Newsflash! Newsweek never tortured anybody!

31 thoughts on “Newsflash! Newsweek never tortured anybody!”

2. To riot and kill over Koran desecration allegations?
   Is there a distinction between allegation and fact?
   Is it possible that the flags they burn on a weekly basis are also desecration?
   David

3. Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of a recent book on Gitmo was recently interviewed on Democracy Now. He stated that exploitation of Islam is the norm in American interrogation of Muslim detainees. The White House, once again, is trying to kill the messenger when it doesn’t like the message.

4. وطن لا يقسّم مثل الخرائط
   لكنه نحن ..
   كلُّ عراقي … عراق ..!
   فكم وطناً يقسمون ..؟
   وطن .. نحن سيماؤه .. وله ..
   طبعُ أكراده عاشقاً
   حلم سنته غاضباً
   حزن شيعته عندما يحزنون ..

5. David, do you actually think that the flag is a deeply religious symbol, directly received from God? In that case, I suppose it might compare adequately, although a theologian would have to determine whether it was heresy.
   Also, a variety of sources — from newspapers to think tanks — are reporting that the discontent provoking the rioting in Afghanistan has had more to do with issues pertaining to the American bases there, and to the types of invasive behaviors exhibited by the U.S. military when entering people’s homes.
   Finally, many people have known about the Koran desecrations for a long time, as these actions have been reported for a long time. The difference with this article may have been simply that it was the first report indicating that the government knew about it. Or just that the timing was right.
   Do a little homework before making wild comparisons like that.

6. In regards to the Vivion and David postings: I am personally not a religious man, so I will never be able to understand the ability of such an act (Qur’an desecration) to stir emotions too the level it has. I was raised Jewish, and I suppose that if I saw a Torah ripped apart and flushed down a toilet, it would shock me and definitely hurt me. But the hurt I would feel would not be rage, so I can empathize, but never fully undertand.
   But, I also live in the hegemonic power in this world, and my thought process cannot be divorced from the knowledge that my way of life is defended by guns, money, and ideology, almost certainly preventing me from ever having to be occupied by a foreign military. I cannot conceive of a real-life situation wherein my sector of the world would be openly referred to as backward. I cannot imagine watching foreign news shows with experts discussing the problems with my religion, and what their governments should do to change my religion and my people…
   My country and its allies continue to enjoy the right to produce both the popular imaginary known as the Middle East, and to dictate the physical map of the globe. None of us born in the US, or raised here, will ever be able to feel it in our guts, that feeling that is circulating around the Muslim World. David’s question and point are legitimate, and come from a place of curiosity, not hate. I think we need to respect everyone’s voice. Vivion, rather than get upset at Daivd, think about what it is that informs and shapes his comments.
   One last point. Whatever you think about the incidents and the riots, they are happening, and it is serious. Why, when we keep emphasizing that this is not a war on Islam, has Bush not been way more vigilant about damage control? Why has he not said anything? Stories like this don’t lend credence to the idea that this is not a war on Islam.

7. Vivion,
   It is not courteous to command me to do homework when I raise a question. Nobody knows what symbols came directly from God, so it is up to the symbol owner to quantify their sanctity. Don’t you see a paradox, even for a minute, when Moslems go berzerk over ALLEGATIONS of their symbol being defaced, but at the same time they routinely hold televised flag burnings (with the encouragment of their state and religious leaders)?
   Your point about the riots being really caused by some other reason is well taken. In that case the Koran issue is, what we call in occident, an excuse. The real reason would remain open to speculation, and in real life it is generally a complex combination of multiple people driven by different reasons.
   As to why would you kill your own brethren to protest against a third party, that is beyond me. Don’t send me to do homework on that, please.
   David
   David

