence never every interviewed?
MCCLELLAN: Well, again, all these issues will be looked
at as part of a broad review by the independent commission
that the President appointed… But it’s important
that we look at what we learn on the ground and compare that
with what we believed prior to going into Iraq.[White House Press Gaggle, 4/5/04]
[quote=“MikeSofaer”]
Calling it a “war on terror” is a rhetorical device and extending the rhetoric to imply that we should live as though fighting a war is stupid and dangerous.[/quote]
Sure, the “war on terror” is a rhetorical device — as opposed to calling it the war on islamist extremism and rogue states proliferating weapons of mass destruction. The fact that the left doesn’t think this is “actually” a war is indicative of what’s wrong with their approach and why it’s so dangerous.
QUESTION: Does it concern the President that the primary source for the intelligence on the mobile biological weapons labs was a guy that U.S. intelligence never every interviewed?..[/quote]
Andrew, if your point is that the Government has the same (greater) responsibility to ensure that information which affects its decisions is accurate, I certainly agree with you. But that doesn’t excuse the media’s behaviour.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, setting aside your silly stuff about the liberal media, it sounds like you’re saying it does excuse the government’s behavior. Because otherwise, I think you’ve just damned the administration you’ve been so steadfastly defending.
-Tom
QUESTION: Does it concern the President that the primary source for the intelligence on the mobile biological weapons labs was a guy that U.S. intelligence never every interviewed?..[/quote]
Andrew, if your point is that the Government has the same (greater) responsibility to ensure that information which affects its decisions is accurate, I certainly agree with you. But that doesn’t excuse the media’s behaviour.[/quote]
And what behaviour is that exactly? Reporting?
I’m not trying to defend Newsweek’s poor sourcing, but there’s no doubt that the gitmo interrogators did some bad shit with the Koran in front of prisoners. The only real argument right now is exactly whose Koran it was that they were using and exactly what acts of descration were being performed.
But the White House is attempting to clamp down on free speech because of something that effects them purely politically. No one from the administration is part of this story in any way, yet they’ve chosen to say that it’s not okay for the press to report this story.
Meanwhile the Pentagon spokesman makes unsubstantiated allegations of his own:
DIRITA: We’ve found nothing that would substantiate anything that you just said about the treatment of a Koran. We have, other than what we’ve seen – that it’s possible detainees themselves have done with pages of the Koran. And I don’t want to overstate that, either, because it’s based on log entries that have to be corroborated.