Newsweek Got Gitmo Right

[Whois]

http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=5959

Newsweek Got Gitmo Right
by Calgacus*

Contrary to White House spin, the allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo published by Newsweek on May 9, 2005, are common among ex-prisoners and have been widely reported outside the United States. Several former detainees at the Guantanamo and Bagram prisons have reported instances of their handlers sitting or standing on the Koran, throwing or kicking it in toilets, and urinating on it. Prior to the Newsweek article, the New York Times reported a Guantanamo insider asserting that the commander of the facility was compelled by prisoner protests to address the problem and issue an apology.

One such incident (during which the Koran was allegedly thrown in a pile and stepped on) prompted a hunger strike among Guantanamo detainees in March 2002. Regarding this, the New York Times in a May 1, 2005, article interviewed a former detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, who said the protest ended with a senior officer delivering an apology to the entire camp. And the Times reports: "A former interrogator at Guantanamo, in an interview with the Times, confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans." (Neil A. Lewis and Eric Schmitt, "Inquiry Finds Abuses at Guantanamo Bay," New York Times, May 1, 2005.)

The hunger strike and apology story is also confirmed by another former detainee, Shafiq Rasul, interviewed by the UK Guardian in 2003 (James Meek, "The People the Law Forgot," Dec. 3, 2003). It was also confirmed by former prisoner Jamal al-Harith in an interview with the Daily Mirror (Rosa Prince and Gary Jones, "My Hell in Camp X-Ray," Daily Mirror, March 12, 2004).

The toilet incident was reported in the Washington Post in a 2003 interview with a former detainee from Afghanistan:

"Ehsannullah, 29, said American soldiers who initially questioned him in Kandahar before shipping him to Guantanamo hit him and taunted him by dumping the Koran in a toilet. 'It was a very bad situation for us,' said Ehsannullah, who comes from the home region of the Taliban leader, Mohammad Omar. 'We cried so much and shouted, "Please do not do that to the Holy Koran."' (Marc Kaufman and April Witt, "Out of Legal Limbo, Some Tell of Mistreatment," Washington Post, March 26, 2003.)

Also citing the toilet incident is testimony by Asif Iqbal, a former Guantanamo detainee who was released to British custody in March 2004 and subsequently freed without charge:

"The behavior of the guards towards our religious practices as well as the Koran was also, in my view, designed to cause us as much distress as possible. They would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet, and generally disrespect it." (Center for Constitutional Rights [.pdf], Aug. 4, 2004.)

The claim that U.S. troops at Bagram prison in Afghanistan urinated on the Koran was made by former detainee Mohamed Mazouz, a Moroccan, as reported in the Moroccan newspaper, La Gazette du Maroc. (Abdelhak Najib, "Les Américains pissaient sur le Coran et abusaient de nous sexuellement," April 12, 2005.) An English translation is available on the Cage Prisoners site (which describes itself as a "nonsectarian Islamic human rights Web site").

Tarek Derghoul, another of the British detainees, similarly cites instances of Koran desecration in an interview with Cage Prisoners.

Desecration of the Koran was also mentioned by former Guantanamo detainee Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost and reported by the BBC in early May 2005. (Haroon Rashid, "Ex-Inmates Share Guantanamo Ordeal," May 2, 2005.)

*Calgacus has been employed as a researcher in the national security field for 20 years.

[YoungRemy]

Haha, not so fast, Newsweek got it wrong




http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/16/newsweek.quran/index.html
Newsweek retracts Quran story
U.S. military says it must reach out to Afghans to ease tension

Monday, May 16, 2005 Posted: 7:07 PM EDT (2307 GMT)

(CNN) -- Newsweek magazine issued a retraction Monday of a May 9 report on the alleged desecration of the Quran at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The report -- which said American interrogators put copies of the Quran on toilets or in one case, flushed one down a toilet -- was blamed for anti-American riots in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world last week.

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said in a statement issued Monday afternoon.

Newsweek published the item in its May 9 issue. In the May 23 issue, it reported that its senior government source had backed away from his initial story, and Whitaker wrote that "we regret" that any part of the story was wrong. (Full story)

But the magazine did not completely disavow the story until Monday's statement from Whitaker.

A senior White House official applauded the retraction and called it "a first good step" toward repairing the damage done by the report to the U.S. image abroad.

The official said it will take a sustained effort by Newsweek to "mitigate the fallout," and called on the magazine to take steps to spread the word about its retraction throughout the Muslim world.

Earlier Monday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan called it "puzzling" that Newsweek would admit an error in the story without retracting the entire thing.

"Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we," Whitaker wrote in the May 23 issue. "But we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst."

CNN confirmed at least four deaths last week stemming from riots in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Newsweek reported rioting in Afghanistan and "throughout much of the Muslim world" last week had "cost at least 15 lives."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the flap was a reminder that people "need to be very careful about what they say."

"People are dead, and that's unfortunate," Rumsfeld told reporters. "People need to be very careful about what they say just as people need to be careful about what they do."

