Harvey wrote:

"Branson Hunter" <branson@xspam.net> wrote in message
news:3olk81lcceaagl3luk043m1m7j6c77lusq@4ax.com...

On Tue, 17 May 2005 06:47:26 -0700, Jafo <a@nospam.invalid> wrote:

As viewed from alt.california, Stan de SD wrote:

"grinder" wrote...

"bad intelligence." Hmmmm. Where have I heard that before.

Dan Rather?

Cold, Stan. Cold. :-D

Go ahead, piffle Stan with an atta boy and an extra stroke. But...

It's interesting to observe that many posters have weigh in on the
bigger issue relating to the Newsweek article. And the resounding
buzz indicate people are absolutely exasperated and clearly
unwilling
to put up any longer with the lies coming out of this neocon
Administration. Their amnesty is over.

There is definitely more to this story that what appears on its
surface. And it has yet to unravel. For example: From where did
the
tip originate... Who was the "deep throat"... Why did the leaker
reneged at the last minute... Who stopped deep throat... Did
someone
pay him off... The facts will come out. Newsweek had to retract
the
story -- but that doesn't mean the story doesn't have legs, or
wasn't
true. Either the story was a plant, or deep throat was discovered
and
he had to tell Newsweek to kill it.

Could be. Meantime you have people insisting it's true without
evidence,

Let's see, we now know that Bush was looking to legalize torture due
to
the Alberto Gonzalez memo... which IS evidence.

We have photos of abuse thanks to Abu Ghirab which included dogs,
beatings (including a murder), sexual play, etc.

We have evidence that the Bush regime had "ghost" detainees who were
kept off the books.

Etc. etc. etc.

Plenty of evidence that you sickos broke the law every which way you
could in shocking, perverted ways.

But in spite of numerous testimony to the fact and even a Pentagon
admission that such testimony exists, we're supposed to believe they
didn't go *THAT* far.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrright.

LOL

Pull the other leg, you might have better luck.

=======================================================================
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1485636,00.html

But Newsweek also insisted that the abuse claim was true in substance,
citing several former Guantánamo detainees who say US officials
repeatedly dishonoured the Qur'an.
=======================================================================

Newsweek apology fails to cool Qur'an anger
Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Tuesday May 17, 2005
The Guardian

Newsweek's apology for its controversial Qur'an desecration story was
greeted with scepticism and scorn both at home in the US and across
the
Muslim world yesterday.

From the White House to remote Afghan hamlets, critics responded

furiously to the magazine's initial admission that it had been wrong
to
claim US officials discovered that interrogators in Guantánamo Bay had
flushed a copy of the Qur'an down the toilet.

Following criticisms yesterday from the White House and the US
secretary
of state, Condoleezza Rice, Newsweek made a full retraction of the
story.

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that
an
internal military investigation had uncovered Qur'an abuse at
Guantanamo
Bay," the editor, Mark Whitaker, said in a statement.

In Afghanistan, where the 200-word story sparked riots that left 17
dead
and more than 100 injured, many Muslims said the apology smacked of a
US
government cover-up.

"We will not be deceived by this [retraction]," said Mullah Sadullah
Abu
Aman, one of a group of clerics who threatened on Sunday to wage a
holy
war against the US for the alleged abuse.

"This [decision] comes because of American pressure. Even an ordinary
illiterate peasant understands that and won't accept it," he told
Reuters.

A spokesman for the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, expressed "in the
strongest terms our disapproval of Newsweek's approach to reporting,
which allowed them to run the story without proper examination
beforehand".

Anti-American militants, who gained political capital from the
protests,
also rejected the mea culpa. "Newsweek is changing its story because
of
pressure from the US government," said a Taliban spokesman, Abdul
Latif
Hakimi.

In Pakistan, officials reiterated a call by President Pervez Musharraf
for the US to mete out "exemplary" punishment to the alleged culprits.

"We have asked for a thorough investigation conducted by the US
administration and we would expect the results of the official
investigation to be shared with us," said a foreign ministry
spokesman.

A powerful Islamic political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, said it was going
ahead with street protests planned for May 27.

Newsweek said it was let down by an anonymous US government source who
falsely claimed an inquiry into abuse at Guantánamo Bay found that a
Muslim holy book was dropped into a toilet.

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our
sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in
its midst," wrote Whitaker.

But Newsweek also insisted that the abuse claim was true in substance,
citing several former Guantánamo detainees who say US officials
repeatedly dishonoured the Qur'an.

Although the Pentagon insists the story is untrue, the US military in
Afghanistan said it would continue a full investigation into the
claims.

