Shooting The Messenger

If there is a political playbook for right-wing conservatives these days, itno doubt begins, "Step #1: Whenever possible, blame the news media."
 
What to do if the U.S. invasions/occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq havesparked resistance in those countries because people generally don’t likebeing occupied by a foreign power that has interests in exploiting theirresources and/or geopolitical value? Blame journalists.
 
That’s exactly what the Bush administration and its rhetorical attack dogs aredoing with the "scandal" over Newsweek’s story on the desecration of theQuran at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo.
 
In a short item in its May 9 issue, Newsweek reported that U.S. militaryinvestigators had found evidence that U.S. guards had flushed a copy of theQuran down a toilet to try to provoke prisoners. This week, the magazineretracted, saying not that editors knew for sure that such an incident didn’thappen but that, "Based on what we know now, we are retracting our originalstory that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse atGuantanamo Bay."
 
Meanwhile, after the original story ran, Afghan and U.S. forces fired ondemonstrators in Afghanistan, killing at least 14 and injuring many others.
 
The conventional wisdom emerged quickly: Newsweek got it wrong, and Newsweek isto 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 haveplaced copies of the Quran on a toilet or thrown pages (or a whole Quran) into atoilet. Detainees have made such claims, which have been reported by attorneysrepresenting some of the men in custody and denied by U.S. officials.Newsweek’s retraction is ambiguous, suggesting they believe the incident mayhave happened but no longer can demonstrate that it was cited in the specificU.S. government documents, as originally reported.
 
Given the abuse and torture -- from sexual humiliation to beatings to criminalhomicide -- that has gone on in various U.S. military prison facilities, it’snot hard to believe that the Quran stories could be true. Given that last monthU.S. officials pressured the United Nations to eliminate the job of its tophuman-rights investigator in Afghanistan after that official criticizedviolations by U.S. forces in the country, it’s not hard to be skeptical aboutU.S. motives. And given that even the human-rights commission of the generallycompliant 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 ifyou go on a popular right-wing web site, you’ll find the verdict thatadministration supporters are trying to make the final word: "Newsweek lied,people died."
 
Yes, people died during demonstrations, and political leaders in the Muslimworld have cited the Quran stories to spark anti-U.S. feeling. But reportersoutside the United States have pointed out that these demonstrations have notbeen spontaneous but were well-organized, often by groups of students. Thefrustration with U.S. policy that fuels these demonstrations isn’t limited tothe Quran incident, and to reduce the unrest to one magazine story ismisleading. 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 tothe article in the magazine."
 
So, why the focus on the Newsweek story? It’s part of the tried-and-truestrategy of demonize, disguise, and divert. Demonize the news media to disguisethe real causes of the resistance to occupation and divert attention from failedU.S. policies.
 
The irony is that the U.S. corporate news media deserve harsh criticism forcoverage of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- not for possibly gettingone fact wrong, but for failing to consistently challenge the illegality of bothwars and the various distortions and lies that the Bush administration has usedto mobilize support for those illegal wars.
 
We should hold the news media accountable when they fail. But we should defendjournalists when they are used by political partisans who are eager to obscuretheir own failures.
 
 
Robert Jensen is on the board and Pat Youngblood is coordinator of the ThirdCoast Activist Resource Center in Austin, TX (http://thirdcoastactivist.org/).They can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.eduand pat@thirdcoastactivist.org.