Time for Operation: Backfire-make the Newsweek story backfire on WH

[DesEtoiles]

OPERATION: BACKFIRE

Simple theory:

Why is Newsweek held to a higher standard than the White House?

And we can tie it into the Downing Street Memo.

You know what to say (in a nutshell, Bush lied, people died).



STEP ONE:

Start cranking out those letters and LTTEs.

Major TV News Addresses:

http://rapidresponsenetwork.org/blog/2004/08/resource-major-tv-news-addresses.html

Addresses for major U.S. daily publications/wire services/weekly publications:

http://digbig.com/4cqge

Major publication addresses by state: 

http://digbig.com/4bwxw



STEP TWO:

Buy a one-year subscription to Newsweek.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032542/site/newsweek/

then click on Subscribe Now

27 issues for $16.97 - our democracy is worth it

[DesEtoiles]

1. Need resources for writing your letter?

[DesEtoiles]

2. article here: General Says Riots not Tied to Report on Quran Handling

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.

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


thannks newsguyatl

[rodeodance]

10. Both Tweety and Keith Olberman showed clips of Myers saying this

tonight te he.

[Starfury]

18. Gee, they pulled this article - get a google cached copy while you can...

[DesEtoiles]

3. www.downingstreetmemo.com

www.downingstreetmemo.com

[DesEtoiles]

5. good digest of information here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/5/15/211444/985

[DesEtoiles]

13. Article: Newsweek Got Gitmo Right

http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=5959

Newsweek Got Gitmo Right
by Calgacus*
*Calgacus has been employed as a researcher in the national security field for 20 years

(snip)

Contrary to White House spin, the allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo published by Newsweek on May 9, 2005, are common among ex-prisoners and have been widely reported outside the United States. Several former detainees at the Guantanamo and Bagram prisons have reported instances of their handlers sitting or standing on the Koran, throwing or kicking it in toilets, and urinating on it. Prior to the Newsweek article, the New York Times reported a Guantanamo insider asserting that the commander of the facility was compelled by prisoner protests to address the problem and issue an apology.

One such incident (during which the Koran was allegedly thrown in a pile and stepped on) prompted a hunger strike among Guantanamo detainees in March 2002. Regarding this, the New York Times in a May 1, 2005, article interviewed a former detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, who said the protest ended with a senior officer delivering an apology to the entire camp. And the Times reports: "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." (Neil A. Lewis and Eric Schmitt, "Inquiry Finds Abuses at Guantanamo Bay," New York Times, May 1, 2005.)

The hunger strike and apology story is also confirmed by another former detainee, Shafiq Rasul, interviewed by the UK Guardian in 2003 (James Meek, "The People the Law Forgot," 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," Daily Mirror, March 12, 2004).

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

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.)


(cont)

[havocmom]

4. Recommended for greatest page cuz it's a damned fine idea

:thumbsup:

[EVDebs]

6. Place bets in Vegas: Newsweek will reveal its source for story if WH will

reveal who leaked the name of Joe Wilson's CIA agent wife...

I'm waiting.

I'm still waiting.....

[kenny blankenship]

7. Make Bush retract his 2003 SOTU Address

particularly these passages:

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He's not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them, despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.

[DesEtoiles]

8. this is great stuff - go go go

[EFerrari]

9. Great idea, NormaR!

I don't even like Newsweek but may just do it anyway. And I hope His Flagrancy gets the numbers right up his nose.

[Coexist]

11. Vanity Fair and now Newsweek -

how will I find time for all that reading!

[preciousdove]

12. DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSWEEK

In November 2000 the editor of Newsweek Zuckerman got out of his limo in front of a hotel in Manhattan, made a cell phone call in view of e hundreds of terribly ill patients, in wheel chairs or hooked up to IVS were protesting an award a Drug Company lackey researcher was getting and made it all disappear from every one of the 20 news outlets that were there covering it.

This recent event was all set up far in advance, the story and the take down. DO NOT subscribe to Newsweek.

[DesEtoiles]

14. well at least write the letters

[trogdor]

15. Hear, hear.

Newsweak was fish wrap before this happened. Nothing has changed.

[sunnystarr]

21. Now that's an interesting take and really makes sense...

plan it out in advance, publish it when it's needed and kill a few birds with one stone ... cover up the real reason for the protests, kill coverage of the Brit memo, and send a warning to the rest of the media to stop using unnamed Washington official sources ... which kills any truth coming out of the administration.

Guess it's working.

[BrklynLiberal]

16. As someone else has said, NEWSWEEK must have been getting ready

to publish a story about the UK memo or something else that would have made * look bad, so they had to be discredited.
That is what this is all about. Another "Dan Rather" ploy manufactured by KKKarl Rove.

[DesEtoiles]

17. we all must do our part to pummell the media

[AirAmFan]

22. Makes sense. The WH may have wanted to 'inoculate' the gullible American

people against a particular story they knew Newsweek was working on, or against one of the few remaining sometimes unreliable media outlets in general.

[Coexist]

19. Tuesday kick!

[JRob]

20. K

:kick: