Afghan chaos growing Options

[heritage]

Anti-Americanism is spreading. Look what Bush hath wrought at Guantanimo and Abu Garib.

May 13, 12:26 PM EDT

Protests Spread in Afghanistan; 8 Killed
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
Associated Press Writer

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFG...MPLATE=home.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Security forces opened fire and protesters stoned government and relief agency buildings as clashes in four Afghan cities left at least eight people dead Friday amid growing anti-American sentiment over the alleged desecration of Islam's holy book at Guantanamo Bay.

The deaths included a policeman and brought to 15 the number of people killed this week in the biggest outpouring of anti-American sentiment since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 - a deepening worry for the government of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - both U.S. allies - registered dismay over the allegations of Quran desecration, as did the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference and the outlawed Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

The unrest spread to the Palestinian territories Friday as hundreds of activists from the Islamic militant group Hamas staged a rare anti-U.S. protest in the Gaza Strip, with hundreds shouting "protect our holy book."

A call for mass street protests from a coalition of hard-line religious parties in Pakistan fell flat, but firebrand Muslim clerics lashed out at the United States.

"By insulting the Quran, they have challenged our belief. We are hurt ... If we don't rise against Americans, if we don't give them a strong message today, they will do it again," cleric Hafiz Hussain Ahmad told worshippers at a mosque in the Pakistani capital.

The protests broke out Tuesday after Newsweek magazine reported in its May 9 edition that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, placed Qurans in washrooms to unsettle suspects, and in one case "flushed a holy book down the toilet."

Many of the 520 inmates at Guantanamo are Muslims arrested during the U.S.-led war against terror in Afghanistan. In both Afghanistan and Pakistan, insults to the Quran and Islam's prophet, Muhammad, are regarded as blasphemy and punishable by death.

Afghan officials said some of the protesters who took to the streets chanting anti-American slogans and stoning the offices of international relief organizations ignored the urgings of mullahs during Friday prayers to remain calm.

"This is organized by particular groups who are the enemies of Afghanistan," Interior Ministry spokesman Latfullah Mashal told The Associated Press. "They are trying to show that the situation, that security is not good."

Shooting broke out in the southeastern city of Ghazni after protesters swarmed toward a police station and the governor's residence after Friday prayers chanting "Death to America" and pelting the buildings with rocks, witnesses said.

Shafiqullah Shafaq, a doctor at the city hospital, told AP that two civilians and a police officer were fatally shot and 21 people wounded, including the provincial police chief.

In northeastern Badakhshan, three men were killed when police fired to control hundreds of protesters in Baharak district, Gov. Abdul Majid told AP. Another 22 people were reported hurt, including three police officers.

The mob also set fire to the office of Focus, a reconstruction agency funded by the Aga Khan Foundation of the spiritual leader of the world's 20 million Ismaili Muslims, and a British aid group, Majib said.

Another man was killed in the northwest when police opened fire during a demonstration after prayers in Qala-e-Naw, capital of Badghis province, provincial police chief Amir Shah Naibzada told AP.

Four demonstrators suffered bullet wounds in a clash with police and government troops in Gardez, near the Pakistani border, and one died later in hospital, provincial police chief Hay Gul Suleyman Khel said.

A protest in Kabul ended peacefully.

The crackdown on the first major protest in Jalalabad on Tuesday that left four people dead has enflamed passions further, and demonstrations - many of them violent - have taken place in at least 10 towns and cities.

U.S. officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have promised to investigate the allegations, saying disrespect for the Quran would never be tolerated.

"Respect for religious freedom for all individuals is one of the founding principles of the United States," Rice said Thursday in Washington.

At the Pentagon, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. commanders in Afghanistan believe that local political factions - and not the alleged desecration - are driving the violence.

In neighboring Pakistan, the powerful opposition Islamic coalition Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal appealed for Muslims to protest after Friday prayers.

But in the main cities of Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan and Karachi no more than a few hundred turned out, despite fiery rhetoric from some preachers. No violence was reported, although in Quetta, protesters burned an effigy of President Bush.

