(my take on their apology) "Oh...sorry our story was all B.S. I mean, you know....we were just trying to slander the military is all....please don't judge us."

Yeah...whatever. The idiots got a bunch of people killed and caused a bunch of people to rise up against our troops in Afghanistan...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapc...ran/index.html

 

Don't get me started. I firmly believe that this whole Irag thing could have gone much smoother, if a certain portion of the AMERICAN media wasn't going out of it's way to feed fuel to the fire under the enemy's ***. Where does freedom of the press end and sedition begin?

 

My thoughts exactly. I've often wondered why our press doesn't present the good things that go on overseas. Show how our troops are helping the locals. Instead, we get fed the latest on what the insurgency does. In my opinion, the insurgency sees this, and take great pride, and continue to do it. Maybe if we didn't show everything THEY did on our evening news, we'd be able to get our job done and GTFO that much faster. The American media is awful as of right now.

-Travis

 

I agree.
Except I feel they also added fuel to our fire too. They instigated a lot of Sh*t on both sides through out this whole ordeal. Costing us to lose a few of our boys and costing us tax payers a lot of money too.

 

I was kind of wondering if this story was going to be commented on here on F150online. It has certainly hit a lot of other forums.

Personally, I did not buy into the story in the first place but I was very upset that the story ran as it did. Sadly, another example of our press not understanding the consequences of what they print. It is hard for me to accept the almost total lack of ordinary common sense on the part of many of our national publications when it concerns the possible repercussions of the stuff they print.

Now, if in fact Newsweek did not check out their sources properly, which just compounds the problem, I for one hope a lot of people get fired. Not fined, not jailed, just terminate their careers as journalists because they do not deserve the title and the privilege to keep us, the public, informed.

In that same vein, and I am being extremely harsh here, whoever was supposed to vet that article and/or the validity of the allegations cost a number of people their lives. That individual or those individuals are going to have to live with that result.

If, as I suspect, this turns out to be a botched story, poorly researched and merely printed for it's sensationalism is a very large black mark on our national press and I hope it results in a lot of soul
searching on the part of the media.
Bill

 

Sadly, many in the press really don’t care what their actions may or may not cause. That includes Newsweek as well. They generally have the attitude its ok to report anything they wish if they “think” it has even a tiny little bit of truth to it.

I believe the way these high and mighty people feel is just like many in Hollywood as in they are on top of us, much smarter and much brighter then any of us could ever be. They believe it is their responsibility to try and forum us into the people they believe we should be.

They think this war is wrong, they think trying to protect America, its interest, and more importantly, its citizens is wrong and they will do everything in their power to prove that belief they have. They don’t really care how many people die and/or suffer because the way they look at it is they didn’t start it to begin with. They look at it like President Bush started this all on his own and every time someone dies it is President Bush’s fault.

They generally feel no grief if someone dies because of any of their reporting because they feel it’s their job to report and if someone dies then oh well, so sad, that’s just life. Many of them, like Newsweek are nothing more then propaganda machines for what they believe in, and if its not actually in the news they will make it news and insure it gets attention.

This was nothing more then to stir people up and again try and prove how bad America is and how much America deserves to get its *** kicked. The death of innocent people will not affect them and they probably rejoice in it because it goes to prove IF America had not got involved in this war to begin with then they would have never reported this crap and no one would have died because of it. As you can see this is their blanket of protection, the people that die because of their misreporting is not due to them but America and more specifically President Bush having us involved in this war.

It’s truly sad indeed, especially for an institution that relies on this very country to protect their right to be complete morons and acting in a selfish and unprofessional manner.

 

I thought Newsweek was pretty lame for reporting that in the first place. Now, I'm completely disgusted.

The worst part is that the people who distributed the lies won't pay, especially not as dearly as those who were consumed in the violence they're responsible for creating.

 

This isn't the first time this was brought up, it's just the timing, that's all. The allegations are still there, just not the proof Newsweek claimed the first time around.

Here's a link to the Newsweek follow up piece CNN is quoting from:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7857407/site/newsweek/

From the article:

"..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."

In other words, Newsweek confirmed their story, but the pentagon changed theirs.

We've got a credibility problem; After seeing the Abu Graihb photos, Muslims find the stories, no matter how outrageous, of anyone released from Guantanamo believable. In the largely illiterate middle east, what do you think the odds are of the average person on the street over there getting the whole story?

Just a couple of observations:

1) What the hell? How in the world is this not considered a valid interrogation technique? If I can get info out of a terrorist by flushing a kuran down the ferguson, get the liquid plumber and mop--and make sure the water bill is paid.

2) I'm not saying that I want to sink down to their level, but the next time I see an american flag being burned in the middle east, I'm a video camera, MPEG codec and trip to the bathroom away from posting an adequate response on the internet.