8. “Nobody knows what symbols came directly from God so it is up to the symbol owner to quantify their sanctity.”
   1. The Qur’an is not a symbol, it is the book considered by Muslims to contain the word of God.
   2. National flags are by definition symbols.
   3. What lunatic claims that the United States flag comes directly from God?
   “Don’t you see a paradox, even for a minute, when Moslems go berzerk over ALLEGATIONS of their symbol being defaced, but at the same time they routinely hold televised flag burnings…?”
   The Qur’an is not a symbol.
   Don’t you see the absurdity of attempting to equate flag burning with trying to break prisoners by denigrating their religion, forcing them to violate their religious laws, and desecrating their holy book?
   “Your point about the riots being really caused by some other reason is well taken. In that case the Koran issue is, what we call in occident, an excuse.”
   I believe there is a phenomenon which “you in the occident” call the straw that broke the camel’s back, is there not? It might have occurred to “you in the occident” that this is a more likely explanation for what happened than your notion that it is “an excuse”. I would point out to you that if people needed what “you in the occident” call “an excuse”, the U.S. has previously given them many far better ones. We have been receiving credible reports for years about the American policy for denigrating Islam, forcing Muslims to violate their religious laws, and desecrating the Qur’an as a means of “breaking” prisoners. And before the United States adopted this policy, we have known for a very long time that the Israelis used it.

9. David,
   Juan Cole put the whole matter in perspective very well. Perhaps these excerpts can help you put it in perspective as well:
   “There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. Most Muslims were not upset by the news or took no action about it. Pakistani politician and ex-cricketer Imran Khan couldn’t get out more than a couple hundred people in Lahore, Pakistan, for a peaceful demonstration….Even in Afghanistan…A lot of the people killed…were demonstrators shot by local Afghan police, police…who had been installed in power by the United States. For this, you blame the Muslim religion per se and the whole Muslim world?
   “All religions produce fanatics at the same rate. It is a constant.
   “For instance, those gentle Buddhist monks of Mandalay are perfectly capable of rioting, arson, and killing innocent people over a stone thrown into a monastery, as happened in Burma in October of 2002. Poor minority Muslims were beaten up and killed because of alleged disrespect to the sacred monastery:
   “As for Judaism, please. Thousands of Palestinians have lost their homes, been harassed, oppressed, and killed by fanatical Jewish extremists in the West Bank and Gaza. When Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin tried to make peace, the Jewish far right killed him. When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced he would withdraw from Gaza, 80,000 Jewish extremists demonstrated, and some threatened to kill Sharon because he was violating their sacred principles. The former chief rabbi of Israel even blamed the tsunami on world support for the withdrawal from Gaza. When Arab Israelis demonstrated against Israeli policies in the West Bank, there was “Jewish intifada” against them, with riots, demonstrations, and neighborhood invasions.
   “As for Christianity, we’ve seen the Christian identity movement blow up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, we’ve seen abortion doctors shot down in cold blood, we’ve seen decades of religious violence in places like Northern Ireland….”

10. As to why would you kill your own brethren to protest against a third party, that is beyond me. Don’t send me to do homework on that, please.
    David
    Have you ever given any thought to what was behind the race riots in the 1960’s in the USA?
    If not, please think about it, and what would motivate people to act that way.

11. Apologies first for indirectly calling the Koran a symbol. Next, apologies to David for sounding impolite with the “do your homework” phrase.
    However, the notion that there is any sort of comparison between descrating a flag and a Koran I find deeply disturbing.
    First, the idea that a symbol of nationalism (a manufactured intellectual concept from the 19th century) and revelation from God are in any way equivalent smacks to me of Fascism. Not calling you a Fascist, just pointing out that hypernationalism is a significant symptom, and something I find very threatening.
    Second, the comparison reveals a great deal of ignorance (even more than my own deep ignorance) about Islam, and seems to me to show a reluctance to try to understand what the Koran actually means.
    I may have deeply misunderstood your question and the spirit it was intended, but in any case, this gives you an idea of what I was reacting to. To me, it is indeed a wild comparison that requires if not more homework, then at least a little more thought.

12. p.s. This is just one article I’ve found with a series of links to previous coverage of Koran descrations, in case, David, you insist on calling the incidents “allegations.” Also, I genuinely enjoy helping people with their homework!