Sadique Bajrani, a cleric in Karachi, urged people to remain peaceful. "Americans did a bad thing, but you should not hurt anyone while protesting against America," he said.

[theglobalchinese]

Straw at odds with US over brutality of terror war ally Telegraph.co.uk

[theglobalchinese]

Gunfire continues in Uzbekistan USA Today

[heritage]

"People lost their lives. People are dead," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do."

This is Rumsfeld's criticism of Newsweek. What irony! Where is this administration's pentenance?


Quote from:
Newsweek Retracts Story on Quran Abuse

Updated 5:36 PM ET May 16, 2005
By SETH SUTEL

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8a4h5280&src=ap

NEW YORK (AP) - Newsweek magazine, under fire for publishing a story that led to deadly protests in Afghanistan, said Monday it was retracting its report that a military probe had found evidence of desecration of the Quran by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay. .....

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Whitaker said.

Newsweek had reported in its issue dated May 9 that U.S. military investigators had found evidence that interrogators placed copies of Islam's holy book in washrooms and had flushed one down the toilet to get inmates to talk.

Whitaker wrote in his note to readers that "We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst."

Whitaker said in his editor's note that while other news organizations had aired charges of Quran abuse based on the testimony of detainees, the magazine decided to publish a short item after hearing from an unnamed U.S. official that a government probe had found evidence corroborating the charges.

But on Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told the magazine that a review of the military's investigation concluded "it was never meant to look into charges of Quran desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them 'not credible.'"

Whitaker added that the magazine's original source later said he could not be sure he read about the alleged Quran incident in the report Newsweek cited, and that it might have been in another document.

"Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we," Whitaker wrote.......

[heritage]

Muslim Reaction to Newsweek Apology: Too Little, Too Late

Updated 6:13 PM ET May 16, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr..._050516&src=abc

Newsweek magazine may have apologized, but to many in the Muslim world, it's too late and much too little.

Muslims brushed off an apology to readers that appeared in this week's edition of the newsweekly that acknowledged errors in a story alleging U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Koran, Islam's holy book. Interestingly enough, Newsweek has an Arabic issue but there was no mention of the apology in this week's issue. Critics called it a strategic move in the face of the overwhelming and violent reaction. The report sparked protests in Afghanistan, where at least 15 were killed and more than 100 injured.

Newsweek later retracted the story entirely.

Many Muslims believe Newsweek succumbed to pressure from the U.S. government to backtrack. Many believe that that whatever the truth may be, the harm has been done.

Saudi Arabia was the first country to officially react by asking for an investigation. It was followed by blanket condemnation and demands for investigation from all over the region by officially appointed mainstream clerics or governments.

In Egypt, the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the highest Sunni authority in the world, usually a subdued man, demanded immediate action. "The Koran's desecration is a great crime and should be dealt with at once," he said.

Reaction to the Newsweek article, which appeared in the May 9 issue, has been particularly virulent for a number of reasons.

In the Muslim world, Guantanamo has become the symbol of the confrontation between Islam and the United States. The fact that this allegedly happened in Guantanamo makes things much worse. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood said perhaps if it had happened somewhere else, it would not have resonated so much.

Secondly, the Koran is part of the Muslim identity. By desecrating the Koran, one is desecrating the identity of all Muslims. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, desecration of the Koran is punishable by death, which explains the more violent reaction to the Newsweek story.

Many analysts believe this episode will just increase the level of distrust. The Arab world, especially the Middle East, is more likely to believe such reports after the prison scandal at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

Moreover, many believe that a soldier or interrogator would not act without his or her superior's approval and say this episode is yet another reminder that the United States is at war against Islam.

One moderate cleric said, "The U.S. keeps on handing out reasons for extremists to become more ferocious. These stories are amazing recruiting tools, and more young people will now join the fight."