The Pentagon said last week it was unable to corroborate any case in which interrogators at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay defiled the Muslim holy book.

"We can't find anything to substantiate the allegations that appeared in Newsweek," Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Monday afternoon.

Whitaker wrote in this week's edition that the magazine had approached two Defense Department officials for comment on the report before it went to press.

One declined to respond. The other "challenged another aspect of the story but did not dispute the Quran charge," Whitaker wrote.

After a review of more than 25,000 documents, Myers said, investigators found only one incident recorded in the prison logs involving a Quran.

In that case, Myers said, a prisoner used pages from a Quran in an attempt to block a toilet as a protest. Even that incident was unconfirmed, he said.

"People have said, 'My goodness, why does it take so long for someone to come back with and have the actual facts?' " Rumsfeld said. "Well, it takes a long time to be truthful, to be responsible."

The original Newsweek article cited "sources" as saying that interrogators, "in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Quran down a toilet."

But Newsweek said only a single source was used and that after the original article was published, the government source said he wasn't sure what he'd read about the desecration.
Diplomatic efforts

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher also chided the magazine before Monday's retraction, saying "one would expect more than the kind of correction we've seen so far."

U.S. diplomats overseas were working the phones to try to spread the word about Newsweek's latest story, he said.

"We'll deal with it the same way we have been dealing with it -- by being transparent, up front and open about our policies and what our soldiers do," Boucher said.

State Department officials said it would be hard to undo the damage because of the already existing sense of anger and mistrust of the United States.

"People will believe the worst, even if it is wrong," one official said.

Afghan government spokesman Jawed Ludin said his government expresses "in the strongest terms our disapproval of Newsweek's approach to reporting which allowed them to run this story without proper examination beforehand."
Reviewing tactics

The U.S. military said Monday it must reach out to angry Afghans to ease tensions.

"We want to redouble our efforts to communicate with the Afghan people," said Army Col. Gary Cheek in Kabul. "We want to ensure there is trust and confidence in the U.S."

Cheek promised to re-evaluate U.S. military tactics being used in Afghanistan that have drawn criticism from Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai.

"We continually review our tactics and certainly as the sovereignty of the Afghan government grows they will want more control, and that is correct and proper," Cheek said.

U.S. troops have been criticized for breaking into homes unannounced and for taking people into custody, sometimes on faulty intelligence.

"It does us no good to detain someone and make 100 enemies," Cheek said. "We want to be very balanced in our operations. You can't do that through heavy-handed tactics."

Cheek also said the United States wants to engage Afghan religious leaders "to make sure they understand our true values."

Newsweek's Washington bureau chief, Dan Klaidman, said the error was "terribly unfortunate," and he offered the magazine's sympathies to the victims in the protests.

But he said "different forces" were at work that helped spark the riots. "It's clear that people seized on the Newsweek report to advance their own agendas, and that that was part of it," he said.

"But I also think that there's an enormous amount of pent-up and not-so-pent-up anti-American rage and sentiment in that region."

At a Pentagon press conference Thursday, Myers cited U.S. commanders as saying the protests in Jalalabad, at least, were more about local politics than anti-American sentiment stirred by the Newsweek report.

Newsweek said anger over the story spread after it was cited at a May 6 press conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, by Imran Khan, a Pakistani cricket legend and a critic of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

[yeahwho]

What has the USA turned into? The Founding Fathers of this Nation must be turnig over in their graves.

How did this happen?

Is it by consistenly sticking to partisan talking points designed for domestic consumption and denying virtually all accountability. How do we get to a place where a single sentence attributed to unidentified sources in a newsweekly magazine triggers what happened in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba?


Who killed those 16?

Those involved in the riot who literally killed them?

The Newsweek story that sparked the riots?

Newsweek's source who said he heard about it here, or maybe from here?

The Pentagon which has been using methods of cultural humiliation on "enemy combatants"?

Or various Americans who just think these Muslims should get over all this because it's just one in a string of fraternity pranks?

Spin amongst youselves.

[Ali]

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said in a statement issued Monday afternoon.

Newsweek published the item in its May 9 issue. In the May 23 issue, it reported that its senior government source had backed away from his initial story, and Whitaker wrote that "we regret" that any part of the story was wrong. (Full story)

...

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the flap was a reminder that people "need to be very careful about what they say."

"People are dead, and that's unfortunate," Rumsfeld told reporters. "People need to be very careful about what they say just as people need to be careful about what they do."Especially when they say anything bad about something which can be traced back to ME!.The Pentagon said last week it was unable to corroborate any case in which interrogators at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay defiled the Muslim holy book.

"We can't find anything to substantiate the allegations that appeared in Newsweek," Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Monday afternoon.Maybe you didn't look very hard, or in the right places? Maybe you didn't look at all.
Whitaker wrote in this week's edition that the magazine had approached two Defense Department officials for comment on the report before it went to press.

