The Newsweek article referencing the desecration of a Koran at Guantánamo Bay is not the cause of anti-Americanism in the middle east.
The chorus of demands for closing the camp intensified Friday when Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a longtime opponent of apartheid rule in South Africa, said in a British radio interview: "I never imagined I would live to see the day when the United States and its satellites would use precisely the same arguments that the apartheid government used for detention without trial. It is disgraceful."

He added, "One cannot find strong enough words to condemn what Britain and the United States and some of their allies have accepted."
Source: "Blair Calls Camp in Cuba an 'Anomaly'" By ALAN COWELL - NY Times - February 18, 2006



To imply that one statement in one article in one American magazine could be the sole cause of riots in Afghanistan that have resulted in (so far) 17 deaths is absurd. Blaming this article for anti-Americanism in the middle east is like blaming a rooster for the sunrise.

The real reasons for anti-Americanism in the middle east of course go much deeper. In general, they include the policies of the Bush administration, including the invasion of Iraq and its unquestioned alliance with Israel and its policies. They also include the continuing exploitation of the middle east and its people in order to satisfy our gluttonous appetite for oil.

Beyond these general, long-term reasons for anti-Americanism in the middle east, there are the many, recurring specific accounts of torture at a myriad of detention facilities run by the U.S. and its allies. It is time for Americans to face the fact that our military and our government have engaged in widespread, systematic torture of detainees, both in the middle east and at various other detention facilities, including Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Many of these detainees were caught in broad round-ups and were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As their stories continue to filter back into the general populations, the ramifications of these atrocities will continue to ignite increasingly violent anti-Americanism in the middle east.

The Newsweek article may have triggered this latest round, but it is far from the underlying cause of the riots.


The irony is that the U.S. corporate news media deserve harsh criticism for coverage of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- not for possibly getting one fact wrong, but for failing to consistently challenge the illegality of both wars and the various distortions and lies that the Bush administration has used to mobilize support for those illegal wars.
Source: "The media ate my homework" by Robert Jensen and Pat Youngblood - workingforchange.com - 5/18/05



The Bush Administration, in its campaign to eliminate democratic accountability, has consistently sought to undermine already faltering public confidence in the media, thereby further weakening the press's ability to fulfill its essential role in our delicate system of checks and balances. The jihad against Newsweek, like that against Dan Rather and others, seizes upon honest media mistakes to discredit the very idea of neutral, reality-based reporting. The longer the mainstream media fail to awaken to this unhappy reality, the greater will be our collective impotence when they finally realize it's time to fight back. For that reason--and despite its error--Newsweek's fight is our fight too.
Source: "In Re Newsweek: Which Side Are You On?" by Eric Alterman - The Nation - June 2, 2005





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Comments Contributor Date Submitted
I am saddened that Newsweek has cowered before the Bush administration over this. The tiny blurb was read by the State Dept. and approved! Now, they have a chance to bash more of the "liberal media." The military officers in charge in Afganistan have said the article wasn't the catalyst for the latest round of riots, but the Bushies are ignoring that. Linda
Denton
5/18/2005

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3/28/2024

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