The story has offended many non-Arab Muslims, too. In Malaysia and in Nigeria, protesters chanted anti-American slogans and in Tajikistan, a Central Asian country abutting Afghanistan, a group of 300 clerics wrote a statement saying that, "if an investigation does not happen within three days, we will launch a jihad against America."

The so-called Jihadi Web sites are also full of calls for more killings of Americans.

[heritage]

Female CARE Worker Abducted in Afghanistan

Updated 3:04 PM ET May 16, 2005
By DANIEL COONEY

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8a4ethg0&src=ap


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Armed men kidnapped an Italian woman working for the international relief agency CARE by pulling her from a car in the center of the Afghan capital Monday night.

Four men forced the woman into a white Toyota sedan in Kabul's Shahr-e-Naw district at about 9 p.m., Gen. Mahboubullah Amiri, a senior official in the Afghan Interior Ministry, told The Associated Press.

The woman worked for CARE International, said Paul Barker, the agency's director in Afghanistan. Italian state TV identified her as Clementina Cantoni of Milan; the Italian news agency ANSA said she was working to help widows in Kabul.

"Four men carrying Kalashnikovs bashed in the window of her car and took her away. They told the driver not to move or he would be shot," Barker said. He said the car had just dropped off another female employee when the abduction happened.

Carlo Batori, an Italian diplomat in Kabul, confirmed the woman was an Italian citizen, but gave no details.

Relations between the United States and Italy have been strained over the March 4 shooting death of Italian agent Nicola Calipari _ who had just helped free an Italian hostage _ by U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint in Baghdad.

Another CARE worker, Margaret Hassan, 59, was abducted in Baghdad on Oct. 19, 2004, and was reported slain about a month later. Hassan, a citizen of Britain, Ireland and Iraq, was among more than 30 foreign hostages killed in Iraq since April 2003.

The kidnapping in Kabul follows a series of violent anti-American protests in Afghanistan sparked by a report in Newsweek magazine alleging that interrogators at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had placed copies of the Quran in washrooms and had flushed one copy down the toilet to get detainees to talk.

[heritage]

Pakistan Repeats Demand for Quran Probe

Updated 5:26 PM ET May 16, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8a4gvvg0&src=ap

By SADAQAT JAN

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan on Monday reiterated its demand for an investigation into the alleged desecration of Islam's holy book at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, hours before Newsweek retracted the report claiming a Quran was flushed down a toilet to rattle detainees.

The story sparked demonstrations across the Islamic world last week, with about 15 people killed during an anti-American protest in Afghanistan.

Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, requested Monday that U.S. officials complete a full investigation into the allegations.....

[heritage]

[continued]

Lebanon's most senior Shiite Muslim cleric said the alleged desecration is part of an American campaign aimed at disrespecting and smearing Islam.

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah urged Muslims and international human rights organizations "to raise their voices loudly against the American behavior, which is hostile to Islam and Muslims."

In a statement faxed to The Associated Press before Newsweek's apology, Fadlallah called the alleged desecration a "brutal" form of torture.

"This act is not an individual act carried out by an American soldier, but rather it is part of the American behavior of intellectual and psychological education in disrespecting Islam and smearing its image in the souls of Americans," Fadlallah said.

On Sunday, U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley said in an interview on CNN that the allegations were being investigated "vigorously."

"If it turns out to be true, obviously we will take action against those responsible," he said.

[I doubt that Hadley will investigate now that Newsweek has retracted the story.]

[ghostgovt]

The neocon big corp beat goes on and on and on and on......


http://www.afghannews.net/index.php?action...pe=news&id=2350

Afghanistan: NGOs baking aid cake, eating it 8. April 2005, 20:51

The National Business Review (New Zealand) - So-called NGOs -- non-governmental organisations that range from charities to "not-for-profit" infrastructure providers -- are ballooning in Afghanistan, raising fears that they are consuming far more of aid budgets than they should, while delivering far less than they promise.

In recent days, several of the country's top leaders -- and its legislature -- have all started talking tough about the issue.