-Fatz

 

Burt:

Thanks for your input, but I fear it goes further than your comments.

I have learned to understand, even if I do not fully accept, that we have information channels that are supposedly "neutral" such as Time, Newsweek, BusinessWeek and so on that say that they will report the "news" as they get it, after checking the facts, and let the reader make up their own mind.
Obviously, that is a fantasy. However, as long as it deals with primarily domestic issues and does not stray into areas where these publications obviously have no expertise I can live with that.

What I find unacceptable is that our concept of "Freedom of the Press" allows such entities to essentially print or broadcast what I would call speculative information without any checks or balances and without regard to the possible outfall of what they are printing or broadcasting when it comes to our image to the rest of the world.

Kind of a dumb statement, but I do not know if we need more friends out there in the world but we sure as hell do not need more enemies, especially enemies we create out of otherwise friendly cultures.

To restate my feelings on this issue, to have published the allegation in the first place was not well thought out. To now have to sort of retract the allegation, after a number of people died as a result of that article, is a very sad commentary on the state of our media.

All I can do, and I have done so, is to cancel my subscription to Newsweek.
Bill

 

The truly sad thing is that the damage is already done. A retraction will look, to the people in the Middle East, as though the US government pressured Newsweek to do so. I honestly think that they printed this story, not in ignorance of the probable reaction, but in gleeful anticipation of it. Anything to throw a wrench into the mechanism of the current administration.

 

It never ceases to amaze me how the press in this country gets away with lies and half truths, all for the sake of money. When I keep hearing them say freedom of the press, I agree, as long as what the are stating is the truth, all the truth, not just the side they feel like putting forward. Since they are in the business of making money, maybe it is about time that when they screw up, they have to cough up some money. Say about 1 mil to each of the families that had someone killed, and maybe a half mil if someone was injured. At no time should any story be printed if you do not have the facts confirmed. Not just some anonymous caller said maybe this was happening. Also, did they bother to talk to the people they are accusing before they printed the story. Most stories I see they don't even bother. They should be held accountable, just like a doctor, lawyer, or any other business. Which they are. Nothing else.

 

So NOW a bunch of Arabs hate Americans?? Please..... Just add it to the pile of excuses they supposedly already have...

What makes me mad, is they're protesting US for desecrating their bible and they go and Burn our FLAG. That's just as bad in my opinion. It's OK for THEM to desecrate the things WE find Holy and Believe in but if even Rumor of us doing something like that, there's all hell to pay. Sorry, I had to Vent.

I get NewsWeek and they're Generally pretty good. Today the Editor said they realized the sensitivity of the article and took it upon themselves to give it to some Pentagon Officials before releasing it to check it over. They didn't say anything so they went with it. They've apologized for their mistakes and retracted it. Considering this is the FIRST time I've heard of Newsweek having to Retract such a big story, I'd say they're doing "ok" with checking the facts.

 

Funny how they can burn/desecrate an American flag while protesting, yet Americans don't riot in the streets and kill one another over it.

But just a rumor that a Koran is being desecrated and folks get killed.

this may sound harsh, but maybe this is just Darwin culling the herd...

 

Let’s also make something very, VERY clear and that is the vast majority of Arabs really don’t care about anybody defacing or disrespecting the Koran as well as any of their holy sites.

This is evident by the fact you never see any up rise when terrorist use the Koran, as a basis, to kill innocent people, namely Arabs, nor do you see an up rise when terrorist deface holy sites setting up their camp sites.

Terrorist, the vast majority of them are Arabs so since its ok for terrorist Arabs to deface the Koran and their holy sites I really wish they would shut the FLUCK up about American’s doing the same.

If they don’t like it then oh well, so sad I really don’t give a crap how the “feel”. When they start standing up and yelling about the terrorist then maybe I will begin to understand their belief system, until then they should continue to remain silent…

Let’s also remember that organizations like Newsweek absolute HATE the military, they think our military sucks and they think those that serve in the military suck and they can’t stand them. This has nothing to do with President Bush but their hate towards the military and those who serve or have served.

If you have ever served and/or are serving you might want to think about not putting money into the pockets of those who HATE YOUR GUTS, like Newsweek and other liberal organizations…

 

As a person who actually GET'S Newsweek and HAS been getting it for the last 5 years, I can Assure you NewsWeek does NOT Hate the Military. On the contrary some of their stories on the sacrifices and Heroics of our Soldiers are Must reads, Search "Back to the Front" (about amputee's that have rehabilitated themselves because they WANT to get back on the front line) and "Children of the Fallen". Definitely stories highlighting how much NewsWeek "Hates" our Military and Soldiers....