If there is a political playbook for right-wing conservatives these days, it
no doubt begins, "Step #1: Whenever possible, blame the news media."
What to do if the U.S. invasions/occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have
sparked resistance in those countries because people generally don’t like
being occupied by a foreign power that has interests in exploiting their
resources and/or geopolitical value? Blame journalists.
That’s exactly what the Bush administration and its rhetorical attack dogs are
doing with the "scandal" over Newsweek’s story on the desecration of the
Quran at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo.
In a short item in its May 9 issue, Newsweek reported that U.S. military
investigators had found evidence that U.S. guards had flushed a copy of the
Quran down a toilet to try to provoke prisoners. This week, the magazine
retracted, saying not that editors knew for sure that such an incident didn’t
happen but that, "Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original
story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at
Guantanamo Bay."
Meanwhile, after the original story ran, Afghan and U.S. forces fired on
demonstrators in Afghanistan, killing at least 14 and injuring many others.
The conventional wisdom emerged quickly: Newsweek got it wrong, and Newsweek is
to blame for the deaths. The first conclusion is premature; the second is wrong.
First, it’s not clear whether U.S. guards in Guantanamo or other prisons have
placed copies of the Quran on a toilet or thrown pages (or a whole Quran) into a
toilet. Detainees have made such claims, which have been reported by attorneys
representing some of the men in custody and denied by U.S. officials.
Newsweek’s retraction is ambiguous, suggesting they believe the incident may
have happened but no longer can demonstrate that it was cited in the specific
U.S. government documents, as originally reported.
Given the abuse and torture -- from sexual humiliation to beatings to criminal
homicide -- that has gone on in various U.S. military prison facilities, it’s
not hard to believe that the Quran stories could be true. Given that last month
U.S. officials pressured the United Nations to eliminate the job of its top
human-rights investigator in Afghanistan after that official criticized
violations by U.S. forces in the country, it’s not hard to be skeptical about
U.S. motives. And given that even the human-rights commission of the generally
compliant Afghan government is blocked by U.S. forces from visiting the prisons,
it’s not hard to believe that the U.S. officials may have something to hide.
Until we have more information, definitive conclusions are impossible. But if
you go on a popular right-wing web site, you’ll find the verdict that
administration supporters are trying to make the final word: "Newsweek lied,
people died."
Yes, people died during demonstrations, and political leaders in the Muslim
world have cited the Quran stories to spark anti-U.S. feeling. But reporters
outside the United States have pointed out that these demonstrations have not
been spontaneous but were well-organized, often by groups of students. The
frustration with U.S. policy that fuels these demonstrations isn’t limited to
the Quran incident, and to reduce the unrest to one magazine story is
misleading. Indeed, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
said at a news conference last week that the senior commander in Afghanistan,
Army Gen. Carl Eichenberry, reported that the violence "was not at all tied to
the article in the magazine."
So, why the focus on the Newsweek story? It’s part of the tried-and-true
strategy of demonize, disguise, and divert. Demonize the news media to disguise
the real causes of the resistance to occupation and divert attention from failed
U.S. policies.
The irony is that the U.S. corporate news media deserve harsh criticism for
coverage of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- not for possibly getting
one fact wrong, but for failing to consistently challenge the illegality of both
wars and the various distortions and lies that the Bush administration has used
to mobilize support for those illegal wars.
We should hold the news media accountable when they fail. But we should defend
journalists when they are used by political partisans who are eager to obscure
their own failures.
Robert Jensen is on the board and Pat Youngblood is coordinator of the Third
Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin, TX (http://thirdcoastactivist.org/).
They can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
and pat@thirdcoastactivist.org.
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