According to government figures released last week, only 23 per cent of several billion dollars sent for international assistance is directly administered by the Afghan government, with the balance in the hands of humanitarian aid agencies or private contractors.

That cash tap has seen the number of NGOs in the country balloon from a few hundred three years ago to about 2,400, according to the World Bank.

And yet there has been precious little bang for all those bucks, leading to widespread belief that the NGOs are spending too much for too little -- and engaging in corrupt practices along the way.

The problem is so pervasive that Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his senior officials are asking international aid donors to switch targets and hand the money directly over to the government.

The World Bank reported this week that last week the Afghan cabinet had approved a law that barring NGOs from bidding for government contracts. The NGOs that would have been dispossessed by the new law raised hell and President Karzai agreed to review it but said the law was the product of "serious concern…that some NGOs were responsible for widespread corruption and misuse of public funds".

NGO representatives said the problem was down to nomenclature and that the government has confused entrepreneurial organisations registering themselves disingenuously as non-profit, with legitimate NGOs.

But it is not clear that the new government could absorb and channel all the relief money bound for Afghanistan any more effectively than the NGOs.

[nnrecrut]

The riots in Afghanistan should be a reminder to Americans that we are still fighting a war in that country.

Intelligence Brief: Afghanistan
Drafted By: Dr. Michael A. Weinstein
http://www.pinr.com

As the spotlight on global politics has shifted temporarily to possible nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran, and to Washington's crusade for worldwide market democracy, events in Afghanistan have thrown Washington back to unresolved problems stemming from the "war on terrorism."

Protests Spell Popular Resistance

Over the past month, as spring has set in, military resistance against the government of Hamid Karzai has spiked in Afghanistan, with armed clashes between U.S. occupation forces and a resurgent Taliban and the militia of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, prompting the Karzai administration to issue an amnesty offer to all insurgents, including Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Hekmatyar, against Washington's wishes.

That discontent with Karzai and his Western backers runs deeper in Afghan society than the "remnants" of the Taliban was made clear by unruly protests throughout the Pashtun-speaking east of the country, led by students angered by reports that operatives at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention camp had flushed a copy of the Quran down a toilet as part of their interrogation procedure.

In Jalalabad on May 11, rioters shouting "Death to America" stoned a U.S. convoy, attacked the buildings of United Nations agencies and stormed the Pakistani consulate. By May 12, the protests had spread to ten provinces, including the north of the country, where support for the Taliban is weak, and into the tribal regions of Pakistan. Civil disorder continued into May 13, with deaths and injuries mounting from the efforts of security forces to quell the riots and demonstrations.

The intensity and scope of the protests caught Washington by surprise, yet they should have been anticipated. The Newsweek report of Quran desecration, from which the magazine has backed off, was simply a trigger that released pent-up frustration with the Karzai government -- especially the slow pace of post-war reconstruction -- and hostility toward the U.S. military presence among wide segments of the Afghan population.

The Afghan government blamed "outsiders" for the disorder, but analysts disagreed. As the catch-all formula for resistance to unpopular governments and Western intervention throughout the Muslim world, Islamism is especially deeply rooted in Afghanistan, where the Taliban grew out of a student movement. The protests were too dispersed and improvised to have been centrally coordinated. Instead, they represented a new element of popular resistance, added to the persisting guerrilla insurgencies.

Always a decentralized state -- whatever its formal constitution -- Afghanistan contains many political forces that welcome weakness and instability in the Karzai government. In addition to the Taliban and Hekmatyar's supporters are the regional governors, warlords and opium traffickers that are bound together into local networks that link up loosely to pursue common aims. Islamism is the ideological glue that holds them together, providing an emotional basis for popular mobilization that rationalizes and provides a cover for more concrete interests -- religion, political power and economic gain work in tandem. [See: "Afghanistan's Transition: Decentralization or Civil War"]

The emergence of popular resistance to the Karzai government and the U.S. occupation portends serious difficulties ahead for Washington's plans to have the regime in Kabul achieve effective control over Afghanistan, including bringing regional authorities into cooperation with the central government, disarming the warlords and curbing the narcotics trade.