One declined to respond. The other "challenged another aspect of the story but did not dispute the Quran charge," Whitaker wrote.But now that the Muslim world has gone nuts, it turns out not to be true.
After a review of more than 25,000 documents, Myers said, investigators found only one incident recorded in the prison logs involving a Quran.

In that case, Myers said, a prisoner used pages from a Quran in an attempt to block a toilet as a protest. Even that incident was unconfirmed, he said.Of course. Somebody who's imprisoned because he was fighting for the Taliban desecrates the Quran as a protest. Riiiiiight.
"People have said, 'My goodness, why does it take so long for someone to come back with and have the actual facts?' " Rumsfeld said. "Well, it takes a long time to be truthful, to be responsible."My goodness, Don, you're absolutely right! It does take a long time to tell the truth, we're still waiting for you to admit that you are, in fact Spawn of Lucifer."We want to redouble our efforts to communicate with the Afghan people," said Army Col. Gary Cheek in Kabul. "We want to ensure there is trust and confidence in the U.S."

Cheek promised to re-evaluate U.S. military tactics being used in Afghanistan that have drawn criticism from Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai.

"We continually review our tactics and certainly as the sovereignty of the Afghan government grows they will want more control, and that is correct and proper," Cheek said.

U.S. troops have been criticized for breaking into homes unannounced and for taking people into custody, sometimes on faulty intelligence.Like the intelligence about the way in which political prisoners are treated by the US? Do you remember how half the population of Abu Ghraib were suddenly released? Do you remember what went on there? Do you think Newsweek got it wrong, or were they bullied into retracting their story?

Lovely world we live in :(

[bb_bboy]

Here's my favorite quote so far from this (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050517/ap_on_re_us/newsweek_quran) article.

"The report had real consequences," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Monday. "People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged. [my bold]"

We've been pretty image conscious up to this point!

[Ali]

We treat 'em real good (http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/Mag/050523_Issue/050514_AfghanPrisoners_vm.standard.jpg)

How a Fire Broke Out (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7857407/site/newsweek/)

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.

Given all that has been reported about the treatment of detainees—including allegations that a female interrogator pretended to wipe her own menstrual blood on one prisoner—the reports of Qur'an desecration seemed shocking but not incredible. But to Muslims, defacing the Holy Book is especially heinous. "We can understand torturing prisoners, no matter how repulsive," says computer teacher Muhammad Archad, interviewed last week by NEWSWEEK in Peshawar, Pakistan, where one of last week's protests took place. "But insulting the Qur'an is like deliberately torturing all Muslims. This we cannot tolerate."

NEWSWEEK was not the first to report allegations of desecrating the Qur'an. As early as last spring and summer, similar reports from released detainees started surfacing in British and Russian news reports, and in the Arab news agency Al-Jazeera; claims by other released detainees have been covered in other media since then.

After the rioting began last week, the Pentagon attempted to determine the veracity of the NEWSWEEK story. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers told reporters that so far no allegations had been proven. He did appear to cryptically refer to two mentions found in the logs of prison guards in Gitmo: a report that a detainee had used pages of the Qur'an to stop up a crude toilet as a form of protest, and a complaint from a detainee that a prison guard had knocked down a Qur'an hanging in a bag in his cell.

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?"

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. Bader Zaman Bader, a 35-year-old former editor of a fundamentalist English-language magazine in Peshawar, was released from more than two years' lockup in Guantánamo seven months ago. Arrested by Pakistani security as a suspected Qaeda militant in November 2001, he was handed over to the U.S. military and held at a tent at the Kandahar airfield. One day, Bader claims, as the inmates' latrines were being emptied, a U.S. soldier threw in a Qur'an. After the inmates screamed and protested, a U.S. commander apologized. Bader says he still has nightmares about the incident.Of course those fucking sand-niggers are lying. We treat them like royalty, and this is the thanks we get!!!

So, NEWSWEEK is wrong because the Pentagon says it's wrong and that the allegations of Qur'an desecration were in a different report to the one they quoted.

[Whois]

Haha, not so fast, Newsweek got it wrong


Did you bother to read the article? Newsweek says that their info that a MILITARY INVESTIGATION had substantiated the desecration story was incorrect. Other sources CONFIRM that Koran desecration was a normal tactic during interrogation.


While various released detainees have made allegations about Qur'an desecration, the Pentagon has, according to DiRita, found no credible evidence to support them.

SOP - Cover Your Ass

This will come out eventually, but it'll be covered just like all the other stories, on page 14...like the facts surrounding Tillman's death.

BTW - Did the Pentagon ever apologize for lying to Tillman's brother and family?

[ASsman]

Here's my favorite quote so far from this (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050517/ap_on_re_us/newsweek_quran) article.

"The report had real consequences," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Monday. "People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged. [my bold]"

We've been pretty image conscious up to this point!
Gahahahahaha, I'm gonna go get boozed up, on IMPORTED liquor.

