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Banned
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Originally Posted by RangerDick
The difference is that Newsweek claimed that a US government official had confirmed that the allegations were true, whereas the other reports you cited from the past year from other sources were simply random reports of 3rd person accounts of what detainees had alleged. Big difference there, host. Nice try.
Newsweek lied. People died.
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Originally Posted by RangerDick
hit and run.....
another one of host's tangent, lengthy posts.....
host, prove me wrong, tie your op together (what's the connection?= maybe I'm just thick).
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Originally Posted by RangerDick
in your own words... no cut and paste
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My opinion, RangerDick, is that the Bush administration and it's alliance of Republican "operatives" and sympathetic media organs; Fox, NY Post, WashTimes, Rush, Hannity, Scaife owned http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-.../s_334838.html , and a long list of others who echo the "message du jour" , are well aware that journalism is the "first draft" of history. Further, I am acutely aware that Mr. Rove presides over "ops" similar to the two examples that I've highlighted.
The common thread here is that two old "stories" highlighted recently, in the instance of Judge Saad's FBI file, because Harry Reid was attacked for publicly discussing the very points that WashTimes Charles Hunt reported last year, and because a delayed attack was launched against Newsweek for publishing allegation about US prison guard abuse of the Koran, fully two years after former Gitmo prisoners similar allegations were reported by the press.
What this is about is a methodical and well executed plan to smear the oppostion, while scapegoating and intimidating the non-sympathetic press.
This is classic and oft repeated Karl Rove offensve strategy. It is similar to the attempt to manipulate public opinion to believe that long after Cheney's daughter, Mary, was reported to be working as Coors Brewing Company's liason to the gay community, qualified because she was the openly gay daughter of a prominent conservative poltical figure, she could somehow have been involuntarily "outed", and thus maligned, by Kerry's mention of her sexual orientation as an example of tolerance and acceptance as he answered a televised presidential debate question, last October.
Rove is a master manipulator and propagandist. He succeeded in eliminating the advantage, related to public opinion, of war "heroes" McCain and Kerry, vs. Bush's record of avoidance of foreign military service, preferential TANG selection, promotion, and training, and the lack of confirmation that Bush properly completed his TANG service. Rove, with the chorus of Anne Coulter and TV spots that linked Georgia Senator Max Cleland to Saddam, succeeded in unseating Cleland in favor of Republican Saxby Chambliss, who avoided Vietnam era service with a football injury to his knee.
Newsweek reported in good faith, an old accusation. It is not true that Newseek incited violent and deadly protests. This is a Rove "op", that was delayed in it's launch, until an opportune time.....
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http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/1/hi/world...as/4551149.stm
............Media under fire
The weakness of the story lies, as the Pentagon spotted immediately, in the vagueness of its sourcing, though Newsweek was perfectly clear that the source was an official who had seen the detail about the Koran in an official report.
With hindsight, perhaps, the magazine would have been more comfortable if it had had more details. But it did not try to deceive its readers about the story.
Yet since this was by no means the first time that allegations of the desecration of the Koran by US guards and interrogators have emerged, Newsweek may not have been as concerned as it might otherwise have been. ...........
...........It is hard to avoid the inference that the people who are really to blame are the men and women who have abused their prisoners, not those who have reported allegations about the ill treatment.
What happened in prisons like Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib after 2001 has done serious damage to the United States and its allies: not just the dwindling number who still have troops in Iraq, but the new governments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Do not blame the news media for this. Instead, all the effort needs to go into convincing the world that the abuse has stopped, and will never be allowed to start again.
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Quote:
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/46140.htm
On Respect for the Holy Koran
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Remarks before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State,
Foreign Operations and Related Programs
May 12, 2005
....There have been recent allegations about disrespect for the Holy Koran by interrogators at Guantanamo Bay and that has deeply offended many people. Our military authorities are investigating these allegations fully. If they are proven true, we will take appropriate action. Respect for the religious freedom of all individuals is one of the founding principles of the United States. The protection of a person's right to worship freely and without harassment is a principle that the government and the people of the United States take very seriously. Guaranteeing religious rights is of great personal importance to the President and to me.............