Entrenched opposition interests have created chronic instability in Afghanistan that has hobbled reconstruction. It is now likely that a vicious circle is setting in: popular discontent with the economy provides increased support for the opposition, which, in turn, encourages popular resistance under the banner of Islam, ratcheting up instability and further retarding reconstruction.

As Afghanistan enters a new phase of political turmoil, Washington might soon be faced with the difficult choice of pouring more military and economic resources into the country in order to prop up Karzai and avert a slide into fragmentation, or looking on as the slide gathers momentum, carrying with it the possibility of a rebirth of Islamist influence and, perhaps, dominance.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded to the disturbances with a statement that Washington does not countenance religious intimidation and a promise that there would be a thorough investigation of the reports and that appropriate disciplinary action would be taken if misconduct at Guantanamo was proven.

Rice's assurances are unlikely to sway any of the forces opposed to Karzai and Washington; the opposition will be emboldened to play the Islamist card, thwarting Washington's goal of a moderate centralized regime in Kabul.

Response in the Muslim World

The protests in Afghanistan have not only revealed the failures of nation building in that country; they were also a major setback for Washington's efforts at public diplomacy in the Muslim world.

By May 13, protests over the alleged Quran desecration had spread to Palestine and Indonesia, and the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference had publicly expressed their concern. On May 14, Yemen and the Arab League joined the denunciations, and demonstrations continued to proliferate, indicating the strength of popular anti-U.S. sentiment and the need of governments ruling large Muslim populations and the organizations linking those regimes to respond to that hostility.

The Bottom Line

Although Washington has been claiming that the uptick in military resistance in Afghanistan is a last-ditch effort by cornered die-hards, the protests in that country against alleged Quran desecration at Guantanamo reveal that deeper and persisting problems with reconstruction are growing more severe, threatening not only Washington's plans for Afghanistan, but also its already tarnished image in the Muslim world.

Report Drafted By:
Dr. Michael A. Weinstein

------------------------------



The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an independent organization that utilizes open source intelligence to provide conflict analysis services in the context of international relations. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of inquiries@pinr.com. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com.

[heritage]

The Pittsburgh Press has a political cartoon today about the hypocrisy of this administration criticizing Newsweek. Scott McClellan, Rumsfeld, Rice, Myers and a Pentagon PR official said that Newsweek caused the recent deaths of the Afghan protestors. The cartoon,which you can see online tomorrow, has Bush standing on hundreds of skulls of dead people that his lies caused-- while he criticizes Newsweek for killing 15 people. Another newspaper has a similar cartoon with Scott McClellan.

The riots started 2 weeks ago before the Newsweek article came out. The US government caused the abuses at Abu Gharib and Guantanimo; Arabs don't beleive that a handful of soldiers did it without top leaders knowing.

C-Span did open phone session today about this issue. http://www.c-span.org see Washington Journal 5-17-05. Most republicans believed the WH and Fox news propaganda that this story was the liberal media against the military and can't get a story straight. On the weekend, Fox said that the Muslims spread the rumor about the Quran (so don't blame the government).

The Newsweek editor was on ABC Nightline last night. He said they retracted the 10 line story (a side story) because the government source changed his story after the fact (after pressure probably from the Pentagon) that the Quran incident may not have been reported in that specific internal government report--- but he had seen it somewhere in government documents.

Also, Qitmo and Abu Gharib detainees released last year said that the soldiers dessicrated the Quran. Some have a lawsuit that says this also.

A republican C-span caller said "What is the big deal about a book?" [paraphrased] "If these people get crazy over a book and then kill people then they don't deserve the democracy we want to give them." This man doesn't know that there are about 1 billion Muslims in the world who follow the Quran like he propably follows his Bible. He also doesn't know that the protestors didn't kill - they were killed by the Afghan police or military.