[EN[i]GMA]

If Islam were not so fucked up a religion none of this would matter.

Religion sucks.

[Extra Cheese]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the flap was a reminder that people "need to be very careful about what they say."

WMDs anyone

[Ali]

GMA']If Islam were not so fucked up a religion none of this would matter. :eek: WTF :eek:

You're being ironic, right?

Tell me you're being ironic and not saying that Muslims are to blame for all this.

[Funkaloyd]

"This just in: At least 27 people have died in violent protests after upwards of 10,000 atheists took to the streets following revelations that a Christian flushed a copy of Darwin's Origin of Species down a toilet."

[Ali]

"This just in: At least 27 people have died in violent protests after upwards of 10,000 atheists took to the streets following revelations that a Christian flushed a copy of Darwin's Origin of Species down a toilet."HATE BACKLASH outside of CA and AZ
Since Sept. 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack (http://www.aamovement.net/hatecrime/wtc/wtchatelist2.html)

Colorado

Buggie and Pinky Bajwa, Sikh Americans, awoke Thursday morning, 9/13/01, to find the word ``Terrorists'' sprayed in red paint across their family's driveway and ``Terrist on board'' written on their white car. (Source: AP Article, 9/18/01)
Illinois

Chicago

9/12/01, police in Bridgeview, Ill., turned back 300 marchers -- some waving American flags and shouting "USA! USA!" _ as they tried to march on a mosque in the Chicago suburb. Three demonstrators were arrested. There were no injuries and demonstrators were kept blocks from the closed Muslim house of worship. "I'm proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have," said 19-year-old Colin Zaremba who marched with the group from Oak Lawn. (Source: Coffee article, AP, 9/13/01)
In Chicago, a firebomb was tossed 09/12/01 at an Arab-American community center. (Source: Coffee article, AP, 9/13/01)
In nearby Palos Heights, a man who used the blunt end of a machete to attack a Moroccan gas station attendant was charged with a hate crime, police said. The attendant did not seek treatment. (Source: Coffee article, AP, 9/13/01)
Indiana

A man in a ski mask in Gary, Ind., fired an assault rifle at a gas station where a Yemen-born U.S. citizen born was working Wednesday, 9/12/01, the Post Tribune of Merrillville, Ind., reported. Police were investigating it as a hate crime. (Source: Coffee article, AP, 9/13/01)
New Jersey

Vandals attacked two Indian owned businesses in Collingswood, N.J. The vandals sprayed painted "leave town" (9/12/01).
New York

2 Pakistanis killed in Coney Island (Source: CAAAV e-mail, 9/17/01)
In Richmond Hills, NY, Attar Singh Bhatia was severely injured and hospitalized when he was attacked with a baseball bat (9/11/01). (Source IACFPA e-mail, 9/18/01)
In Richmond Hills, NY, two Sikh Americans were attacked with a paint ball gun. The police arrested two men. (9/11/01). (Source IACFPA e-mail, 9/18/01)
In Richmond Hills, NY, a gurdwara was fired upon with rubber bullets. An arrest was made when the individual returned the following morning. (9/11/01) (Source IACFPA e-mail, 9/18/01)
On Sept. 11, Amrik Singh Chawla, a South Asian American (Sikh), was chased by a group of four men yelling "terrorist." They chased him for four blocks. He was unharmed, but is deeply shaken by the entire incident. (Source IACFPA e-mail, 9/17/01)
Meera Kumar, who, on Wednesday, was racially profiled and harassed by police on a Boston-NY train, along with other South Asians and Arabs.?(Source: nmemon e-mail, 9/16/01)
One of the Sikh participants was giving a TV interview outside the restaurant when a man pushing a baby stroller walked by, stopped and started yelling at him, saying, "You Islamic mosquitoes should be killed." It was caught on tape by Rohit Vyas and Pankaj Kumar of TV Asia, who have been running it on the air. Rohit's e-mail: vyas@mindspring.com (Source: nmemon e-mail, 9/16/01)
Human rights commission reports at least 3 attacks (1 Pakistani, 2 Arab) in suffolk county. (Source: CAAAV e-mail, 9/17/01)
Taxi driver pulled out and beaten. (Source: CAAAV e-mail, 9/17/01)
In Huntington, N.Y., a 75-year-old man who was drunk tried to run over a Pakistani woman in the parking lot of a shopping mall, police said. The man then followed the woman into a store and threatened to kill her for "destroying my country," authorities said. (Source: Coffee article, AP, 9/13/01)
In Stony Brook, N.Y., on Sunday night, 9/16, shots were fired at the home of an Indo-American who is a graduate of Stanford University. No injuries were reported. (Source: Mangaliman, SJ Mercury News, 9/18/01)
Ohio
In suburban Cleveland, the Guru Gobind Singh Sikh Temple was attacked with lit bottles of gasoline. At this time, no arrests have been made. (9/12/01) (Source: IACFPA e-mail, 9/18/01; Lewin & Goodstein article, NY Times, 09/18/01)
In Youngstown, Ohio, Tejinder Singh, a Sikh, said someone made rude comments to him as he stood in a parking lot. Someone also set fire to a hedge outside his brother's gas station in Cortland, Ohio, he said. (Kong, AP, imdiversity.com, 09/19/01)
Oklahoma
In Tulsa, Okla., police said a Pakistani native was beaten by three men late Tuesday in a hate crime. The victim was in a fair condition at a hospital Thursday. (Source: Coffee article, AP, 9/13/01)
9/15/01, Tulsa: Kimberly Lowe, a 21 year old full blood Creek, Native American, and several Native friends were followed and harassed by a vehicle of white males. The males threw items at the car and yelled "Go back to your own country!" Kimberly, the driver, stopped the car and got out to confront the males. The attackers drove to hit Kimberly, pin her against another vehicle, then backed up and ran over her again. Lowe was killed; police are investigating, have not deemed it a hate crime yet. (Goldtooth, IEN, e-mail, 9/18/01)
Oregon
On Sunday, 9/16/01, near Eugene, Ore., a 54-year old California woman was arrested for trying to pull the turban off the head of a Sikh man at a highway rest stop. (Source: Lewin & Goodstein article, NY Times, 09/18/01)
Rhode Island

