At least nobody died because of Rathergate.

Newsweek's story that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba flushed a Koran down a toilet and employed other means to desecrate the Muslim holy book ignited riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan. At least 17 people have been killed. The inflammatory article was groundless.

Amazingly, no source confirmed the rumors that Newsweek reported as fact. This morning, Don Imus asked Newsweek's Howard Fineman, "He [a Pentagon official] didn't confirm it or didn't deny it or anything, right?" Fineman responded: "Well, he didn't deny it." At this point, a befuddled Imus retorted: "He didn't confirm it either." "Well you know, there [are] all kinds of ways this works," responded Fineman. What ways might those be, ESP? Newsweek's anonymous source provided a "no comment," which Newsweek interpreted as confirmation of the rumors.

Having learned nothing from Rathergate, Newsweek has retreated into Dan Rather's bunker. Conceding that the offending piece got the facts wrong, Newsweek's editor Mark Whittaker proclaims: "We're not retracting anything." Is this "fake, but accurate" all over again?

Even if this were true, which it wasn’t, anything as incendiary in nature as this shouldn’t have been reported. The fact that is was reported in the first place and then retracted as untrue has to be one of most irresponsible events in modern day journalism yet!!!

Just shows how dangerous the agenda driven leftist, Bush-hating media is and in how little regard they hold our domestic security and the safety of our military around the world!!!

Excuse me, but how many Muslims and/or Arabs are killed by mobs in this country, whipped up by flagrantly untrue news items that appear in their media?

I would say a big “zero” to that.

But if American crowds were to get whipped into a violent frenzy against Muslims and/or Arabs, there would be ample examples of reasons to do so.

Just doesn’t happen Jeremiah.

You see, Americans do things like put underwear on POW’s heads, we don’t cut those heads off.

That's the diff.

This sort of thing really annoys me. These irresponsible idiots have gotten 17 people killed and they don't have to answer for it. 17 people died as a direct result of this completely bogus story that had no basis in reality.

Is it just me or does this look like a case of Criminally Negligent Homicide or some such ? They did not intend to start the riot that killed people but the criminal negligence involved did result in 17 deaths. The editor who let the false story through and those responsible should face criminal charges for this sort of thing.

That is just my 2c

Jason

Excuse me, but how many Muslims and/or Arabs are killed by mobs in this country, whipped up by flagrantly untrue news items that appear in their media?
Posted by Jeremiah at May 16, 2005 04:12 PM

0 would be the answer to your inquiry.

Oh, boy, misunderstanding. I intended that rhetorically.

"Even if this were true, which it wasn’t, anything as incendiary in nature as this shouldn’t have been reported"

that's nice. so no one should have published anything about prisoners being tortured in Iraq? it was true, but definitely incendiary as well.

That would be correct kel, the “torturing” of illegal combatants in Iraq to obtain vital information should not have been reported.

Horrible things like making them stand on boxes whilst holding their arms out, being stripped naked, having underwear put on their heads and other unbelievably scary and nasty stuff that was done to “OUR ENEMIES” should not have been used by our U.S. hating press.

What is wrong with you people?!

you seem to have accidentally left out sexual assault and beatings that have left prisoners dead among the types of torture that were practiced.

kei,
I didn't see the indignation regarding reporting on torture because it was newsworthy. True or no, being a big old meanie to the Koran is simply not newsworthy. Where is the freaking crime in that? It is incendiary, quite possibly untrue, and of no value. What would be the responsible reasoning in reporting it?

"True or no, being a big old meanie to the Koran is simply not newsworthy. Where is the freaking crime in that?"

That's exactly what I thought when I first heard about it. When Bibles are desecrated, I don't see Christians and Jews murdering people. We're talking about books. They may be Holy -- but they're books. These people are simply nuts, and I'm worried about their prospects with regards to dealing with modernity.

Kel

The difference between us and the Islamic Extremists is when our people engage in acts of torutre and other dispicable acts we are outraged. The incidents are investigated and the perpetrators are punished. In the world of the Islamic Extremists, those who commit torture are not only not punished but they are glorified.

To obtain the information we need to save American lives, I would advocate the use of whatever form of coercion necessary to do that and achieve our goal. To point, reporting of any of those tactics at whatever level should not be condoned or allowed.

People haven’t yet learned that you can’t have it all ways. There are difficult choices that have to be made to protect us and insure our survival.

It’s really easy to sit comfortably in your living room watching the news or reading the newspaper or electronically conversing on your computer pontificating about what’s right and wrong when the guns aren’t pointed at you.

Fools like kel don't realize that the guns are pointed at them. They're just out of range for the moment.

hahaha. the gun wasn't pointed at me until the biggest lies of them all got the U.S. into an unjustifiable war which has created thousands more terrorists with much more hatred of America

This is what the Left has descended to, lying about lies. Since Arab/Islamic terrorism predates the invasion of Iraq by decades (some would argue centuries), denial of being in the crosshairs only accentuates the Left's self-destructive foolishness.

As for the creation of America-hating terrorists, I suggest that it created no such thing, only a more honest and open airing of existing hatred.

Don’t think you’re getting it kel. The gun has always been pointed at you. As long as you’re still part of the Great Satan, you will be at risk.

There are plenty of U.S. haters to go around (externally and internally) and we need to insure our security and safety by any means possible.

But you definately sound like a "America bad, World good" kind of person.

The biggest mistake the Army did over there in Iraq was take pictures of Abu Garib. DUH...you dont take pictures when you do stuff like that. every "smart" soldier knows that.

We need another crusade to wipe the muslim extremists off the face of the earth!

don't think you're gettting it, asdf. i understand the history of hatred. i have heard of the crusades.

i'm talking about a recent war started on false pretenses. not questionable intelligence, false pretenses. what do you think is worse in the eyes of foreigners, a story in a magazine alleging koran abuse (something that has been alleged for over two years), or an internal memo from the government of our main ally saying that we were fixing intelligence reports so that our cause for war might be justified?

Kel

There was no effort to fix intellegence reports. In fact, quite the opposite. As Senator John McCain stated, we relied a great deal on the intellegence reports of foreign countries in forming our assessments. George W. Bush and Tony Blair have both been exonerated of trying to fix intellegence reports. David Kay, Charles Duelfer, John McCain, Tony Blair, and Austailian Prime Minister John Howard all have agreed that the United States and its allies were justified in removing Saddam Huessein from power. None of these men are Bush hacks. Regarding the WMD, that you say are "false pretenses," I'm not so sure they are not hidden somewhere, perhaps in Syria or maybe in the "Sunni Triangle" of Iraq. Charles Duelfer and his team were never able to determine exactly what was transferred to Syria prior to the start of the war.

While there clearly have been errors in the gathering and the ana-lysis of intellegence, the notion that the war was engaged in under "false pretenses" is not supportable.

Having said all of this we will need to improve our human intellegence. Accusing the Bush administration of engaging in "false pretenses" is counter-productive.

Looks like some people need to be set straight about the crusades.

The first crusade was launched in response to the killing of christian pilgrims going to the holy land. They land that was reconquered in the crusades was all christian lands several centuries earlier until the Muslims conquered them all.

So please don't make out it was an unprovoked attack by christendom against a bunch of peace loving hippie muslims just hang out.

Jason

Shame on you Jason. Now you're using facts. This will only work to confuse posters like kel who apparently have a collected guilt complex.

Only kel knows the real story of how those nasty and blood thirsty Christians got this whole thing started when they attacked the docile, peace loving Muslims.

So, America being a country made up predominantly of Christians and with a system based on Christian values, naturally has to be wrong.

America bad, World good.