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Blaming the Messenger
By Anne Applebaum
Wednesday, May 18, 2005; Page A17
"It's appalling that this story got out there," said the secretary of state. "Shaky from the very get-go," thundered the White House spokesman. "We've not found any wrongdoing on the part of U.S. servicemembers," declared the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Outrage filled the airwaves this week as administration officials took turns denouncing Newsweek's brief report of alleged desecrations of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay. But among the many declarations of shock, shock, shock, among the multiple expressions of self-righteous horror at the riots the story sparked in Afghanistan, only one reflected any hint of self-reflection, any sense that this story might be more than just another mainstream media screw-up. "People need to be very careful about what they say," said the secretary of defense, " just as they need to be very careful about what they do." See, Rumsfeld out of context does 'get it.' The US is wrong.
Now, it is possible that no interrogator at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed pages of the Koran down the toilet, as the now-retracted Newsweek story reported -- although several former Guantanamo detainees have alleged just that. It is also possible that Newsweek reporters relied too much on an uncertain source, or that the magazine confused the story with (confirmed) reports that prisoners themselves used Korans to block toilets as a form of protest. No way, no how!
But surely the larger point is not the story itself but that it was so eminently plausible, in Pakistan, Afghanistan and everywhere else. And it was plausible precisely because interrogation techniques designed to be offensive to Muslims were used in Iraq and Guantanamo, as administration and military officials have also confirmed. For example:
· Dogs. Military interrogators deployed them specifically because they knew Muslims consider dogs unclean. In a memo signed by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez in September 2003, and available online, the then-commander in Iraq actually approved using the technique to "exploit Arab fear of dogs."
· Nudity. We know (and the Muslim world knows) from the Abu Ghraib photographs that nudity has been used to humiliate Muslim men. More important, we know that nudity was also approved as an interrogation technique by Donald Rumsfeld himself. He signed off on a November 2002 policy memo, later revised but also available online, that specifically listed "removal of clothing" as a permissible, "category II" interrogation technique, along with "removal of facial hair," also a technique designed to offend Muslims who wear beards.
· Sexual harassment. The military's investigation of U.S. detention and interrogation practices, led by Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III, stated that at Guantanamo there were "two female interrogators who, on their own initiative, touched and spoke to detainees in a sexually suggestive manner in order to incur stress based on the detainees' religious beliefs." Although the report said both had been reprimanded, there is no doubt, again, that the tactic was designed for men whose religion prohibits them from having contact with women other than their wives.
· Fake menstrual blood. When former detainees began claiming that they had been smeared with menstrual blood intended to make them "unclean" and therefore unable to pray, their lawyers initially dismissed the story as implausible. But the story has been confirmed by Army Sgt. Erik Saar, a former Guantanamo translator, who told the Associated Press that in a forthcoming book he will describe a female interrogator who smeared a prisoner with red ink, claimed it was menstrual blood and left, saying, "Have a fun night in your cell without any water to clean yourself."
There is no question that these were tactics designed to offend, no question that they were put in place after 2001 and no question that many considered them justified. Since the Afghan invasion, public supporters of "exceptional" interrogation methods have argued that in the special, unusual case of the war on terrorism, we may have to suspend our fussy legality, ignore our high ideals and resort to some unpleasant tactics that our military had never used. Opponents of these methods, among them some of the military's own interrogation experts, have argued, on the contrary, that "special methods" are not only ineffective but counterproductive: They might actually inspire Muslim terrorists instead of helping to defeat them. They might also make it easier, say, for fanatics in Jalalabad to use two lines of a magazine article to incite riots.
Blaming the messenger, even for a bungled message, doesn't get the administration off the hook. Yes, to paraphrase Rumsfeld, people need to be very careful, not only about what they say but about what they do. And, yes, people whose military and diplomatic priorities include the defeat of Islamic fanaticism and the spread of democratic values in the Muslim world need to be very, very careful, not only about what they say but about what they do to the Muslims they hold in captivity.
Kathianne said:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/18/AR2005051800869.html
Get it folks, Newsweek may have erred in the details, but REALLY they were right. Got it?
Bullypulpit said:The story Newsweek printed is years old. The practice of desecrating the Koran has been documented, repeatedly and by multiple and independent sources starting in 2004. In short, it wasn't news.
Bullypulpit said:The story Newsweek printed is years old. The practice of desecrating the Koran has been documented, repeatedly and by multiple and independent sources starting in 2004. In short, it wasn't news. What is news is that General Richard Meyers, in a May 12th briefing stated that the violence in Afghanistan was a result of the political situation on the ground there, and had nothing to do with the story. The violence in Afghanistan was nothing more than an opportunity by the Bush Administration to bitch-slap the media back ito line, and stands in stark contrast to the Downing Street memo released on May 1st, clearly indicating the intention of the Administration to spin intel to support the policy of war in Iraq long before informing Congress of, or asking for authorization for military operations in that country. THe Administration remains strangely mute on this issue.
Have you not noticed how visciously the Bush political machine attacks any who question it or oppose its policies? Look to paragraph 6 in <a href=http://www.veteransforpeace.org/The_14_characteristics_030303.htm>"<i>The 14 Characteristics of Fascism</i>"</a> for more insight into this.
With the media cowed, and vigorous debate about the issues which concern the Republic absent, the Republic is in peril.
freeandfun1 said:
(As he [bully] quickly scurries away...)
GotZoom said:--------------------
· Fake menstrual blood. When former detainees began claiming that they had been smeared with menstrual blood intended to make them "unclean" and therefore unable to pray, their lawyers initially dismissed the story as implausible. But the story has been confirmed by Army Sgt. Erik Saar, a former Guantanamo translator, who told the Associated Press that in a forthcoming book he will describe a female interrogator who smeared a prisoner with red ink, claimed it was menstrual blood and left, saying, "Have a fun night in your cell without any water to clean yourself."