In Ronkonkoma, Long Island, a man was arrested on suspicion of waving a pellet gun and shouting obscenities at a South Asian gas station worker. (9/12/01) (Source: IACFPA e-mail, 9/18/01)
Sher J.B. Singh was pulled from an Amtrak train in Providence, Rhode Island and arrested for possession of a concealed weapon. Mr. Singh was carrying a three-inch kirpan. Unfortunately, national press wrongly claimed that Mr. Singh was one of the terrorists being sought by the FBI (9/12/01). (Source: IACFPA e-mail, 9/18/01)
Texas
Dallas police and the FBI are investigating whether the shooting death of a Pakistani grocer in Pleasant Grove was out of anger at Muslims for Tuesday's terrorist attacks. The killing occurred Saturday night, 9/16/01. 46-year-old Waqar Hasan at Mom's Grocery was shot, but there was no evidence of robbery or a struggle. (Source: Emily Article, The Dallas Morning News, 9/17/01)
Mosques in Carrollton, Denton and Irving were attacked in what authorities believe could have been a reaction to the terrorist attacks. Shots were fired into the Carrollton and Irving (9/12/01) mosques and a firebomb was thrown into the mosque in Denton. (Source: Emily Article, The Dallas Morning News, 9/17/01) Early Thursday, 9/13/01, a Molotov cocktail was thrown against the side of the Islamic Society of Denton, Texas, causing an estimated $2,500 in damage, said Kiersten Dieterle, a spokeswoman for the Dallas suburb. The building was empty and there were no injuries. (Source: Coffee article, AP, 9/13/01)
Washington
Armed man allegedly set fire to a Seattle mosque. (Source: Sacramento Bee, 9/18/01)
Washington, DC

Rippy Singh was stopped by 4 white males in a car who accused him of being a terrorist and said, "we will bomb you" in Washington, DC. (Source: IACFPA e-mail, 9/18/01)
A South Asian American (Sikh), was exiting work this afternoon. As he was leaving he was accosted by pedestrians on the street who began to yell verbal expletives at him, and threatened to "get" him and bomb him in retaliation for the terrorist acts earlier in the day. Although he was able to escape the crowd, he too was deeply upset by the incident. (Source: IACFPA e-mail, 9/17/01)
Others:

Tamara Alfson, an American working at the Kuwait Embassy in Washington, spent Wednesday counseling frightened Kuwaiti students attending schools across the United States. "Some of them have already been harassed. People have been quite awful to them," said Alfson, an academic adviser to about 150 students. (Source: Coffee article, AP, 9/13/01)

More (http://www.aamovement.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=5)

Desecrating the Qur'an is as big a deal to Moslems as blowing up the twin towers is to Americans, even if no people are killed (only tortured).

Being a WASP, you wouldn't understand that, but that doesn't give you the right to judge the reactions of people who hold the Qur'an sacred.

[Funkaloyd]

So I don't have the right to judge the reactions of the retards who took their anger over 9/11 out on Indian and Arab-Americans?


...And btw, there are like 4 New Zealanders who can be considered WASPs, and I'm not one of them.

[Ali]

So I don't have the right to judge the reactions of the retards who took their anger over 9/11 out on Indian and Arab-Americans?
No, you don't.

You're not in their position.

[Funkaloyd]

Damn, that's not very fun. Do I have the right to judge anyone's opinions or actions?

[Ali]

Damn, that's not very fun. Do I have the right to judge anyone's opinions or actions?You can have an opinion.

And if your opinion is that Muslims are overreacting to reports that their Holy Book is being desecrated in American Prisons, in order to torture Muslim prisoners, then you know precious little about Islam and your opinion is that of an uninformed bigot.