13. In many cases in US and other countries many official see the silence of the religious Muslim leader as an act of support for some groups.
    In this case there is no a single church or synagogues come forward and condemns this act! What will be happened if the Bible or Torah for Jew is treated like what US forces and detainees did?
    David I believe you are extremist Jew the hex STAR on your flag is a symbol related to Prophet DAWOOD (SUH) Israel use it in its flag, like many Muslim countries used the Crescent as a symbol of Islam, we can not put this comparison between symbol for religion and a holy book of that religion.
    What your reaction if you treated with using your holly book in same way presuming you care?

14. We don’t know for sure if the Koran-flushing story is even true. We do know that Newsweek didn’t have enough corroboration on the story to stick to it in the face of pressure. We do know that people were killed in part because of Newsweeks (mistaken) actions. We do know that the primary responsibility for the killings lies with the killers, not with Newsweek. We are very suspicious about what is happening in US prisons when nobody is looking.
    The management of prisons, including the selection of personnel, is a long-standing skill of the US government and US military. There is no excuse for the sort of mismanagement we have been experiencing. Apparently prison management takes more skill than I had imagined. Perhaps we should grant more respect to those who do it professionally and well, fulfilling their moral and administrative responibilities.
    The US is at war with military Jihad. Whether this is the same as being at war with Islam depends on whether you see military Jihad as being part and parcel of Islam. A considerable number of Muslims see them as inseparable. Others don’t.
    Military Jihad is a crime agaist peace, and all peace-loving people must be against it.
    Flushing a Koran down the toilet is a crime, but it is no excuse for murder.

15. Warren (and everyone else), my understanding was that Newsweek retracted the part of the story that had to do with whether the U.S. government knew about the Koran flushing incidents, but not about the actual incidents, themselves — which, as I mentioned above, have been reported on repeatedly by various news outlets and human rights organizations (including the Red Cross, if my memory serves).
    Anyway, please correct me if I am wrong on this.
    Also, you might want to re-read some of the earlier posts that discuss the issue of whether the incident was, in fact, the “cause” of the riots, and the use of the term “excuse” in that larger, more complex context.
    Not making apologies for anyone here; just asking for a little more precision and careful thinking about something that is more complicated than the way it is being reported.

16. “We don’t know for sure if the Koran-flushing story is even true.”
    Irrelevant. We have more than enough information from more than enough sources to know for sure that this kind of thing goes on, has gone on since the so-called “War on Terror” began, and that it is no secret to the military command and the U.S. government at the highest levels.
    “We are very suspicious about what is happening in US prisons when nobody is looking.”
    We know A LOT about what is happening in U.S.-run prisons and detention centers in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in Quantanamo.
    “There is no excuse for the sort of mismanagement we have been experiencing.”
    “WE” have not been experiencing anything. The prisoners and the detainees are the ones who have been experiencing. Let’s stop making the U.S. and its “image” the victim in these matters. Let’s recognize the real, living, breathing human beings who are the victims of these human rights abuses, that include torture and murder.
    And let’s stop making excuses about “a few bad apples” or “mismanagement”. It should be perfectly clear by now that what is going on in these prisons and detention centers, including desecration of the Qur’an, is anything but mismanagement. Face up to it, Americans. This is your government’s policy. There is more than enough evidence to prove this beyond any doubt, and some of that evidence is in the form of official U.S. government documents.
    “The US is at war with military Jihad.”
    No it isn’t. It is using the actions of a few whacked out criminals who use “military jihad” – whatever the hell that is supposed to mean – as their rallying cry as an excuse to pursue an agenda the group now in power developed a long time ago.
    “Whether this is the same as being at war with Islam depends on whether you see military Jihad as being part and parcel of Islam.”
    No it doesn’t. All you have to do is listen to the poisonously bigotted anti-Islam rhetoric that comes out of the mouths and pens of the fundamentalist Christian zealots and Zionist ideologues who dominate the Bush administration and are its most ardent supporters to know that they see Islam as the enemy. All you have to do is observe their actions to confirm it.
    “A considerable number of Muslims see them as inseparable.”
    How many is a “considerable number”? What percentage? How do you know this?
    I am sick and tired of hearing even very decent people making excuse after excuse after excuse. Sabah al khayr, ya Mustafa. Boker tove Eliahu. Wake up and smell the coffee, George.