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But.....on Tuesday, May 17, the DOD spokesman contradicts Dr. Rice....
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http://www.defenselink.mil/cgi-bin/d...0517-2841.html
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcrip...0517-2841.html
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcrip...0517-2841.html
Q Larry, on an affair of high moment or low moment, this business about the Koran in GTMO, the Pentagon has reacted very sharply, as has the White House, about the Newsweek story. And there have been statements by you, I believe, and others -- correct me if I'm wrong -- there is -- that there has been shown to be no credible evidence or no credible charges regarding the Koran.
Has -- I guess what I'd like to ask is, to try to clarify this whole thing, because while the news -- while Newsweek has retracted its story, it hasn't come out and said it's flat wrong. Has the Pentagon ruled out -- ruled out -- that there's been a desecration of the Koran at GTMO? And have there been or are there current investigations of possible similar desecrations elsewhere -- (inaudible)?
MR. DI RITA: Well, first of all, let me be just clear about one point. Newsweek wrote something that was quite specific about a particularly troubling act of willful Koran desecration in the context of interrogations. And they attributed to an ongoing investigation that we've discussed at other times. None of that turned out to be true, and I gather that's why Newsweek decided to retract its story.
In trying to establish some veracity into the Newsweek story -- again, there was no specific allegation. There was an alleged allegation, if I could put it that way. But in trying to establish some veracity behind that story, which now Newsweek has basically told us don't try, because e you won't be able to, we've nonetheless -- the commander of the U.S. Southern Command, which is responsible for Guantanamo, has been doing a review of detainee operations in Guantanamo, going back pretty much to the beginning of when we were conducting detainee operations, to determine is there something about -- which we should be more focused on. <h4>It has not -- those types of allegations and -- about the willful desecration of the Koran as a component of interrogations or how it was described --
Q The allegations …
MR. DI RITA: No, no, no, let me finish. Those types of allegations have not previously been -- there's -- we've not previously included that in any kind of previous investigations into detainee operations, because there haven't been credible allegations to that effect. And we've tried to pursue specific, credible allegations carefully, and we think we've done that.</h4>
But nonetheless, in the course of reviewing -- in the course of the -- in the wake of the Newsweek piece, we thought it useful to go back and review to be sure. And that's what's going on right now. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs talked a little bit about it yesterday, where we -- we will have more to say about that as it gets -- I think this is something we all want to be able to wrap up quickly. We've certainly found nothing that would give any substance to the Newsweek story in this regard. And as I said, the chairman has talked about instances here and there, about -- where there may have been the detainees themselves -- we've found several instances in logs -- again, these are not corroborated, either -- in detainee logs that suggest that detainees have, for whatever reason, torn pages from the Koran, et cetera.
And we need to corroborate that and see if there's anything there or if there's anything that we could substantiate. But there are log entries to that effect.
And so that's the process that we're in right now. We're trying to determine is that -- one thing we have done is given everybody else the opportunity to see the degree to which standard operating procedures at Guantanamo are very focused on the proper respect for the Koran, and in fact those standard operating procedures have been reviewed over time to make sure that they are as careful as they should be. We, I think, provided that to most of you all in the last day or two. But I think what you'll see there is a command philosophy that is clearly one of treating religious items, including the Koran, with a great deal of respect.
That being said, there have been instances, and we'll have more to say about it as we learn more, but where a Koran may have fallen to the floor in the course of searching a cell. And so they've reviewed the standard operating procedures to see if perhaps we could have been more careful in those cases. But as I said, the philosophy as reflected in the standard operating procedures is one of great respect for the Koran and other religious articles, and for the detainees' practice of their faith, and that's what we're doing.
