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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Muslims doubt Quran climbdown |
| 2005-05-16 |
| Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan were skeptical after a U.S. magazine backed away from a report that U.S. interrogators desecrated copies of the Quran while questioning prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The account in Newsweek magazine's May 9 issue has been blamed for sparking deadly riots in Afghanistan and other parts of the Muslim world. On Sunday, Newsweek backed away from the report and offered its sympathies "to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst." But Muslims said they suspected that pressure from Washington was behind the magazine's climbdown, Reuters reported Monday. "We will not be deceived by this," Islamic cleric Mullah Sadullah Abu Aman told Reuters in the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan. "This is a decision by America to save itself. It comes because of American pressure. Even an ordinary illiterate peasant understands this and won't accept it." On Sunday, a group of clerics led by Aman vowed to call for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States in three days unless it handed over the interrogators reported to have desecrated the Quran. He said the call for a holy war still stood. In the May 9 story, Newsweek cited sources as saying investigators looking into abuses at the military prison found interrogators "had placed Qurans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet." CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen said "desecrating the Quran is a death-penalty offense" in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. The Pentagon said last week it was unable to corroborate any case in which interrogators at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, defiled the Muslim holy book, as Newsweek reported. At least 15 people were killed and dozens injured last week when thousands of demonstrators marched in Afghanistan and other parts of the Muslim world, officials and eyewitnesses said. "Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we," Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the magazine's May 23 issue, out Sunday. "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." Some Afghans, however, were unconvinced. "It's not acceptable now that the magazine says it's made a mistake," Reuters quoted 42-year-old writer and journalist Hafizullah Torab as saying. "No one will accept it." Sayed Elyas Sedaqat, who heads a cultural group in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, where the protests began last Tuesday, said: "Possibly, the American government put pressure on the magazine to issue the retraction to avoid the anger of Muslims." In neighboring Pakistan, a religious party said it was going ahead with a call for protests on May 27. "Newsweek is backtracking, but it's not just their report," said Ghaffar Aziz, a top official of the Jamaat-e-Islami party. "All innocent people released from U.S. custody have said on the record that there was desecration of the Koran." A spokesman for the Taliban, who denied any involvement in last week's Afghan protests, said the original report was true. "Newsweek is changing its story because of pressure from the U.S. government," Abdul Latif Hakimi told Reuters by telephone. In Kabul, the U.S. military said it must reach out to the people of Afghanistan in the aftermath of last week's deadly demonstrations. "We want to redouble our efforts to communicate with the Afghan people," said Col. Gary Cheek with the U.S. Army in Kabul. "We want to ensure there is trust and confidence in the U.S." Despite Newsweek's partial retraction, 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. forces 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," according to Cheek. "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." |
| Posted by:ed |
| #14 I'm there. Will the crowd go wild if I suggest that cleaning out America should come first? Will Moose have a heart attack if I suggest a stronger version of the Patriot Act which actually allows us to begin that process, starting with every Muzzy "charity", "institute", "center", "school", etc? Sadly, it won't happen. The fools are still playing PC with this - even given the fact that we've been repeatedly attacked wherever they could get to us. If knocking down the WTC Towers isn't enough to light a fire under most people, then most people are just too stupid to live. We've been "at war" with Islam since '73. Still, here we sit, pretending that it's not true and a little more understanding will make things better. Uh, huh, right. The memo seems to have been swept under the carpet. Nothing will happen until we are hit big, again. Then the shit A Day School for invalid children, no make that orphaned invalid children, on an Indian reservation, perhaps. Is that un-PC enough? We'll see. Meanwhile, there are plenty of Neros fiddling away. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-05-16 22:33 |
| #13 On Sunday, a group of clerics led by Aman vowed to call for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States in three days unless it handed over the interrogators reported to have desecrated the Quran. He said the call for a holy war still stood." You know, this might be a good idea. Let's get it over with. It's bound to happen sooner or later, so let's make it sooner. Jihad away, fellas. Let's get it out in the open and settle it now. Better me fighting those crazy bastards then my kids having to do it a decade or two down the road when there's twice as many of them as there are today. I had my fill of their juvenile threats, taunts and boasts a long time ago, and I'd appreciate it if this thing went down while I can still sign up. |
| Posted by: docob 2005-05-16 22:09 |