17. Concepts are (like) words: they are loaded with emotional meaning. Not to know the difference in emotional meaning for religious people between bible, koran, or whatever one’s holy book is called , and that of a symbol of statehood like the flag, is pretty amazing, I have to say.

18. 
    ..Newsweek retracted the part of the story that had to do with whether the U.S. government knew about the Koran flushing incidents, but not about the actual incidents, themselves
    

    This is because the original Newsweek story
    only reported US government acknowledgement, not the “Actual incident” stories. They could only retract what they had reported, no more. So the failure to retract the “Actual incident” does not mean that Newsweek is saying the incidents occurred.
    When I said “We have been experiencing” I was using “We” to refer to humanity as a whole.
    …this kind of thing goes on…
    “This kind of thing” is still not torture as we usually think of it. The Geneva Conventions do not apply legally as the NGO’s that the US is fighting are not signatories to it. It seems clear from the body of reporting as a whole that a lot of “Personal stress” and psycho-sexual stress is being used by the US on detainees.
    So far, I am not so much outraged but am extremely skeptical. I suppose it could be true that the need to get prisoners to talk outweighs the harm done by freaking out the prisoners in this bizarre manner — but I doubt it. In any case, I think the victims will fully recover.
    I think you will admit that the US is not chopping peoples heads off (and publishing the videos).
    I did not use the phrase “A few bad apples” nor did my discussion of mismanagement excuse anybody at any level. Mis-management and mis-policy are practically synonomous terms. I did add some emphasis on that layer of the bureaucracy made up of prison and corrections professionals.
    The Bush administration is not spouting anti-Islamic rhetoric, by and large. It is actually pretty supportive of Islam. I don’t know how sincere it is. Are governments ever sincere about this stuff?
    To be clear, the US is at war with military Jihad (as opposed to self-struggle Jihad) and is also at war in Iraq. The Bush administration settled on regime change in Iraq before it decided on the war on military Jihad (also called the “War on Terror”) and used the WOT, among other things, to go to war in Iraq. The two wars have now merged somewhat. The reasons the Bush administration settled on regime change in Iraq have not been satisfactorily resolved, although we do know that the Clinton administration stated a similar policy on Iraq, but did not invade.
    The US military has announced prosecution of the killers of several innocents in Afghanistan, including a taxi driver. This is outrageous, is clearly not US policy, and clearly requires improvement at the level of professional prison management. The perpetrators were people who should never have been employed in a prison.

19. “This kind of thing” is still not torture as we usually think of it. The Geneva Conventions do not apply legally as the NGO’s that the US is fighting are not signatories to it… In any case, I think the victims will fully recover.
    Warren, I have no idea what your knowledge base is. But the Fourth Geneva Convention specifically applies to the legal protection of the civilian population of territories under military occupation. Many, or even by some accounts, the vast majority, of the Iraqis being held in US detention camps are civilians who were not detained under any circumstance of their being combatants.
    Many of the actions that we know US forces have committed in Iraqi detention centers, Afghan detention centers, Gitmo, and elsewhere clearly fall under the definitions of ill-treatment explicitly prohibited in the International Convention Against Torture…
    And then, what basis do you have for your assertion that “the victims will fully recover”? Oh yes, I see: “I think”. Doesn’t seem terribly scientific to me.
    In the early 1980s, I was briefly close to someone who had been tortured in Egypt 25 years earlier. Let me assure he had not fully recovered from that.
    (Oh, and yes, let’s not forget that the Egyptians are now doing it on contract for the US…)

