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Name: Antony Loewenstein
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Friday, May 20, 2005

Cowardice award

The Newsweek controversy. Left and right wingers are using the so-called stuff-up of the establishment mouthpiece to prove their respective points. Tiresome, mostly. The key issues have been ignored and it's taken muckraker extraordinaire Greg Palast to lay some facts on the table:

"It's appalling that this story got out there," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on her way back from Iraq. What's NOT appalling to Condi is that the US is holding prisoners at Guantanamo under conditions termed "torture" by the Red Cross. What's not appalling to Condi is that prisoners of the Afghan war are held in violation of international law after that conflict has supposedly ended. What is NOT appalling to Condi is that prisoner witnesses have reported several instances of the Koran's desecration. What is appalling to her is that these things were REPORTED."

"Newsweek has now publicly committed to having its reports vetted by Rumsfeld's Defense Department before publication. Why not just print Rumsfeld's press releases and eliminate the middleman, the reporter?"

The reluctance of the American media to investigate allegations of abuse in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay has been explained. God forbid an editor or journalist discovers something shocking, what individual, other than the bravest, will want to be chastised by Bush and his cronies?

I would have thought it was a badge of honour to expose the duplicity of the current regime and its client states. Thankfully, some people still think so.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

eh, Tony:

The leaked Red Cross document used the term "tantamount to torture," which in essence means that torture it wasn't.

If what was at issue there was clearly torture, then certainly the ICRC wouldn't have watered down its memo by the use of the term "tantamount."

For someone who blathers on so tediously about accuracy in media, you play pretty loose and fast yourself

Friday, May 20, 2005 5:32:00 pm  
Blogger Antony Loewenstein said...

Jesus, ok, the RC said tantamount. There have been other reports about Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo that talk about outright torture.
Besides, you comfortable with "tantamount to torture" are you? Not that fussed that the vast majority of so-called intelligence gleaned from such sessions have been said, by the US, to be useless?
Keep on defending on the buggers, it's admirable...

Friday, May 20, 2005 6:01:00 pm  
Blogger Antony Loewenstein said...

For more info on US activity/crimes in Afghanistan, read today's NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?th&emc=th

Try and spin this....

Friday, May 20, 2005 6:04:00 pm  

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