[heritage]

Regarding the reconstruction in Afghanistan --- we spend $1 billion per month there for 4 years - and the country still looks like a third world country. No wonder the people are restless and mad at the US.

[heritage]

Newsweek Retracts Story on Quran Abuse

Updated 9:00 AM ET May 17, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...16_2038&src=abc

Newsweek magazine, under fire for publishing a story that led to deadly protests in Afghanistan, said Monday it was retracting its report that a military probe had found evidence of desecration of the Quran by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay.

Earlier Monday, Bush administration officials had brushed off an apology that Newsweek's editor Mark Whitaker had made in an editor's note and criticized the magazine's handling of the story.

Protests broke out across much of the Muslim world last week after Newsweek reported that U.S. investigators found evidence that interrogators had flushed a copy of Muslim's holy book down a toilet in an attempt to rattle detainees. The violence left about 15 dead and scores injured in Afghanistan.

"It's appalling that this story got out there," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she traveled home from Iraq.

"People lost their lives. People are dead," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Capitol Hill. "People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do."


Following the criticism, Whitaker released a statement through a spokesman later Monday saying the magazine was retracting the article.

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Whitaker said.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan called Newsweek's retraction "a good first step" but said it could not repair all the damage that had been done.

[They have no shame -- no one from this adminsitration got canned for their "mistakes" and misinformation.]


"The report had real consequences," McClellan said. "People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged. There are some who are opposed to the United States and what we stand for who have sought to exploit this allegation."

[The US image was damaged long before by this WH]

McClellan said the Pentagon had looked into the allegations initially and found nothing to substantiate them. "They continue to look into it," he said.

Newsweek had reported in its issue dated May 9 that U.S. military investigators had found evidence that interrogators placed copies of Islam's holy book in washrooms and had flushed one down the toilet to get inmates to talk.

Whitaker had written in a note to readers that "We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst."

Whitaker said in his note that while other news organizations had aired charges of Quran abuse based on the testimony of detainees, the magazine decided to publish a short item after hearing from an unnamed U.S. official that a government probe had found evidence corroborating the charges.

But on Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told the magazine that a review of the military's investigation concluded "it was never meant to look into charges of Quran desecration."

[This isn't a denial of the charge - just that the investigation wasn't meant to find such issues]

The spokesman also said the Pentagon had looked into other charges by detainees that the Quran had been desecrated and found them to be "not credible."

[The government only believes its own people. Blame the messenger! The world sees it differently.]

Whitaker added that the magazine's original source later said he could not be sure he read about the alleged Quran incident in the report Newsweek cited, and that it might have been in another document. Whitaker said the magazine was still looking into the charges.

Many of the 520 inmates at Guantanamo are Muslims arrested during the U.S.-led war against the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, Islamic scholars and tribal elders called for the punishment of anyone found to have abused the Quran, said Maulawi Abdul Wali Arshad, head of the religious affairs department in Badakhshan province.

Arshad and the provincial police chief said the scholars met in Faizabad, 310 miles northeast of the capital, Kabul, and demanded a "reaction" from U.S. authorities within three days.

Lebanon's most senior Shiite Muslim cleric on Sunday said the reported desecration of the Quran is part of an American campaign aimed at disrespecting and smearing Islam.

In a statement faxed to The Associated Press, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah called the alleged desecration a "brutal" form of torture and urged Muslims and international human rights organizations "to raise their voices loudly against the American behavior."

On Saturday, Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, both allies of Washington, demanded an investigation and punishment for those behind the reported desecration of the Quran.

The story also sparked protests in Pakistan, Yemen and the Gaza Strip. The 22-nation Arab League issued a statement saying if the allegations panned out, Washington should apologize to Muslims.

Newsweek is owned by The Washington Post Co.

[heritage]

Hypocrites! When will the WH correct its blunders?

Newsweek Urged to Do More to Repair Damage

Updated 8:09 AM ET May 17, 2005
By TERENCE HUNT

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8a4tts00&src=ap

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says Newsweek took a "good first step" by retracting its story that U.S. investigators found evidence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Quran, but it wants the magazine to do more to repair damage caused by the article. ....