MR. DI RITA: So this review -- let me finish up for one second -- this review will also take a look at our procedures and say we've got these very careful procedures, they're procedures that have been reviewed over time, and let's look at them and see if they're still the procedures we want or that we think are appropriate. At the moment, we think they are.
Q So, to make a long story short, while you aren't suggesting there are any credible charges or any credible evidence, you haven't -- you can't rule out now that that might have happened? And --
MR. DI RITA: I'm not going to say any more than what I said because that is a loaded question, and you know that is.
Q Are there any investigations into possible desecration in Iraq, Iran or elsewhere, or --
MR. DI RITA: There is -- what is happening is what I described. We're reviewing records and logs to see if there's any. We have received no credible and specific allegations of this nature. But that doesn't --
Q You mean beyond GTMO?
MR. DI RITA: Certainly as we do this, if other situations arise, we'll be mindful of that. At the moment we're focused on where detainees are being managed principally in Guantanamo?
Q Larry, just to be clear, there have been numerous allegations by detainees who have been released --
MR. DI RITA: Mm-hmm.
Q -- by attorneys who have talked to detainees, alleging mistreatment of the Koran, including instances where it was supposedly thrown into a toilet. Are you saying that none of those allegations were credible, and that none of them have -- have any of them been investigated, and were any substantiated?
MR. DI RITA: We've found nothing that would substantiate precisely -- anything that you just said about the treatment of a Koran. We have -- other than what we've seen, that it's possible detainees themselves have done with pages of the Koran -- and I don't want to overstate that either because it's based on log entries that have to be corroborated.
Q Wasn't there a hunger strike last year at Guantanamo? And wasn't it sparked in part by complaints from the detainees about the treatment of the Koran?
MR. DI RITA: We've had instances, as I said, and we're reviewing those, where detainees have said, "A Koran fell to the floor and I was offended by that." So we're looking -- that's the nature of these reviews. We're seeing log entries to that effect. And that's the purpose of making sure that our procedures are as careful as they can be.
With respect to lawyers making allegations of detainees who have been released, we anticipate, and have seen, in fact, all manner of statements made by detainees -- as you recall, many of whom as members of al Qaeda were trained to allege abuse and torture and all manner of other things.
When we have received specific, credible allegations -- and typically that's not what we see when we see a lawyer speaking on Al- Jazeera -- but when a specific, credible allegation of this nature were to be received, we would take it quite seriously. But we've not seen specific, credible allegations.
Q The State Department has put out a message to all embassies abroad, or diplomatic posts, making a statement that seems to contradict or in some way not jibe entirely with what you just said. I don't know if you're aware of this, but they've said that, "Department of Defense has been looking into allegations of desecration of the Koran and has found nothing to substantiate them."
MR. DI RITA: Yeah. What we're -- that's not quite accurate. And we'll work with State to make sure it's more precise. But we've not gotten allegations of desecration. What we've seen are incidental log entries that suggest that either detainees themselves have done something untoward with the Koran or there have been inadvertent mishandlings of the Koran. And we're trying to review those to better understand them. This is not an investigation per se. It's to review practices and make sure practices are appropriate. We believe practices are, but there's always an opportunity to learn, and we'll try and do that.
Q So State Department doesn't understand what the history of this is, or they have this wrong?
MR. DI RITA: I don't want to characterize it. I've said what I've said. And we aren't looking into specific allegations. We did not.
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So.....Dr. Rice announced on May 12, that "There have been recent allegations about disrespect for the Holy Koran by interrogators at Guantanamo Bay and that has deeply offended many people. Our military authorities are investigating these allegations fully." On May 17, the DOD spokesman tells the press that "disrespect for the Holy Koran" is not part of an investigation, because the DOD has not regarded the allegations by former Gitmo prisoners and their lawyers as having enough veracity to warrant an investigation. It is not so simple as RangerDick painted it via his mocking "talking point". Read another excerpt, and then read the entire DOD Q&A. It is illuminating!
