How Do We Get Distracted To The Wrong Story?

The top news story over the past few days has been the Newsweek article about flushing the Koran down a toilet. How could the White House come out and say that this incident, which if it isn't accurate, is not untrue. There have been other instances of 'Koran abuse' over the past year and it hasn't sparked this kind of fury. Let's also remember that this administration is the one guilty of creating this atmosphere of anger towards the U.S.

On March 17, 2004, the Independent of London interviewed the first British citizen released from Guantanamo Bay. The prisoner said he had been physically beaten but did not consider that as bad as the psychological torture, which he described extensively. Jamal al-Harith, a computer programmer from Manchester, said 70 percent of the inmates had gone on a hunger strike after a guard kicked a cop of the Koran. The strike was ended by force-feeding.

December 30, 2004, "Released Moroccan Guantanamo Detainee Tells Islamist Paper of His Ordeal reported the Financial Times. They watched you each time you went to the toilet; the American soldiers used to tear up copies of the Koran and throw them in the toilet," said the released prisoner.

January 9, 2005, Andrew Sullivan, writing in the Sun Times of London said, "We now know a great deal of what has gone on in U.S. detention facilities under the Bush administration. Several government and Red Cross reports detail the way many detainees have been treated. We know for certain that five inmates have been tortured to death, 23 others died under suspicious circumstances, thousands of women and children were grabbed almost at randomfrom their homes in Baghdad, taken to Sadaam's former torture palace and subjected to abuse, murder, beatings, semi-crucifixions and rape.

I don't think a article that Newsweek wrote caused this rioting and killing as the White House would have you believe. This administration will take any opportunity to take the focus off of them. And I think they've done it again. Why else would the "Downing Street Memo" http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memo.html be off the front page. This is damaging news for this administration because it confirms that Bush was determined to go to war at least 6 months before we did. I can't understand how we can be so easily manipulated. This country is guilty of torture and guilty of lying about it. We need to do something about it now.