IMHO.

[Funkaloyd]

I'm sure that by killing people in riots they're reacting just as any good Muslim should, but my point is that they shouldn't be Muslims anyway. Or they could at least have chosen to be good human beings over being good Muslims.

[Ali]

I'm sure that by killing people in riots they're reacting just as any good Muslim should, but my point is that they shouldn't be Muslims anyway. Or they could at least have chosen to be good human beings over being good Muslims.
You very obviously know sweet fuck all about Islam and about what being a good Muslim really is. You've been brainwashed into believing that political unrest in Islamic countries is directly attributable to the nature of Islam. Those riots were to do with a lot more than Qur'an desecration. Opponents of the Karzai government, including remnants of the deposed Taliban regime, have been looking for ways to exploit public discontent. The Afghan economy is weak, and the government (pressed by the United States) has alienated farmers by trying to eradicate their poppy crops, used to make heroin in the global drug trade. Afghan men are sometimes rounded up during ongoing U.S. military operations, and innocents can sit in jail for months. When they are released, many complain of abuse. President Karzai is still largely respected, but many Afghans regard him as too dependent on and too obsequious to the United States. With Karzai scheduled to come to Washington next week, this is a good time for his enemies to make trouble. Desecration of the most holy of books was the last straw, blowing the lid off the cauldron of anger which has been boiling since the Crusades, not just in Afghanistan, but all over the world.

"Good Muslims", I ask you! You sound like a piece of illiterate, gun-totin' Florida Trailertrash. I used to think quite a lot of Kiwis, until I had the misfortune of getting into a discussion with you.

Tell me you're trying to wind me up and do not seriously believe that killing people in a riot is what is expected of a "good Muslim".

Read this first (http://www.understanding-islam.com/related/text.asp?type=article&aid=172&sscatid=44). As an Atheist, you should be fully aware of all religions before you can dismiss them without prejudice. Sadly, it seems that you have made up your mind based on what you see on TV and read in the papers.

[Funkaloyd]

You mean there isn't a passage in the Qur'an which says that "If any soul places these words in an area of excretion, form a mob and kill immediatly"? But surely my TV wouldn't lie to me?!

You're the one who said that if I knew anything about Islam I wouldn't consider these riots an overreaction.

[Ali]

You mean there isn't a passage in the Qur'an which says that "If any soul places these words in an area of excretion, form a mob and kill immediatly"? But surely my TV wouldn't lie to me?!

You're the one who said that if I knew anything about Islam I wouldn't consider these riots an overreaction. You really shouldn't go online when you've been drinking, you know? You're not making any sense at all.

Go to bed.

[Jasonik]

The Real Lesson of Newsweekgate
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 18, 2005 (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18108)

When in April EBay offered a consecrated host for sale, imagine if Catholics had rioted and seventeen people were killed.

The media would have been full of stories about the dark side of the “Christian Right.”

Imagine if, when Muslims desecrated the Tomb of Joseph in Nablus in 2000, destroying it with hammers, rampaging Jewish mobs had killed dozens of Palestinians.

The establishment media response would again have inundated us with stories about the heroic Palestinians and their Israeli oppressors.

Neither of those things really happened. But seventeen people have been killed and hundreds wounded in riots by Muslims since Newsweek published its story about an American interrogator flushing a Qur’an down the toilet at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

And yet the media establishment seems preoccupied only with the fact that Newsweek, in publishing a false story that it has since retracted, has done a very bad thing. And that the Bush Administration must do something to calm tempers and soothe feelings in the Islamic world.

There is no excusing Newsweek’s irresponsibility in this. But this is not really a story about media bias or carelessness at all. There is a much larger story that is getting hardly any attention at all. The gorilla in the living room that no one wants to notice, is that flushing a Qur’an down the toilet should not be grounds to commit murder.

This aspect of the story is being ignored by spokesmen on both the Left and the Right. After the initial reports of rioting, Juan Cole sputtered, “Whatever goddam military genius came up with the bright idea of flushing the Koran down the toilet at Guantanamo should be court-martialed, and Bush had better get out there apologizing before this thing spirals further out of control.” On the other side of the political spectrum, Paul Marshall wrung his hands in National Review: “Even if Newsweek publishes a full retraction, the damage is done. Much of the Muslim world will regard it merely as a cover-up and feel reconfirmed in the view that America is at war with Islam.”

Neither Cole nor Marshall, however, made any moral judgment about the rioters. Marshall was furious with Newsweek: “It would be charitable to think that if Newsweek had known how explosive the story was it may have held off until it had more confirmation. If this is true, it is an indication that the media’s widespread failure to pay careful attention to the complexities of religion not only misleads us about domestic and international affairs but also gets people killed.” Cole, for his part, directed his anger at the Bush Administration: “As a professional historian, I would say we still do not have enough to be sure that the Koran desecration incident took place. We have enough to consider it plausible. Anyway, the important thing politically is that some Muslims have found it plausible, and their outrage cannot be effectively dealt with by simple denial. That is why I say that Bush should just come out and say we can’t be sure that it happened, but if it did it was an excess, and he apologizes if it did happen, and will make sure it doesn’t happen again (if it did).”