20. Thanks Vivion for your words and your help with my homework. I am not quite sure what Salah is trying to tell me, whether he is trying to define what I am and what my symbols should be, or if he is making the point that some national flags are indeed religious symbols.
    As for Shirin’s distinction between a book, a holy book, and a flag symbol, I do not get it. You define what is holy to you but please don’t tell me if mine should be a book or a stuffed animal. The reason they burn my flag is exactly because they know it is my dearest symbol. They burn it on TV, they chant, they dance.
    As for desecration precedents Shirin, the Jordano/Palestinians hold the olympic record with their desecration of the cemeteries in Jerusalem (pre state of Israel, mind you) using Jewish tombstones for construction.
    David

21. David knows no difference between a book and a symbol.
    He is a perfect post-modernist.
    Is he ready to fight like a crusader to make the rest of us into post-modernists?
    I’m afraid he is.

22. Some burn flags. Some grab land. Aren’t some symbols dearer than others ?

23. Land is not a symbol.

24. “the failure to retract the “Actual incident” does not mean that Newsweek is saying the incidents occurred.”
    Utterly irrelevant. The likelihood is very high that the specific incident reported in Newsweek is real. Whether it is or not WE KNOW from multiple reports from multiple sources that desecration of the Qur’an, including throwing it into toilets, is one of the techniques regularly used against Muslim prisoners and detainess.
    “ ‘This kind of thing’ is still not torture as we usually think of it.”
    Who is “we”, and in any case, so what?
    “The Geneva Conventions do not apply legally as the NGO’s that the US is fighting are not signatories to it.”
    That is arguable, but it is hardly critical. We don’t need the Geneva Conventions to apply, because The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the United States most definitely IS a signatory, DOES most definitely apply, and these things are, without any question whatsoever, violations. It is also a violation of the Convention Against Torture. And it is, if used on any of the children we know they are holding in those places, a violation of the Convention on the rights of the child. Hopefully that is enough to satisfy you that it is, whether it is torture as “we” usually think of it.
    “It seems clear from the body of reporting as a whole that a lot of “Personal stress” and psycho-sexual stress is being used by the US on detainees.”
    There is no doubt from the body of evidence as a whole that a lot of violations of international human rights law are being committed by the US as a matter of official policy.
    “In any case, I think the victims will fully recover.”
    “I hope for your sake that you never find out by personal experience how very, very, very wrong you are.”
    “I think you will admit that the US is not chopping peoples heads off (and publishing the videos).”
    So you evaluate your government’s actions based on its position in the race to the bottom.
    One does wonder, however, how blowing people away with heavy weaponry (and publishing the pictures – e.g. the obscene photos of Saddam’s sons), or beating them to death (and publishing the photos) or torturing them (and publishing the photos), or smearing them with excrement and making them walk naked (and publishing the photos), or…or…or… makes one morally superior to anyone else.
    “I did not use the phrase “A few bad apples” nor did my discussion of mismanagement excuse anybody at any level.”
    Calling it “mismanagement” is a way of minimizing it just as is attributing it to “a few bad apples”.
    Mis-management and mis-policy are practically synonomous terms.”
    Oh, please! “mis-policy”? Give us a break, will you?
    “I did add some emphasis on that layer of the bureaucracy made up of prison and corrections professionals.”
    We are talking here about government policy formulated and approved at the highest levels.
    “The Bush administration is not spouting anti-Islamic rhetoric, by and large.”
    Is that supposed to make us feel better about all their anti-Islamic policies and actions?
    “It is actually pretty supportive of Islam.”
    On the contrary.
    “I don’t know how sincere it is. Are governments ever sincere about this stuff?”
    Actions speak.
    “To be clear, the US is at war with military Jihad (as opposed to self-struggle Jihad) and is also at war in Iraq.”
    The Bush administration has used the actions of a handful of criminals, who are to Islam what the Ku Klux Klan is to Christianity, as an excuse for its own acts of aggression.
    “The US military has announced prosecution of the killers of several innocents in Afghanistan, including a taxi driver. This is outrageous, is clearly not US policy, and clearly requires improvement at the level of professional prison management.”
    It is a direct result of Bush administratin policy – a policy which is criminal at every single level and in every single aspect from is conception to its execution.

