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Banned
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If You Read This, It May Increase Your Complicity and Culpability.
Just another reminder, if your political sympathies are aligned with the GOP and the current administration in the White House, that you are supporting an unprecedented co-ordinated campaign to intimidate, control, or silence the media and the poltical opposition:
The White House has launched a disinformation campaign to intimidate Newsweek into retracting a previously verified and well documented report of prisoner abuse, specifically that U.S. prison guarda at Gitmo and in Iraq and Afghanistan desecrated the muslim koran by "flushing it down the toilet'"
Is the bigger problem at Newsweek, or at the White House?
The "spin":
Quote:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=765093
May 17, 2005 — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House called on Newsweek magazine on Tuesday to help repair damage to the U.S. image in the Muslim world by its false report that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo...
Bay desecrated the Koran.
"We appreciate the step that Newsweek took yesterday," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "It was a good first step. And what we would like to see now is for Newsweek to work to help repair the damage that has been done, particularly in the region, and Newsweek certainly has the ability to help undo what damage can be undone."
While offering few specifics, McClellan said Newsweek should explain "what happened and why they got it wrong, particularly to people in the region."
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The background to refute the White House attempt to shift it's own responsibility for the repercussions of it's own policy of abuse, onto Newsweek: (The "toilet story" is reported for a year from multiple sources)
Quote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3533804.stm
Wednesday, 4 August, 2004, 22:22 GMT 23:22 UK
Britons allege Guantanamo abuse
......................
* guards threw prisoners' Korans into toilets and tried to force them to give up their religion
The men allege that when a new camp commander, Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, took charge, new practices began, including the shaving of beards, playing loud music, shackling detainees in squatting positions and locking them naked in cells.
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Quote:
http://hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/gitmo1004/3.htm
Guantanamo: Detainee Accounts
The following is a compilation by Human Rights Watch of accounts by thirty-three former detainees at Guantanamo of their experiences there. Human Rights Watch interviewed sixteen of the detainees, reviewed press reports containing statements by former detainees interviewed by journalists, and used as well statements published by the detainees themselves.
October 26, 2004
.....Detainees also complained about the interference with their ability to pray and the lack of respect given to their religion. For example, the British detainees state that they were never given prayer mats and initially were not provided Korans. They also complained that when the Korans were provided, the guards “would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet and generally disrespect it.”27
[27] Statement of Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed, “Detention in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay,” released publicly on August 4, 2004, para. 72, 74, available online at: http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/doc...AL23july04.pdf, accessed on August 19, 2004. The disrespect of the Koran by guards at Camp X-Ray was one of the factors prompting a hunger strike. Ibid., para. 111-117.
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Quote:
The Miami Herald March 9, 2005
Yet recently declassified court documents allege that, as far back as 2002, some of Guantanamo's staff cursed Allah, threw Korans into toilets
Three Kuwaiti captives -- Fawzi al Odah, 27, Fouad al Rabiah, 45, and Khalid al Mutairi, 29 -- separately complained to their lawyer that military police threw their Korans into the toilet, according to the notes of Kristine Huskey, a Washington attorney.
The Miami Herald March 6, 2005
Captives at the Guantanamo Bay prison are alleging that guards kicked and stomped on Korans and cursed Allah, and that interrogators punished them by taking away their pants, knowing that would prevent them from praying.
Philadelphia Inquirer January 20, 2005
Some detainees complained of religious humiliation, saying guards had defaced their copies of the Koran and, in one case, had thrown it in a toilet, said Kristine
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<a href="http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050516-091558-8106r.htm">Harry Reid, below the belt</a>
<a href="http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/tsowell/2005/ts_05171.shtml">The Senate's 'Dirty Harry'</a>
<a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=harry+reid+saad+fbi&btnG=Search+News">Click Here for the rest of the links to the Harry Reid smear stories....</a>
<h3>Republicans and their lap dog media supporters launched a smear campaign against Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid:</h3>
Charles Hunt "broke" the "story" on friday,may 13, by reporting:
Quote:
http://washingtontimes.com/national/...5326-7077r.htm
GOP decries 'stunt' by Reid
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Republicans charged yesterday that Minority Leader Harry Reid was wrong to mention on the Senate floor "a problem" he said is in a Bush nominee's "confidential report from the FBI" as grounds for keeping him off the federal bench..................
.........Republicans said it was irrelevant that the file had previously come up, saying Mr. Reid went further and characterized the contents as being bad enough to keep Judge Saad off the bench. Especially odious to Republicans is that Judge Saad -- since he's still under consideration for the federal bench -- is unable to respond to the attack..........
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The problem is the irony that Charles Hunt, himself, reported the very same information about Judge Saad and the implications of the contents of his FBI file nearly a year ago, on June 3, 2004.
Quote:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/natio...2813-1241r.htm
The 6th Circuit squabble goes back to 1992, when Judge Saad was first nominated to the federal bench by Mr. Bush's father and blocked by committee Democrats.
Although yesterday marked the 20th time Judge Saad's nomination has been postponed in committee, it was significant because Republicans thought that Mr. Hatch had been serious this time when he promised to move the nominee out of committee.
"My goal in moving this nominee through the Committee today is to see if we can help set the stage for a compromise on the 6th Circuit seats," Mr. Hatch said at the start of the meeting yesterday.
<b>From the moment Mr. Hatch began the meeting, he struggled to get the quorum required to vote on a nominee. As soon as a quorum gathered, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, requested a private meeting to discuss accusations stemming from Judge Saad's FBI background check.
Though several Republicans noted privately that the routine check had been completed more than six months ago and that no questions had arisen, Mr. Hatch acquiesced and removed the public and reporters to hold a meeting. During that meeting, Judge Saad's hopes of getting out of committee faded.</b>
Although the closed-door meeting succeeded in delaying Judge Saad's nomination one more week, it failed to remain secret. The hearing was broadcast over the Internet because of apparent inadvertence on the part of Republican staffers.
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