Ms Rice said the story had harmed American efforts to earn goodwill in
the Muslim world. "It's appalling that this story got out there," she
said.

"The report has had serious consequences," said White House spokesman
Scott McClellan. "People have lost their lives. The image of the
United
States abroad has been damaged."

Imran Khan, the cricket legend who first drew attention to the Qur'an
story, said: "This will not die down unless the US isolates itself
from
these abuses against our religion."

He told the Guardian:"It's not good enough to say Islam is a peaceful
religion and they are only after terrorists. They must show respect."

The reaction has highlighted a cultural gap. In Pakistan and
Afghanistan
destruction of the Qur'an is seen as blasphemous and punishable by
death. In the US, destruction of any religious text is a
constitutional
right.

==================

http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive/2005/May/13-299433.html

Afghan Riots Not Tied to Report on Quran Handling, General Says
Army investigating allegations of mishandling at Guantanamo Bay
facility

By Jacquelyn S. Porth
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington - The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says a
report from Afghanistan suggests that rioting in Jalalabad on May 11
was
not necessarily connected to press reports that the Quran might have
been desecrated in the presence of Muslim prisoners held in U.S.
custody
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Air Force General Richard Myers told reporters at the Pentagon May 12
that he has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was
related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in
Afghanistan than anything else.

According to initial reports, the situation in Jalalabad began on May
10
with peaceful student protests reacting to a report in Newsweek
magazine
that U.S. military interrogators questioning Muslim detainees at the
Guantanamo detention center "had placed Quran s on toilets, and in at
least one case flushed a holy book." By the following day the
protests
in the city had turned violent with reports of several individuals
killed, dozens wounded, and widespread looting of government,
diplomatic
and nongovernmental assets.

However, Myers said an after-action report provided by U.S. Army
Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, commander of the Combined Forces
in
Afghanistan, indicated that the political violence was not, in fact,
connected to the magazine report.

Meanwhile, Myers said the U.S. military has assigned Army General
Bantz
Craddock to investigate allegations about the handling of the Quran at
Guantanamo. Craddock brings the full weight of his responsibility as
commander of the U.S. Southern Command to this effort.

Myers said the International Committee of the Red Cross has approved
the
edition of the Quran that has been distributed to Muslim detainees in
Guantanamo. Craddock has been investigating the claim that proper
respect was not given to the Koran. There are now some 550 enemy
combatants at the military installation, which is designed to isolate
individuals whom the military has identified as likely to have
valuable
intelligence about international terrorism.

Craddock and his team have examined the prisoner interrogation logs
and
Myers said "they cannot confirm yet" that there ever was a case of a
U.S. interrogator flushing a Quran down the toilet. He did say there
is
another unconfirmed log reference to a guard report that a detainee
tore
pages from the Quran and flushed them in an attempt to flood the
holding area as a form of protest.

Myers answered questions about the alleged Quran incident on the same
day that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice addressed the issue
during
an appearance before the House International Relations Committee.

She said disrespect for the Quran will never be tolerated by the
United
States and such disrespect "is abhorrent to us all." Pakistan has
voiced its concerns about the alleged incident, and Rice said the
United
States understands and shares the concerns of its Muslim friends. She
went on to voice this request: "I am asking that all our friends
around
the world reject incitement to violence by those who would
mischaracterize our intentions." (See related article.)

INSURGENCY SEEKS TO DISCREDIT NEW IRAQI CABINET, MYERS SAYS

At the Pentagon, Myers was also questioned closely about the increase
in
violence in Iraq in recent weeks. He acknowledged that there has been
"a spike in violence in early May," but he said this is to be expected
given the "very violent insurgency" that is under way in that country.

The insurgency's use of a variety of roadside and car bombs has been
difficult to thwart, the general said. He also noted the difficulty
of
sealing Iraq's borders against infiltrators. On this "we need
cooperation from Iraq's neighbors" -- an issue that is being pursued
vigorously, Myers said.

Most insurgencies have a lifespan of three to nine years, Myers said,
and addressing them militarily requires patience. In this case, the
insurgents are out to discredit the newly formed Iraqi Cabinet, he
said.

Myers made his remarks during an appearance with Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld and other senior military and civilian officials to talk
about
the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure recommendations, which will be
formally unveiled May 13.

==========================

And just to annoy the f@ggot ;^) Ms. Clay

http://rawstory.com/exclusives/newsweek_koran_report_516.htm

Newsweek report on Quran confirmed by earlier accounts
RAW STORY

Contrary to White House spin, the allegations of religious desecration
at Guantanamo published by Newsweek May 6 are common among
ex-prisoners
and have been widely reported outside the United States, RAW STORY has
learned.
Advertisement
Several former detainees at the Guantanamo and Bagram airbase prisons
have reported instances of their handlers sitting or standing on the
Quran, throwing or kicking it in toilets, and urinating on it.

