Newsweek

Find out why Blackfive hasn’t read Newsweek since May 26, 2003. This story is one of the most profound stories about how the media filters stories coming out of the Middle East, and is an incredible motivating force for people like me in the sphere who are battling misinformation about our armed forces and the story of what we’re accomplishing in Iraq.

Read Cassandra on the filter of bias (nice Cao-length piece, Cass.)

The most notable find in Cass’s piece is this part:

More than two years ago, the Pentagon issued detailed rules for handling the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, requiring U.S. personnel to ensure that the holy book is not placed in “offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet areas.”

The three-page memorandum, dated Jan. 19, 2003, says that only Muslim chaplains and Muslim interpreters can handle the holy book, and only after putting on clean gloves in full view of detainees.

The detailed rules require U.S. Muslim personnel to use both hands when touching the Koran to signal “respect and reverence,” and specify that the right hand be the primary one used to manipulate any part of the book “due to cultural associations with the left hand.” The Koran should be treated like a “fragile piece of delicate art,” it says.

So those are the rules for the handling of the Qu’ran at Gitmo. And suddenly, the source of the Newsweek story can’t remember where he read or what report it was where he saw that someone flushed a Qu’ran down the toilet. Isn’t that interesting?

And that’s how things are done, regardless as to how it’s viewed through the eyes of the media. It occurred to me after taking a spin around the blogosphere, that these people are salivating to kill people, no matter what happens. Whatever we do, they’re going to kill people.

The problem with all of this is, as Cass points, out, we’re seeing through the eyes of a biased filter if we read that slop. And that is why some of us, like me, and the writer behind Blackfive, don’t pick up media rags like Newsweek anymore. I learned long ago that it’s propaganda with a spin, that doesn’t give you the credit for having the intelligence to draw your own conclusions. As sad as that is, it’s the truth.

So I have this habit now, of researching things and finding my truth elsewhere. And draw my own conclusions! Just as everyone should. I’m not sure if people have the time, or if they simply don’t have the inclination. I wish more people were interested in the fight for our survival because–all of our lives and the futures of our family depend on the fight we’re in right now. And it likely won’t be finish in our lifetimes, people. They have already been fighting us since 1968. Do you think that they’re going to give up because we’re tired of it?

Just how did Newsweek think the world was going to react to this allegation of epic-level sacrilege? Just how “cool” is the Muslim world with mockery or insults to its faith? Does the name “Salman Rushdie” ring a bell? Do Newsweek editors recall the ultimate reaction to the Dutch politician Pym Fortuyn’s declaration that Islam was a “backward” religion? Hint: It involved six shots to the head, chest and neck.

(UPDATE: There’s some discussion as to whether Pym Fortuyn’s assassin was motivated by his comments on Islam or by his views on other topics. I’ll leave him on this list just as an observation that those who make those kinds of comments have a disturbing tendency to die violently.)

Never mind those who disrespect Islam, take a look at those who question some interpretations.

Ever wonder why Irshad Manji lives behind bulletproof glass? Why Ayaan Hirsi Ali – a Dutch legislator has to hide from the public spotlight?

Ask Theo Van Gogh – oh, wait, you can’t.

Everybody else seems to grasp the explosive and dangerous passions stirred by stories like this. But somehow Newsweek… these worldly reporters… who sneer at the President, and many of his supporters for not understanding the world beyond our borders sufficiently… were caught completely unawares of what the potential fallout for this story could be.

“Huh? Whah? Riots over this allegation? You’re saying the story got even further hyped by foreign papers until there were declarations of jihad? How could this possibly happen?”

I have suffered some interesting moments in my comments sections on this one, because it boils down to the same Islamist arrogance and hypocrisy that I’ve been complaining about; it’s their unwillingness to waver, to give in, to be what they profess to be–the “religion of peace” that should have had me flipping out over this one, not Newsweek’s stupidity for printing what they did.

The fact that Islamists react with bloodshed and killing shouldn’t be a surprise, but it’s not Newsweek’s fault that they chose that reaction. You don’t have to react at all to something someone puts in print. It’s kind of like saying that a woman who didn’t put her husband’s dinner on the table at 6:00 was at fault for her husband’s beating her. He chose to beat her, she had nothing to do with it.

The bottom line is–no matter what we do, they want to kill people. They’re raising their children for jihad, just waiting for a word, a phrase, a sentence that can be construed as something to blow themselves up over.

And for that, we can’t blame America. We can’t blame Newsweek, or Washington, or ourselves. We have to look to them and their culture, the Qu’ran where the verses are to kill the infidel. And we have to realize that–we have no other choice to but to fight them. The alternative is altogether to frightening to even consider.