McClellan said a retraction was only "a good first step" and said Newsweek should try to set the record straight by "clearly explaining what happened and how they got it wrong, particularly to the Muslim world, and pointing out the policies and practices of our military."

[He should take his own advice -- on 9-11 whitewash, intelligence whitewash, Abu Gharib whitewash...etc....]....

Asked if anyone involved in preparing the article would lose his job, Klaidman said, "We think that people acted responsibly and professionally and ... there was no malice, no institutional bias, just a mistake that was made in good faith." The , an investigative reporter, and John Barry, a national security correspondent for the magazine......


U.S. officials did not deny the report when it first appeared.

[Newsweek sent the entire article to the Pentagon to comment on BEFORE they published. The Pentagon had it for at least 9 days and said nothing until AFTER THE STORY WAS PRINTED.]

On Capitol Hill, military leaders were questioned about the Newsweek account after testifying about base closings.

"We've not found any wrongdoing on the part of U.S. service members," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of Joint Chiefs. He said the Pentagon has investigated the claims, but he did not indicate whether the investigation was complete.....

The Newsweek report was not the first public airing of allegations about U.S. personnel at Guantanamo Bay desecrating a Quran. In August and October 2004 there were news reports based on a lawsuit and a written report by British citizens who had been released from the prison in Cuba. They claimed abuse by U.S. guards, including throwing their Qurans into the toilet.

In January, Kristine Huskey, a lawyer representing Kuwaitis detained at Guantanamo, said they claimed to have been abused and in one case a detainee watched a guard throw a Quran into a toilet.

This post has been edited by heritage: May 17 2005, 07:42 AM

[nnrecrut]

C-Span did open phone session today about this issue. http://www.c-span.org  see Washington Journal 5-17-05. Most republicans believed the WH and Fox news propaganda that this story was the liberal media against the military and can't get a story straight. On the weekend, Fox said that the Muslims spread the rumor about the Quran (so don't blame the government).

I listened to a few of the phone calls to CSPAN this morning. One caller pointed out the hypocrisy of the Bush administration demanding an apology from Newsweek for not getting their facts straight before publishing the Koran article, when the Bush administration has never apologized to the American people for not getting its facts straight before invading Iraq. The caller suggested that Bush and Isikoff stand in front of the American people and apologize together.

It seems so obvious that the Scott McClellan's comments yesterday, blaming Newsweek for ruining the US reputation and inciting the Afghan riots, was this administrations attempt to blame the magazine for Bushco's fiascos over the last 4 years which led up to the Afghan riots. I thought McClellan must have been embarrased to make those rediculous remarks, but after listening to the callers on CSPAN today--it looks like Republicans are probably buying the WH propaganda.

[heritage]

U.S. Scrambling After Newsweek Report

Updated 9:29 AM ET May 17, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr..._050516&src=abc

Government officials are scrambling to repair the damage following Newsweek's admission that it used faulty information in reporting a story that has sparked chaos in the Muslim world.

Newsweek's story, which appeared last week, said that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushed copies of the Koran down the toilet in an effort to rattle suspects. Riots in the Muslim world following that report have claimed at least 16 lives.

"In the eyes of Muslims, defacing the Koran is like consciously torturing all Muslims. It's very serious," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College and ABC News' Middle East consultant. ......

Pentagon spokesman Larry Dirita was outraged by the information provided by the unidentified source, telling Newsweek, "People are dead because of what this [S.O.B] said." ....

[WHAT HYPOCRISY!]

Government Doing Damage Control
Muslim leaders in Afghanistan have given Washington three days to respond to the Newsweek story, according to The Associated Press.

The White House and Pentagon have already been scrambling to defuse this story since Newsweek's announcement on Sunday.

Officials "were sending out cables all day yesterday to their embassies in the Arab world to get out the message that this story isn't true," Stephanopoulos said. "They have a media unit set up in London that is going to put officials on al-Jazeera and on other Arab media."