Quote:
http://www.defenselink.mil/cgi-bin/d...0517-2841.html
Q General Myers, when he was with us some days ago, implied that the violence in Afghanistan, which has now spread, as you know, was not a spontaneous reaction to the Newsweek article but, in a sense, using the Newsweek article as a device to further whatever their agenda is.
So my question is, does this department have any specific evidence that the Taliban, al Qaeda, anybody else, is using this particular story to foment or try to foment the overthrow of the Karzai regime or to start civil war in Afghanistan and elsewhere?
MR. DI RITA: Well, General Myers's comments were based on assessments form coalition commanders in Afghanistan in which they assessed that, just based on the nature of the location of some of these and the participants in some of these protests, that there may have been some preplanning going on, but that this article may well have been a part -- one of the opportunistic pretexts for this.
Certainly Newsweek's own reporting, if it's -- Newsweek's own reporting suggests that, at least in Pakistan, this was -- the article was very much involved.
But I think General Myers' comments referred to Afghanistan, to comments that General Eikenberry, who's the coalition forces commander over there, made based on his own observations and interaction with Afghan officials. There was a perception that this was an opportunistic pretext, that there was probably some preplanning going on for sort of anti-government rallies.
That's our best assessment. I'm not sure that we've gone back to refresh that assessment. I think there was a contemporaneous assessment about this time last week.........
..................Q New topic here.
MR. DI RITA: Why don't we -- I don't have a heck of a lot more to say about the Newsweek thing, so --
Q Well, I just -- I want to be -- I have a point of clarification. I just want to make sure I'm absolutely clear on what you said before. Is it fair to infer from what you said that the allegations that I've cited from released detainees and detainee attorneys were deemed to be not credible, and therefore were not investigated?
MR. DI RITA: No, I think I would say it's fair to say that we have found nothing that would substantiate those types of allegations. And they were, as a matter of fact, not specific, and I don't --
Q They weren't specific --
MR. DI RITA: They were not specific, and --
Q -- and so therefore were not investigated?
MR. DI RITA: Yeah, and they were also remarkably contrary to the way that we manage this particular issue, the religious -- the detainees' religious faith, and therefore were not credible. I mean, not credible means you can't believe it. "Credible" -- "credo" is the word in Latin -- it's belief, and we don't believe that they're true.
Q But sort of the fine point I'm trying to just make sure I understand is whether or not the allegations were deemed to be not credible or specific enough, and therefore were not investigated; or whether some of them were, in fact, investigated and then not --
MR. DI RITA: I'm not aware that we've ever had any specific credible allegations to investigate. We certainly didn't investigate detainees' lawyers on television saying this is what happened to my detainee.
Q And these were lies when they made these allegations?
MR. DI RITA: I think it's very likely. But we have investigated them, so --
Q Larry, you said that these allegations are contrary to any practice and any rules that you have down there --
MR. DI RITA: I said it's contrary to the way we try and manage this issue.
Q All right. But you say since it is contrary to the way you try and manage it, therefore they are not credible at all.
MR. DI RITA: No, no --
Q What happened in Abu Ghraib was also contrary to your all's rules --
MR. DI RITA: Which is why people are going to jail. And people do wrong things sometimes, but we found nothing that would substantiate any of these allegations of willful Koran desecration. We just found nothing that would substantiate it.
Q But you haven't even investigated them.
MR. DI RITA: In the course of the review, which is what we're doing as a result of the Newsweek article, we're starting to develop a more -- a very detailed sense of what's out there, and it's the kind of episodic thing I've described and nothing that would substantiate these kinds of very willful and specific.
Now I never say never, but that's where we are and that's -- certainly, as I said, lawyers and their -- detainees and their lawyers will make all kinds of charges, and we recognize that.