If the Newsweek report erred, it was perhaps in saying that the U.S.
was
slated to acknowledge desecrating the Quran in internal
investigations.
But reports of desecration are manifold.

One such incident prompted a hunger strike among Guantanamo detainees
in
Mar. 2002 that led to an apology. The New York Times interviewed
former
detainee Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi May 1, who said the protest
ended
with a senior officer delivering an apology to the entire camp.

"A former interrogator at Guantanamo, in an interview with the Times,
confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public
expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans," Times
reporters
Neil A. Lewis and Eric Schmitt wrote in "Inquiry Finds Abuses at
Guantanamo Bay."

The hunger strike and apology story was also confirmed by another
former
detainee, Shafiq Rasul, interviewed by the UK Guardian in 2003 (James
Meek, "The people the law forgot," Guardian, Dec. 3, 2003) It was also
confirmed by former prisoner Jamal al-Harith in an interview with the
Daily Mirror (Rosa Prince and Gary Jones, "My Hell in Camp X-ray World
Exclusive," Daily Mirror, Mar. 12, 2004).

The toilet incident was reported in the Washington Post in a 2003
interview with a former detainee from Afghanistan:

"Ehsannullah, 29, said American soldiers who initially questioned him
in
Kandahar before shipping him to Guantanamo hit him and taunted him by
dumping the Koran in a toilet. 'It was a very bad situation for us,'
said Ehsannullah, who comes from the home region of the Taliban
leader,
Mohammad Omar. 'We cried so much and shouted, Please do not do that to
the Holy Koran.' (Marc Kaufman and April Witt, "Out of Legal Limbo,
Some
Tell of Mistreatment," Washington Post, Mar. 26, 2003.)

Also citing the toilet incident is testimony by Asif Iqbal, a former
Guatanamo detainee who was released to British custody in Mar. 2004
and
subsequently freed without charge:

"The behaviour of the guards towards our religious practices as well
as
the Koran was also, in my view, designed to cause us as much distress
as
possible. They would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet and
generally disrespect it." (Center for Constitution Rights, Detention
in
Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, (Aug. 4, 2004, deposition available
here.)

The claim that US troops at Bagram airbase prison in Afghanistan
urinated on the Koran was made by former detainee Mohamed Mazouz, a
Moroccan, as reported in the Moroccan newspaper, La Gazette du Maroc.
(Abdelhak Najib, "Les Américains pissaient sur le Coran et abusaient
de
nous sexuellement", Apr. 11, 2005). An English translation is
available
on the Cage Prisoners web site (which describes itself as a
"non-sectarian Islamic human rights website"):
http://www.cageprisoners.com/print.php?id=6862

Tarek Derghoul, another of the British detainees, similarly cites
instances of Koran desecration in an interview with Cageprisoners.com,
available at: http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=1611

Desecration of the Koran was also mentioned by former Guantanamo
detainee Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost and reported by the BBC in early May
2005. (Haroon Rashid, "Ex-inmates share Guantanamo ordeal," May 2,
2005).

even *because* there isn't any evidence. Conspiracy theory twinkies
are
already coming out of the woodwork. Might be hard to hear the truth
amidst all the clamor of x-files idiots yakking up "the Truth."

Not that I mind all that, of course. Nothing better than an idiotic
lefty conspiracy theory android staggering about in tight circles,
with
waving arms and "Warning, Dr. Smith! Danger, Will Robinson!"

Branson
"At the time I did (Star Wars], it was during the Vietnam War
and the Nixon era. The issue was: How does a democracy
turn itself over to a dictator? How does a dictator
take over. Now it's how does a democracy and Senate give it
away?"
-- George Lucas

--
The Neo Conservative movement in the Republican party was founded
ideologically by Leo Strauss, a "man" who believed that saving his
cowboy image for America was more important than truth or honesty.
Since
their inception they have invented imaginary threats to America such
as
Rumsfeld's overblown image of the USSR up to Saddam's non existent
WMDs.
The story is deeper, far deeper than I have written here in this sig
file. Check out this three part documentary by the BBC to learn more
about it.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm

http://www.theocracywatch.org/

As viewed from alt.california, Brandon K. Montoya wrote:

Either it was a Rovian plant or what you outlined.

Better call Scully and Mulder.

From the White House to remote Afghan hamlets, critics responded