Newsweek Sees CBS's Lies and Raises Them a Bunch of Dead People

A couple of week's ago, the ever-eager-to-blame-America-first media - this time Newsweek - printed an unsubstantiated report that American interogators flushed a Koran down a toilet in view of a Muslim detainee. (Of course, if it was a Bible, they'd have gotten an NEA grant.) More proof of Evil American behavior, right?

Wrong. Now Newsweek is backtracking and saying that they can't confirm the story, but are still trying to confirm it. All well and good, except anti-American rioting in Afghanistan has claimed at least 15 lives and fomented instability in the Afghan government. How convenient for the provacateurs in the MSM, no?

TKS on National Review Online has a good round-up of links to the reaction across the Blogosphere to this latest disgrace on the part of the so-called "real journalists".

La Shawn Barber's Corner says:

Liberal Newsweek’s anti-American bias manifested itself in an ugly way. In their zeal to report anything sinister about Americans (especially those serving/working overseas) and anything good about Arabs (the terrorist kind), they erroneously reported that American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay “desecrated” the Koran.

Because of the report, Muslims started rioting, as if they needed an excuse. But our own Newsweek sure gave them one. Knowing we’re in the middle of a war with people who’ve hated us for centuries and intent on destroying us and Western culture itself, you’d think Newsweek would’ve used common sense in reporting the story in the first place. Why write and publish a story that you know will only encourage more violence? Answer: It made America look bad, and that was good enough for “objective” liberal journalists.

They’ll get what’s coming to them. The blogosphere has erupted in a righteously indigant swarm (The conservative side, of course. Liberal bloggers are busy defending the rag.), forcing mainstream media to pick up the story. I hope they lose advertisers, readers, and heads over this.


Instapundit is outraged:

This was entirely predictable given that (1) Al Qaeda propaganda turns on stuff like this; and (2) Historically, such rumors have been used to stir up trouble in the region (remember the Sepoy Revolt, based on false rumors that the British greased their cartridges with pig fat?). If the folks at Newsweek are too ignorant to realize this, or too sloppy to care, then they shouldn't be in the news business.

Why should they care if innocent people die as long as the anti-American, anti-Dubya storyline gets moved along? They encouraged the insurgency and the murder of hostages and soldiers to embarrass Dubya before the Election and are now Hell-bent to make damn sure that nothing gets done and the Stupid Party gets all the blame for every ill in the world.

A comment on one of the blogs linked says:

In adddition to cancelling your subscriptions, calling radio stations and advertisers, or even sending emails (which will probably never be read), here's yet another idea:
Collect every one of those Newsweek subscription cards that you can get your hands on and mail them back to Newsweek with the words:

NEWSWEEK LIED -- PEOPLE DIED!

Newsweek will at the very least then be forced to pay the postage on these "non-subcription" cards.