And in fact, in their own training manuals they say: Here's what we'll do if we ever get into a court; we allege torture, we allege abuse, we allege all kinds of things to influence public opinion.
And that's happening. And when articles like the Newsweek article come out and it's unsubstantiated and it turns false, it will encourage other people to do the same thing. And we should be on notice that other people will make similar types of inflammatory allegations of this nature. We're reviewing the matter. But at the moment, we are where we are, which is the only types of practice that we've seen that correlates to what Newsweek said has to do with what detainees themselves did at Guantanamo. That's what we've found thus far.
Q Larry, did you --
MR. DI RITA: I'm going to take, I'll tell you what, I'm going to take one last thing because I just have nothing to add on this.
Q Larry, did you or another senior Pentagon spokesman get a chance to review the substance of the Newsweek allegations prior to their publication?
MR. DI RITA: No. I would like to say that if that's a new policy you all would like to institute, I am welcoming it. (Laughter.) If you would like to submit your articles in advance, we will happily review them and --
Q As a follow-up, from time to time, you have background --
MR. DI RITA: -- and give them to Bryan, we'll review them --
Q From time to time you have background briefings up here where the speakers are not allowed to be named in the press. Based on this, do you feel that that practice encourages the use of unnamed sources; are you considering changing that practice so all briefings have names and sources?
MR. DI RITA: Well, here's what I'd say about that. When we do that we make it clear those are the rules, and if reporters don't want to participate on that basis, that's your choice.
Q So you encourage the use of unnamed sources?
MR. DI RITA: I don't know. I don't know. It's a reasonable question. .................
.............Q It requires the use of unnamed sources, if people --
MR. DI RITA: No, it requires the use of them if you want to participate on those ground rules.
Q Well, wait, can I follow up on [inaudible] question, though --
Q Can I belabor this?
MR. DI RITA: You are belaboring it.
Q I have one quick question --
MR. DI RITA: Somebody wanted to go to a new topic and I was ready to do it.
New topic.
Q Larry, come on. Newsweek in all its reconstructions of this say that it went to the Pentagon to try to comment on the draft or John Barry's walking and running. Most reporters interpret that as they came to you or a spokesperson --
MR. DI RITA: They didn't come to me.
Q Do you know, did they come to someone in the building officially or quasi-officially?
MR. DI RITA: Not that I -- I will -- I guess I have no choice but to take them at their word, but I -- they didn't come to me. That's why I announced they didn't come to Bryan with, "Here's a draft of the statement, can you kind of quality check it?" I know that reporters rightly have sources that aren't all public affairs officials, which is sort of take your chances, see how you feel about that.
Q (Off mike) -- if it's a hot story you see to try to get --
MR. DI RITA: They didn't come to me.
Q -- something on the record.
MR. DI RITA: They didn't come to me.................
........Q Isn't this commander's inquiry by General Craddock -- I understood it that he was actually looking into these allegations.
MR. DI RITA: I think he'll make a determination -- and it's not he, it's a colonel at his command. I think he'll make a determination based on what he finds, whether any of them -- whether -- how much he wants to go out and try and corroborate some of them. I mean, for example, a detainee who was alleged to have torn pages out of his Koran and shoved it in a toilet, he may want to go out and try to corroborate that. I mean I don't know to what extent the next steps will involve that kind of thing.
Q This is an ongoing inquiry into the --
MR. DI RITA: No, it's what -- it is separate from the Schmidt investigation, but I think it's something that General Craddock would like to wrap up as quickly as he can wrap up.................
...............Q There's still some confusion about what General Myers said, in which he said the violence in Afghanistan, in the view of U.S. commanders, didn't appear to be linked at all to the Newsweek article and what Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said yesterday, in which he said people were dying --
MR. DI RITA: Right.
Q -- he said -- because of the reporting. Can you reconcile those two statements for us?
MR. DI RITA: I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do it to your satisfaction. What I've said is that our commanders at the time -- I'll note the lack of interest at the time the commander said it in this room. But Myers said that the commanders at the time believed that there was some preplanning that went into -- we're talking about in Afghanistan now; I don't believe he was speaking about the other regions -- and that the coalition forces commander there believed that there had been some evidence of preplanning. And that would suggest that there were some anti-government protests that were going to happen and that without question it's -- period. Now it has been subsequently reported that -- and if you watched the protests you could see there were references to the actions involved in Newsweek story.
So it could have been a sort of unfortunate coincidence of two strains of activity. But the commander's assessment at the time was there was some preplanning that went into this. I believe, although I'm not certain, that the Afghan government had comments to that effect as well.
Q Do you now believe that people died because of this erroneous report in Newsweek?
MR. DI RITA: I do. I absolutely do..............
..........Q Larry, I do have another Newsweek question. Sorry if you've already addressed this yesterday, but Newsweek -- again, the editor said it took the Pentagon 10 days to come out with any kind of official response --
MR. DI RITA: No.
Q Given that, you know, back in 2003 in January, the Pentagon realized the sensitivity of handling the Koran, why didn't you guys respond much quicker when the article first came out? In the past, you've issued press releases when there have been questionable broadcasts or news reports.
MR. DI RITA: Well, we just -- I'm not sure; I didn't know about it. I think when we learned about it and started to understand it better, we went after it and tried to understand it quickly. I don't know that there's a better answer than that. It appeared I'm told, as early as May 2nd, or something like that? Or May 3rd? And I just -- when it started to become something that we were more cognizant of, we focused on it. There's an enormous amount of stuff out there.
By the way, there's an enormous amount of stuff that we respond to regularly that's in the press, that doesn't get to this level of attention. And that is very often ignored by the news organization, because they just don't agree with us. This is not one of those cases. But we do engage a lot, even when you don't know it or don't see it. This is not one of those cases. When it started to become something that people were mindful of -- I first learned of it when I was asked by one of your colleagues a week ago today. That's when I first learned of it.
Q Why do you think out of all the allegations that are made against the military over the course of these wars, that this one took off the way it did?
MR. DI RITA: Well, it's interesting, but I think it's a particularly -- I think it gets a little bit to Pam's question, that it's sensitive in an era when these kinds of things matter. But it gets to a particularly troubling alleged allegation, particularly troubling behavior that was described, and then it connected it directly to U.S. forces in a way that gave it a lot of -- a lot of traction. And it's unfortunate that it did.
Q Larry, what particular incident or incidents, if any, prompted the creation of that January 2003 memo on the proper handling of the Koran at Guantanamo?
MR. DI RITA: I'm not sure. And they had handling procedures from much earlier on that they regularly reviewed. And I'm not sure if at some point they decided to have a written SOP as opposed to pass-down log-type stuff or training without an SOP. And they subsequently had developed additional standard operating procedures that had found its way into a different level of guidance. So I think these kinds of things evolve, which is not atypical for military standard operating procedures.
Q So you don't know if there was an --
MR. DI RITA: I don't.
Q -- incident of mishandling the Koran that prompted --
MR. DI RITA: I don't. And as I said, one of the things that General Craddock will want to do is review procedures to see if he's comfortable with them. They're very refined right now, but there's always an opportunity to review these things...............
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Harry Reid disclosed nothing new. Judge Saad's FBI file was reported to contain negative info that would impede his senate confirmation, last June 4th by the same reporter and newspaper that are now accusing Reid in current reports and in an "editorial" this week. Both are linked in the thread starter.
Rove counts on the short attention span and penchant for brief "Macnews" blurbs that pass for most of America as "in depth" coverage, if the average citizen is interested at all. Criticize the length and the depth of my offerings on these threads, RangerDick, but bear in mind that readers of this thread will be exposed to more relevant content in my two posts, (so far) on this thread, than they will in your fourteen. |