Neither one says anything whatsoever about a culture that condones — celebrates —wanton murder of innocent people, mayhem, and destruction in response to the alleged and unproven destruction of a book.

The question here is one of proportionate response. If a Qur’an had indeed been flushed, Muslims would have justifiably been offended. They may justifiably have considered the perpetrators boors, or barbarians, or hell-bound unbelievers. They may justifiably have issued denunciations accordingly. But that is all. To kill people thousands of miles away who had nothing to do with the act, and to fulminate with threats and murder against the entire Western world, all because of this alleged act, is not just disproportionate. It is not just excessive. It is mad. And every decent person in the world ought to have the courage to stand up and say that it is mad.

I suspect that even Juan Cole and Paul Marshall, somewhere in the back of their minds, know that it is mad too. But why don’t they say so? Because Rule #1 in the establishment (Left and Right) view of this present conflict is that it has nothing to do with Islam. To bring a moral judgment to bear upon Muslim people, or to explore the ways in which Islam fuels the conflict, is therefore absolutely forbidden.

This kind of analysis, dominant as it is in the media, does the Western world an enormous disservice. The reaction to the Newsweek story in the Muslim world only shows how critical it is that the elements of Islam that give rise to fanaticism and violence be examined and confronted. Lives are at stake. But Cole and Marshall, and many others like them on both the Left and the Right, can’t see this necessity through the enveloping fog of political correctness.

[Funkaloyd]

You're an ignorant bigot, Jasonik. If you knew what you were talking about, you'd cosider it a perfectly acceptable and proportional response.

[Jasonik]

Wait, let me get this right; Islam is not a beautiful religion of peace?

[Ali]

Nice site. (http://www.frontpagemag.com/index.asp) you quote from.

Can you buy hoods and KKKrosses as well as KKKonservative T-Shirts (http://www.frontpagemag.com/transfer.asp?id=47&dest=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ethoseshirts%2Ecom) there?

[Jasonik]

Har-de-har-har :rolleyes:

Next time I'll try to find a critique of politically correct group-think on a site that doesn't affront your sensitivities. Try this (http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson052005.html).

[D_Raay]

Well, he was quite right Jasonik. Did you peruse that site before giving us that article? It was once again displacing the blame. If no one had desecrated (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050516/323/fixbz.html) it in the first place, there would be no "murder" now would there?

[bb_bboy]

It was once again displacing the blame.

It seems to me like displacing the blame happens when you say that the act of desecrating the book caused someone to die. I'm not trying to be an ass here, but I want to try and diagram what I am thinking:

You POV
Cause: Holy book is desecrated.
Effect: 15 people die.
Blame for the effect does not fall upon the cause.

My POV
Cause: Holy book is desecrated.
Effect: Sacred article is destroyed.
Blame for the effect falls upon the cause.

Cause: Sacred article is destroyed.
Effect: Protestors start violent riots.
Blame for the effect falls upon the cause.

Cause: Protestors start violent riots.
Effect. 15 people die.
Blame for the effect falls upon the cause.

I think that displacing the blame involves blaming the effect on the worng cause, not vice versa. People did not have to die because the book was desecrated - other people choose to make this chain of events what it eventually was.

[yeahwho]

Har-de-har-har :rolleyes:

Next time I'll try to find a critique of politically correct group-think on a site that doesn't affront your sensitivities. Try this (http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson052005.html).

This guy, "Victor Hanson", has it all figured out. I never knew you were so easily led by the right wing justifications for Energy Theft. He writes,

That really is what this war is about: a last-ditch effort by primordial fascists to prevent the liberalization of the Muslim world and the union of Islamic society with the protocols found in the rest of the globe and which many in the Middle East prefer if given a chance.

then he goes on with this,

Abroad, we battle Islamic fascists who hate us for our success and want to kill us with the tools of the modern world they despise. But at home, we are also at odds with our own privileged guilt-ridden aristocracy, whose very munificence has made them misunderstand why they are hated.

such a moronic dilemma he has wrought upon his minions. :rolleyes:

Sounds like a "Laptops for Oil" pipe "fucking" dream to me. C'mon, take a look around, why are we ignoring Darfur (http://www.genocidewatch.org/sudanday113ofthepresidentssilence3may05.htm)? Are they not worthy of "protocols" found in the rest of the globe?

How about the Aids crisis? North Korea? How about the complete gutting of that pesky middle class in the USA? This administration is Profit taking bud. It's called Global Profiteering. This isn't about some "Noble Liberation" of the middle east. It is sad how seemingly intelligent people let a writer like Victor Davis Hanson (http://www.rightwingnews.com/quotes/hanson2.php) decide how to justify their continued self delusion. My dreams of a fair and just America are being shattered by assholes in the media such as he. Vic is a sadsack indeed.

