Ever since Newsweak magazine published an article on May 9 about alleged abuses at Guantanamo Bay, specifically the desecration of a Koran, the Muslim world has been protesting the US. Afghanistan has been rocked by protests and violence. So far 16 people have been killed and more than 100 injured.
And now Newsweak comes out, on May 15, and says they got it wrong. The desecration of the Koran by US troops at Guantanamo never happened.
What more could Newsweak possibly do to damage the US and put our troops in a more difficult situation? How would you like to be a 19 year old American GI in Afghanistan this morning? Is it any wonder why people question the motives of the mainstream media? South Park Conservatives is a book about this very subject. The subtitle, The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias
John Steel Gordon is a best selling author of a number of books about Wall Street and American capitalism. He is also, apparently, a frequent reader of Powerline. Here is what he sent the guys at Powerline regarding this Newsweak mess,
Liberal MSM magazine finds marginally credible story that makes the military
(and Bush Administration) look bad and rushes into print with it without any
consideration of the possible consequences. So what else is new?What I find most interesting is that Newsweek insists on spelling the name of the holy book of Islam “Qur’an” despite the fact that there has been a perfectly good word for it in use in the English language (“Koran”) since 1625. “Qur’an” is a
transliteration of the Arabic word for the Koran (although my dictionary says
there should be a long vowel mark over the A–but, since I don’t speak Arabic, I
will have to take its word for it). So using Qur’an instead of Koran is like
using “Athina” for “Athens” of “Moskva” for “Moscow.” In other words, political
correctness run amok.I think the apostrophe–utterly meaningless in an
English-language context–is a particularly nice touch of cultural pandering.
Interesting observation indeed.
Instapundit on Newsweak,
People died, and U.S. military and diplomatic efforts were damaged, because
— let’s be clear here — Newsweek was too anxious to get out a story that would
make the Bush Administration and the military look bad.