25. Help. What is a post-modernist? Is it related to art? Was Dominic’s an insult or a compliment?
    David

26. DEar David,
    I’m sorry, I have come close to corrupting an innocent. Therefore stop. Don’t go near Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard, Althusser or any of them, with their signs and signifiers. Just go past them.
    You don’t need to plod through that vale of tears, because rational enlightenment is back, I am very happy to report.
    For an up to date view from Meera Nanda go to http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/vedic_science_Mira.htm . (note that it is two parts).
    Helena, you might like it, too.

27. Followup to my comments to Warren W.:
    “‘This kind of thing’ is still not torture as we usually think of it.”
    And how DO “we” usually think of torture? Do “we” recognize the existence of psychological torture?
    “It seems clear from the body of reporting as a whole that a lot of “Personal stress” and psycho-sexual stress is being used by the US on detaineesby the US as a matter of official policy.”
    Some of us call it psychological torture. The purpose of psychological torture is to cause the victim to lose his sense of identity, and to cause personality of the victim to disintegrate. Sometimes it will disintigrate entirely. The effects of psychological torture include memory impairment, nightmares, hallucinations, acute stress disorder and severe depression with vegetative symptoms.
    “In any case, I think the victims will fully recover.”
    Do you think the same thing about U.S. troops with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome? What about U.S. victims of kidnappers in Iraq who suffer psychological effects from being kidnapped and held and threatened with a horrible death for days or weeks or months at a time? Are you as sure that they will fully recover?
    

28. Two Arabs are sitting in a dentist’s office, perusing a stack of magazines spread out on a coffee table.
    Mohammed: “Hey, Abdul, it says here in Newsweek that Americans flushed a Koran down the toilet.”
    Abdul: “Whoah, that really pisses me off! What does it say in Time?”
    Mohammed: “Uh, nothing in Time.”
    Abdul: “Business Week?”
    Mohammed: “Mmm, nope.”
    Abdul: “Well, Newsweek is really my most trusted news source. We better riot.”
    Mohammed: “Allah Akbar! God is great! Kill the Infidel!”
    A few days later…
    Mohammed: “Hey, Abdul – Newsweek just retracted that story about the Americans flushing a Koran down the toilet.”
    Abdul smacks himself in the forehead. “D’oh!”
    Then: “Hey you guys! Call off the riot! Newsweek retracted the story! I guess it wasn’t true.”
    Shouts ring out across the public square. “Everything’s OK! They didn’t flush the Koran!”
    “Praise Allah!”
    “Their anonymous source can’t remember if he read it in a report or not!”
    “There is No God But God!”
    “The Americans are only trying to spread democracy! What were we thinking?”
    “Yeah! Why would they flush a Koran down the toilet? It makes no sense!”
    “Perhaps we will find out more about it in next week’s issue of Newsweek!”
    Satisfied, the Arabs go home and live happily ever after, eagerly awaiting each new issue of their favorite glossy newsmagazine and the arrival of democracy.

29. Thanks Dominic for warning me, I’ll follow your advice and try to stay away from any frenchman with signs. Althusser doesn’t sound French, wasn’t he a striker with Bayern Munchen?
    Now I realize it was a compliment, thanks Domininc, I’ll try to pay you in kind when I come up with a suitable designation.
    David

30. Allow me to lighten things up for a moment with a strictly pedantic note:
    Althusser wasn’t a postmodernist, he was a Marxist who also borrowed from Levi-Strauss and was influenced somewhat by Lacan. I think he would have seen what we are talking about in those terms. And David, you can feel safe around signs and signifiers because they come to us most recently courtesy of Saussure, who predates post-modernists (nee post-structuralists) by more than a generation. He *was* French, though; I don’t know how that affects Dominic’s original warning.

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