But reports of soldiers using detainees' religion against them and images of detainees being humiliated from inside Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison have inspired deep distrust of the United States in the Muslim world.

And Stephanopoulos said that, according to a senior White House official, there is fear inside the government that the Muslim world will not be quick to accept Newsweek's retraction or an explanation from the White House.

"They are worried that the Islamic world will not believe the White House and the retractions and that they [Muslims] will think that the White House ordered Newsweek to pull this back," Stephanopoulos said.

[nnrecrut]

Taliban Militants Kill Five Afghans

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/stor...5014364,00.html

Wednesday May 18, 2005 2:31 PM


KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - Suspected Taliban militants Wednesday killed five Afghans working on a U.S.-funded reconstruction project after ambushing their vehicle in the south of the country, an official said.

The attack occurred in Helmand province, about 110 miles northwest of the southern city of Kandahar, senior provincial official Ghulam Muhiddin said.

Two victims were engineers working for Chemonics, a U.S.-based company; one was a government engineer; the others were the driver and a policeman employed as a security guard, he said.

Carol Yee, a senior Chemonics worker in the area, confirmed the killings.

[heritage]

Political cartoon on Newsweek story

False Report
Tuesday, May 17, 2005

http://www.post-gazette.com/robrogers/default.asp?id=0

[ghostgovt]

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=42227


Female television presenter shot dead in Kabul
Published: 5/18/2005


KABUL - Unknown gunmen Wednesday shot dead a female television presenter in Kabul who once worked for a music program similar to MTV which had upset radical Islamic clerics, police said.

"Yes I can confirm that she was killed," city police chief Mohammad Akram Khakrizwal told AFP. But he added there was no known motive for the murder of 24-year-old Shaima Rezayee.

[nnrecrut]

Six Afghans killed in ambush in troubled south19 May 2005 12:16:41 GMT

Source: Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL219956.htm

KABUL, May 19 (Reuters) - Gunmen ambushed a vehicle in Afghanistan on Thursday, killing six people, including some transporting the body of a man killed in an attack the previous day in which at least two employees of a U.S. firm died.

The attack happened at around 4 a.m. (2330 GMT on Wednesday) on a main road to the capital, Kabul, said Gulab Shah Alikhel, spokesman for the governor of Zabul province. Six Afghans were killed, he said.

"They were transporting the body of their colleague killed in Helmand yesterday," Alikhel said.

Five Afghans were killed in the attack in Helmand province, also in the south, on Wednesday, including at least two employees of Chemonics, a U.S.-based firm involved in U.S-funded opium crop substitution projects.

It was not immediately clear if any of the six killed on Thursday worked for Chemonics, or if the dead man they were transporting was one of the firm's employees killed on Wednesday.

Alikhel initially said the six had been travelling in a vehicle with U.N. markings and were believed to be affiliated with the United Nations, but a U.N. spokesman said this was not true.

Officials of Chemonics, which is involved in finding alternative livelihoods for farmers forced to give up growing opium, were not immediately available for comment.

The U.S. embassy in Kabul said it had no information. Officials at the U.S Agency for International Development, which is believed to have hired Chemonics for some projects, declined to comment.

"We do not know who killed these people, they could be criminals or terrorists," Alikhel said, referring to the Thursday attack. "The Taliban have been active here recently but I cannot say if they were Taliban," he said.

A Taliban spokesman, who claimed responsibility for the Wednesday attack, was not immediately available for comment.

Government efforts to stop opium production have stirred violent opposition in some parts of the country.

Afghanistan is the world's biggest producer of opium, and its refined form, heroin, and drug gangs are a serious problem for the U.S.-backed government as it tries to impose its authority.

U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001 after they refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, architect of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Taliban and allied militants have been waging an insurgency against U.S. forces and the U.S.-backed government since then. The rebels have also attacked aid and election workers, killing and wounding dozens.