| #12 In that part of the world they are so accustomed to being lied to, that is the default position. And of course, in this case they (and we) were indeed lied to -- by Newsweek. So they can't really be blamed for not believing the "correction," especially given how truly weak the correction is. The real concern, though, is the damage done to the image of America and Americans in that part of the world, where our actions were finally offsetting decades of negative propaganda. I think a case can be made for manslaughter charges against the reporters and the editor who let the article go to print. Even if the prosecution doesn't win, the press will discover that there are consequences for their actions. Ideally, the Karzai government would bring the charges, as it was Afghan citizens who were killed in the riots -- very much a piece with crying "fire" in a theater -- and the entire process would be salutorily painful for Newsweek and the entire world press corps. Freedom of the Press should not mean licence to trigger destruction by deliberately printing falsehoods, or even by conducting so considerably less than due diligence before going to print. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-05-16 21:53 |
| #11 I have a response: "who cares what the fuck you ignorant bastards thinks? Get back to democratizing!" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-05-16 19:37 |
| #10 "On Sunday, a group of clerics led by Aman vowed to call for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States in three days unless it handed over the interrogators reported to have desecrated the Quran." Oh no! Not another Jihad! That makes 4351 Jihads since last year. Hard to keep up. I want each and every one of you to look deep into your inner maspaja and ask yourself, have I jihadied 30 percentum? Do I have all my limbs? Do I have notches upon my bootheel signifying my faith? If you can't meet your inner Jihad allan requires you to take your turban off and pull out those and dust off thoseKrugerrands right damn now. The muzzam will now drone while you leave screeching. |
| Posted by: Abu Ike 2005-05-16 19:21 |
| #9 Muslims doubt Quran climbdown "We want to believe" I caught a story the other day wherein people were suspecting the presence of professional agitators within their protest ranks. Anyone else catch that? I believe it was from out of Afghanistan. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2005-05-16 17:04 |
| #8 "On Sunday, a group of clerics led by Aman vowed to call for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States in three days unless it handed over the interrogators reported to have desecrated the Quran." Oh no! Not another Jihad! That makes 4351 Jihads since last year. Hard to keep up. |
| Posted by: Angitle Fleth2925 2005-05-16 13:28 |
| #7 Newsweek is doing what Newsweek does - sell anti-Americanism to millions of subscribers. The real culprit isn't Newsweek but the Muslim holy warriors who think that it is their divine duty to kill over the alleged desecration of the Koran during a military interrogation. Muslim governments actually spoke out in favor of having the alleged culprits handed over for (capital) punishment. And these guys claim to be moderate. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-05-16 12:43 |
| #6 No need to find out what they'd do with a Bible: OldSpook, in another comment, pointed out how the occupiers of the Church of the NAtivity in Bethlehelm treated the scriptures there. And we know what they've done to Torahs. Newsweek backtracked when the Pentagon denied the story. The vast majority of questionable military incidents are uncovered by internal pentagon investigations, and their moral backing comes from the fact that Western Man, and Christianity, are naturally self-critical and put a high value on veracity and truth. Unable to uncover crimes on their own, the MSM parasitically exploits these virtues to dig up their stories. These are then presented to a populace sharing the same virtues of brutal self-criticism and honesty. The strength of the story derives, in part and when confronted, not on MSM dilligence, but on the integrity of our Military. The moment KNOWLEDGEABLE military officials denied the story, Newsweek knew it was in trouble. In typical fashion, it started backtracking while throwing mud to cover its obvious retreat. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2005-05-16 11:50 |
| #5 the irony is this: give 'em a Bible or a Torah, and see how they'd treat it. |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2005-05-16 11:13 |
| #4 "All innocent people released." Smell the Jihad speak aided and abetted by Newweak. I really thing we should hand these 3 over to the Waki Paki and tell them these are the defilers of the holey korhan. It would serve them all right. Afganistan is going to slide back into a shithole and more U.S. servicemen are going to die from the acts of these trators at Newsweek. SO hand them over to the Waki Pakis. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet 0’ Doom 2005-05-16 10:10 |
| #3 Do we really believe that these idiots needed an obscure reference in a US news mag to incite a religious riot and kill people? It was nothing more than a convienent excuse for some iman to whip up his flock and divert their attention from Islam's delusional view of society and the world. Newsweak is dishonorable and complicit in the anti-Americanism but whats news here. The MSM all have one thing in common - benefit of the doubt will always be on the side that the American government isn't on. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2005-05-16 10:08 |
| #2 "It's not acceptable now that the magazine says it's made a mistake" Not even if it DID make a mistake. We're on a jihad and we're not backing down. We've lost 15 people on a rumor that a holy dead tree product was flushed down a toilet half way around the world and, by Alan, we want lots more bloodshed. |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-05-16 10:02 |
| #1 "It's not acceptable now that the magazine says it's made a mistake," Reuters quoted 42-year-old writer and journalist Hafizullah Torab as saying. Of course not. That would mean that all that silly-assed rioting was a mistake. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-05-16 09:57 |