-----------------
GotZoom said:-------------------------
· Dogs. Military interrogators deployed them specifically because they knew Muslims consider dogs unclean. In a memo signed by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez in September 2003, and available online, the then-commander in Iraq actually approved using the technique to "exploit Arab fear of dogs."
· Nudity. We know (and the Muslim world knows) from the Abu Ghraib photographs that nudity has been used to humiliate Muslim men. More important, we know that nudity was also approved as an interrogation technique by Donald Rumsfeld himself. He signed off on a November 2002 policy memo, later revised but also available online, that specifically listed "removal of clothing" as a permissible, "category II" interrogation technique, along with "removal of facial hair," also a technique designed to offend Muslims who wear beards.
· Sexual harassment. The military's investigation of U.S. detention and interrogation practices, led by Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III, stated that at Guantanamo there were "two female interrogators who, on their own initiative, touched and spoke to detainees in a sexually suggestive manner in order to incur stress based on the detainees' religious beliefs." Although the report said both had been reprimanded, there is no doubt, again, that the tactic was designed for men whose religion prohibits them from having contact with women other than their wives.
· Fake menstrual blood. When former detainees began claiming that they had been smeared with menstrual blood intended to make them "unclean" and therefore unable to pray, their lawyers initially dismissed the story as implausible. But the story has been confirmed by Army Sgt. Erik Saar, a former Guantanamo translator, who told the Associated Press that in a forthcoming book he will describe a female interrogator who smeared a prisoner with red ink, claimed it was menstrual blood and left, saying, "Have a fun night in your cell without any water to clean yourself."
-----------------
OK...let's suppose it is true.
As I have said before....
So?
THEY ARE KILLING PEOPLE - OUR PEOPLE.
THEY HAVE SAWED THE HEAD OFF OF AMERICAN CITIZENS. THEY HAVE RAPED AMERICAN WOMEN.
WHY DO WE HAVE TO FOLLOW THE RULES WHEN THEY DON'T?
Tom Plate / Syndicated columnist
Story that might not be true paints a sadly accurate picture
LOS ANGELES The embarrassing Newsweek climb-down on the now infamous Quran-stuffed-into-the-prison-toilet story is surely one for the annals of journalistic screw-ups.
Sure, maybe the magazine's editor probably should resign as a gesture of respect for the Muslim world, not to mention for whatever is left of honor in the U.S. journalism profession. And for a respectful period, the magazine in general should hang its head in shame. But something serious is being lost in the crusade to quarantine Newsweek.
It's that the story (which may still prove to have taken place) was in fact all-too-believable in Newsweek's offices and around the world precisely because of the oft-crude manner in which the administration in Washington has been waging its "war against terror."
This war has been at times conducted as if Muslims and Arabs weren't people, as if when "they" are imprisoned "they" definitely aren't "real people," and as if 9/11 admittedly a terrible tragedy has been the only serious tragedy the world has lately experienced.
The Newsweek story said that Muslim prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had been humiliated by having to watch as a copy of the Quran the Muslim book of faith was flushed down a toilet. It turns out that Newsweek relied on but one source, and when that source a Pentagon official changed his story (because he had been lying? Been misinformed? Been pressured by higher-ups in the Pentagon to repudiate his story?), the Newsweek exclusive collapsed like a house of cards in a desert sandstorm.
Sure, it was a serious error to go public with a story like this on the basis of a sole source. Newsweek, after all, isn't some bumptious, fly-by-night blog; it's one of the best magazines around?????, with a famously superb fact-checking staff that ordinarily can distinguish the fly from the ointment with the best of them.
But the print story surfaced in this magazine against the backdrop of those awful pictures of Arab and Muslim prisoners being humiliated, violated and dehumanized by their American captors at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Without those pictures and other tales of abuse the Quran-toilet story would never have been published without far more extensive fact-checking, and surely not on the basis of a single source.
This is not to exculpate Newsweek, to be sure. It is to suggest that the administration, which is now calling on News-week to apologize to everyone and their mothers, must be viewed as something like an unindicted co-conspirator.?????
For had this war, notably in the U.S. treatment and interrogation of war criminals or enemy combatants (whatever we call them, they are still people), been waged by the United States on a higher humanitarian level, Newsweek would have had a stunning mega-scoop.
As it was, the weekly magazine turned the story into a very short piece in its Periscope section. In other words, the item was deemed as simply another example of bad things happening to "them" (Arabs, Muslims) at the hands of "us." Had the Quran-toilet story been the first of its kind, the magazine would have given it much more space, perhaps even elevating it to a cover story.
The fact is that much of the Muslim and Arabic world has already been traumatized by the American intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq, been repulsed and angered by pictures of prisoner abuse, and had its suspicions of American cultural disrespect confirmed by the likes of Gen. William Boykin.
Gen. Boykin, a top Pentagon official and a key figure in the U.S. war on terror, in public speeches has unfavorably compared Islam with Christianity and he still has his job. That certainly says something to many in the Muslim world.
Newsweek's little sin is thus nothing compared to this administration's much greater sins. By launching a war against terror in a way that is probably working to infuriate a good part of the Muslim world, the administration has pretty much succeeded in spreading anti-Americanism even without Osama bin Laden's help.
"Osama must be smiling victoriously in his cave," commented a Pakistani newspaper. Maybe, but the administration's foreign policy in the Muslim world is certainly no laughing matter.
UCLA professor Tom Plate, a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, is a veteran U.S. journalist who has held senior positions at TIME, CBS, The Los Angeles Times and Newsday. He is now founder and director of UCLA's Media Center.
Kathianne said:[
Get it folks, Newsweek may have erred in the details, but REALLY they were right. Got it?
