Newsweek published a story last week centering on Guantanamo and American treatment of Muslim prisoners and detainees. One item in the story alleged that American interrogators had specifically desecrated the Koran as part of their interrogations. Newsweek subsequently apologized for that part of their article, and have now retracted it, deciding it was not well grounded, let alone clearly documented. Before any reconsideration, however, violence broke out in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the alleged insult, people lost their lives, and American soldiers were involved in at least some of what happened. As part of the opprobrium being heaped on Newsweek, is a charge that they had excited violence against innocents, and endangered, or worse, American men and women serving in the field. Newsweek has stated it accepts at least some responsibility for the violence. This is despite the fact that the story as a whole affirmed what had already been voluminously established by government investigations. Disrespect for the Koran was absolutely consistent with a well documented strategy of insulting and outraging the sensibilities and mores of Muslims on the theory it would help break them down for interrogators. In the media history of this whole Iraqi imbroglio, little has enraged me more than the utter, unbelievable hypocrisy of the assault on Newsweek. From the moment it began to break over a year ago, the story of American mistreatment of Muslim prisoners and detainees clearly and unequivocally held the capacity to excite violence against our troops in the field. From that day to this, until a chance to lay this possibility at the feet of an irresponsible liberal press (out to get Bush!), I recall not one word uttered in the media = center, right or left - on the dangers Abu Ghraib et al represented for the young men and women serving in our armed forces. In reaction, I have recast a piece I put up here last fall. Besides obvious adjustments, I have also attempted to make more clear than it was in the original just what General Tuguba alleged, as opposed to where my own strong feeling took things. I think it remains reasonably clear there where my anger took over, but it will be better demarcated here: It is now widely documented that the question (Abu Ghraib et al) first surfaced in November of 2003 in a report presented by the International Red Cross to American officials. In that report the IRC disclosed serious possible violations of international agreements and standards with regard to the treatment of prisoners and detainees. The merest hint of these things should have caused the American government to react like it had been hit with a hot poker. The capacity of such matters to undermine everything we stand for as a nation, everything we are attempting to achieve in that area of the world, and to paint bulls-eyes on the backs of our serving men and women is so clearly apparent that anything other than the most vigorous response is unconscionable. Yet, as the questions raised by the IRC began to work their way through various bureaucracies, all the administration could do was retreat into process. What it should have done, at that first glimmer of trouble, was to have gone before the American people and the world with a statement like the following: “Disturbing rumors have come to our attention that there have been violations of important agreements relating to the handling of prisoners. While we are investigating, and have no desire to institute kangaroo court proceedings against anyone, we want it understood that the American government and this administration unequivocally condemns any and all such violations in the most emphatic terms. Anyone participating in such actions as have been alleged, and anyone found to have been complicit, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We understand the damage this could do to American interests in the Middle East and around the world, and the risks it presents to our serving men and women in the field to be a National Security matter of the greatest importance. For those reasons, we urge anyone with any relevant knowledge to come forward with their evidence. It will be considered by this government and this administration to be an act of the highest patriotism, one urgently required by the safety and well-being of our troops in the field, who are all too likely to fall victim to acts of revenge and madness such behaviors as have been alleged can excite.” Statements such as that by the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General in the highest profile arenas, and repeated all along the chain of command were an absolute requirement for a responsible government. And what we got was process. Even as the first fruits of that process, the report of General Anthony M. Tuguba, began to circulate in official circles in January and February of 2004, there was no reaction by the administration. Despite the fact that Tuguba explcitly validated the rumors, and stated that the evidence supported a contention that the abuses were “systemic”. The inference is that what happened might not be the result of a “few bad apples”, but of laxity and confusion all along the chain of command - laxity and confusion, sown from the top, and lethal to American interests and the lives of our men and women in the field. All the subsequent investigatory evidence that has come to light validates Tuguba’s initial proposal that the evidence supported “systemic” failure. Only when the photographs began to appear (Seymour Hersh published a couple of them in the New Yorker with his initial article on Abu Ghraib), did the administration begin to address the question openly. Then it retreated right back into “process”. A Washington Post editorial last fall pointed out, as the subsequent “process” began to detail “systemic” problems, the administration continued to try to sweep it all under the rug. And to this point, it has been amazingly successful. The failure was nearly irredeemable after we failed to react immediately as proposed above, but such a reaction at any time could be presumed to allay at least some of the animosity directed at our troops, and perhaps some of the furies to which they have fallen prey. Process alone will not do, nor will sweeping the matter under rug, which has largely been accomplished. Such statements as the administration has made have been few and far between, and of little impact. Combine that with no substantive deeds respecting laxity and confusion in the chain of command, now definitively documented, and you define failure, both practical and moral, beyond toleration. Message was edited by: ronr327