[D_Raay]

It seems to me like displacing the blame happens when you say that the act of desecrating the book caused someone to die. I'm not trying to be an ass here, but I want to try and diagram what I am thinking:

You POV
Cause: Holy book is desecrated.
Effect: 15 people die.
Blame for the effect does not fall upon the cause.

My POV
Cause: Holy book is desecrated.
Effect: Sacred article is destroyed.
Blame for the effect falls upon the cause.

Cause: Sacred article is destroyed.
Effect: Protestors start violent riots.
Blame for the effect falls upon the cause.

Cause: Protestors start violent riots.
Effect. 15 people die.
Blame for the effect falls upon the cause.

I think that displacing the blame involves blaming the effect on the worng cause, not vice versa. People did not have to die because the book was desecrated - other people choose to make this chain of events what it eventually was.

Yes, but what context are we in here? The allegations are of desecrating the Koran in a prison as a means to humiliate or torture Muslim prisoners, one of which was thought to be innocent before being imprisoned. This very chain of events lead to the subsequent deaths. And it isn't the first tale of such desecrations either. This was certainly brought on by the "cause".

At a time when we are fighting an unjust war, we are also engaging in activity that, if flipped around, would call for a swift and massive bombing. We can't keep walking around with our noses in the air to the world while wielding a double bladed sword that is our shared ignorance and apathy...

[yeahwho]

Although we now have proof that the Iraq war was planned well in advance and based on blatant lies, and although thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians became "collateral damage" and although the United States is now hated by countless more people in the world, the amazing Bush propaganda machine finds a way to put all of the focus and blame on the media.

Impeach Newsweek!

What else can we do?

[D_Raay]

Sadly, few American fundamentalist Christians realize that Islam recognizes that Jesus was not a heretic, but brought a message from God to mankind and that he gave people a path to God and to Heaven.
Islam also recognizes his virgin birth and reveres his mother, Mary and his father, Joseph, and the Bible he brought from his Father, God. Muslims also believe that Jesus is in Heaven, taken their by God, and sits next to God in Heaven. All of this is in the Qur’an.

Thus, when the thugs who now are dishonoring our nation, dishonoring Christianity and dishonoring Islam, dishonor and desecrate the Qur’an, they are also desecrating their own Christian religion by behaving like the devil, not like children or believers in God or in the words and deeds of Christ. These thugs in uniform should be jailed and dishonorably discharged, as should their senior leaders be barred from office, and kicked out of the Department of Defense, starting with the most ignorant of them, Donald Rumsfeld.

Clearly, the Qur’an has been desecrated and clearly Muslims prisoners have been abused in countless, humiliating ways. Thus, it is Bush and Rumsfeld who should have apologized, not Newsweek Magazine. But, as politics and threats go, there has never been a president who threatened civil rights and the rights of free speech and truth like GW Bush and his henchmen. I call them henchmen because that is what they are—they are not “public servants,” but expect the public to serve them and think the U.S. Treasury is their private bank account to do with as they want.

The fact that over 98% of the Muslim world now distrusts and dislikes America makes clear that Bush cannot buy Muslim respect, and no matter his rhetoric of “we came to help,” and “we came to spread democracy,” all the while he is tearing away the fabric of society in Iraqi, Afghanistan, threatening Syria, is not pushing Israel to stop abusing the Palestinians, and has plans for more bases in Muslim lands.

[bb_bboy]

And it isn't the first tale of such desecrations either. This was certainly brought on by the "cause".

Here you are starting to veer towards my point of view without knowing it. I agree it is not the first instance of such desecrations, and through that it is not the only contributor to the feeling of contempt that the Muslim world may have for the US occupation. A series of such events has helped to add fuel to the overall feeling of resentment. But that still leaves the communities affected with a choice as to what their reactions will be. If the killings that occurred in what can be described as an isolated instance were simply inevitable, then they would have happened on a global scale. However, the particular group (micro) involved in this uprising was insulated from the rest of the Muslim world (macro) in its decision to show their distaste by means of violent protest. There were plenty of other groups (e.g. those gathered at the US embassy in London) that chose to express their dissatisfaction through non-violent means. Because of this, we can see that there were alternative reactions to the desecration.

... we are also engaging in activity that, if flipped around, would call for a swift and massive bombing.

Here is where we still have divergent opinions, I think. Even if the shoe were on the other foot, I would disagree with the "call for swift and massive bombings." I disagree with either side committing these kinds of initial atrocities and I disagree with the other side retaliating in these kinds of violent and destructive demonstrations. This is true for both parties (if I may generalize here) involved.

[D_Raay]

I am with you. I disagree as well. I am merely voicing an educated guess on what would happen if the shoe were on the other foot.

[Ali]

I wonder when all those papers which reported on the Afghan prison deaths are going to retract their stories? (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=afghan+torture&btnG=Search+News)