Fox News Distorted 2002 FBI Report from website.

[Up2Late]

(This Fox "News" report is SO distorted and One sided,I don't think it could or should be posted to LBN. To see what I mean, you should compare it to the Actual News wires and credible news Papers. This one is blatant bias. Then to top it off, they merged it with the Amnesty International report. Check it out)

Note: the Fox "news" revisions are in italic

Gov't: Still No Credible Koran-Flush Claims

Fox News
Wednesday, May 25, 2005

WASHINGTON — Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita (search ) said Wednesday there are no credible allegations that U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay threw a Koran down the toilet — despite allegations contained in newly released FBI documents. Terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay (search) prison told U.S. interrogators as early as April 2002, just three months after the first detainees arrived, that military guards abused them and desecrated the Koran (search), the declassified FBI records say. "Their behavior is bad," one detainee is quoted as saying of his guards during an interrogation by an FBI special agent on July 22, 2002. "About five months ago the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Koran in the toilet."

Di Rita, the chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld (search ), said that U.S. military officials at Guantanamo Bay had recently found a separate record of the same allegation by the same detainee, and he was re-interviewed on May 14. "He did not corroborate his own allegation," Di Rita said. Asked why he felt certain that this detainee did not affirm his allegation out of fear of retaliation, Di Rita said, "It's a judgment call, and I trust the judgment of the commanders more than I trust the judgment of Al Qaeda."

The statements about guards disrespecting the Koran echo public allegations made many months later by some detainees and their lawyers after the prisoners' release from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The once-secret FBI documents show a consistency to the allegations and are the first indication that Justice and Defense department officials were aware in early 2002 that detainees were accusing their guards of mistreating the Koran.

One told an interrogator in March 2003 that guards had repeatedly mishandled the Koran. This detainee asked why the United States, as a supporter of freedom of religion, was using the Muslim holy book as a weapon. Still another said in October 2002 that he and other detainees had been "beaten, spit upon and treated worse than a dog."

------------------Here's the start of the other-----------------------------------

Separately on Wednesday, Amnesty International urged the United States to shut down the prison, calling it "the gulag of our time." White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the human rights group's complaints were "unsupported by the facts" and that allegations of mistreatment were being investigated.

In its annual report, Amnesty accused the United States of failing to live up to its responsibility to set the standard for human rights protections. Rather, the group said the United States has been the biggest disappointment "after evidence came to light that the U.S. administration had sanctioned interrogation techniques that violated the U.N. Convention against Torture."

-------------------------------back to the Koran report----------------------

Some 540 men are being held at Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban government or the Al Qaeda terror network. Some have been jailed for more than three years without charge. The Defense Department argues that the detention prevents these enemy combatants from fighting against the United States.

Di Rita said the charges of deliberate Koran desecration by U.S. military personnel were "fantastic" and "not credible on their face" because U.S. commanders were careful not to inflame passions among the detainees. "Commanders knew it was a very sensitive issue and they didn't need the trouble," he said.

(More distortions at the link above)

Save a copy, I bet it will change in a few hours.

[JohnyCanuck]

1. Fuck Fox, If their Christian God is real

they'll burn in hell for eternity for being such a bunch of liars.


The Word of God expressly states in Revelation 21:8 that, " ... all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." Yet, many people who claim to know and love God, routinely tell lies as if they are exempt from the above penalty recorded by the Apostle John. People often think that there are different kinds of lies. There are big lies and then there are small lies. White lies and (Black?) whole lies. Complete lies and partial lies which are, "not so bad."

Well, the Bible only knows of one type of lie, the one that will eventually take the liar to the Lake of Fire.

http://www.comprehensivechristian.com/Liars-and-the-Lake-of-Fire-comprehensivechristian.asp

[Up2Late]

2. I agree, but this level of distortion is bordering on Criminal

Though they'll try to hide behind the 1st Amendment.

[DulceDecorum]

3. In other news: Fox News Viewership Drops by Half in 6 Months

Since the election, viewership in the coveted 25-54 age bracket of Fox News has fallen from over 1,000,000 in October to under 450,000 in April, according to a CNN press release.
<snip>
The reason for Fox News' fall in viewership is not clear. Some speculate that the audience has turned to other news sources out of distrust or dislike of Fox News' reporting; others claim it to simply be a result in decreased interest in news in general; some suggest that other cable news channels have adopted Fox News' style and tenor.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/05/318087.shtml

Naturally,
we can trust CNN to speak the truth
(about Fox.)

O8)

[Up2Late]

4. Here's the report from Reuters for comparison

(The same sections in italic in the Fox distortion, I put in bold here, with the clips Fox took out of context I underlined.) :grr:

FBI memo reports Guantanamo guards flushing Koran

Wed May 25, 2005 07:58 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An FBI agent wrote in a 2002 document made public on Wednesday that a detainee held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had accused American jailers there of flushing the Koran down a toilet. The Pentagon said the allegation was not credible.

The declassified document's release came the week after the Bush administration denounced as wrong a May 9 Newsweek article that stated U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo had flushed a Koran down a toilet to try to make detainees talk. The magazine retracted the article, which had triggered protests in Afghanistan in which 16 people died.

The newly released document, dated Aug. 1, 2002, contained a summary of statements made days earlier by a detainee, whose name was redacted, in two interviews with an FBI special agent, whose name also was withheld, at the Guantanamo prison for foreign terrorism suspects. The American Civil Liberties Union released the memo and other FBI documents it obtained from the government under court order through the Freedom of Information Act. "Personally, he has nothing against the United States. The guards in the detention facility do not treat him well. Their behavior is bad. About five months ago, the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Koran in the toilet," the FBI agent wrote.

"It's not credible," chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said of the allegation regarding a Koran in a toilet. Di Rita said the U.S. military questioned the detainee on May 14, and that the man was "very cooperative and answered the questions but did not corroborate the allegation recorded on Aug. 1, 2002." Di Rita said he did not know whether the man actually recanted the allegation. "These kind of, sort of, fantastic charges about our guys doing something willfully heinous to a Koran for the purposes of rattling detainees are not credible on their face," Di Rita told reporters.

(more at link above)

[Up2Late]

5. Here's the e-mail I'm sending to the ACLU regarding this.

Dear Friends at the ACLU,

Thank you for you work to find and release the 2002 Guantanamo, Koran toilet desecration reports. Although some of the reports I've seen in the U.S. newspapers have downplayed the the info contained in the report, most of the World press has given this the respect it deserves.

But Then their is the FOX News .com website. Last night, when I was looking to see if this story had burst through the bubble, I decided to see if Fox News had the story. I was greeted (on their home page) with this headline:

Claims Not Credible

Pentagon spokesman says allegations of Koran desecration at Gitmo are not corroborated

Then, when I click on the story, it said this:

<http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157705,00.html>
"...Gov't: Still No Credible Koran-Flush Claims

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

WASHINGTON — Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita (search ) said Wednesday there are no credible allegations that U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay threw a Koran down the toilet — despite allegations contained in newly released FBI documents.

Terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay (search) prison told U.S. interrogators as early as April 2002, just three months after the first detainees arrived, that military guards abused them and desecrated the Koran (search), the declassified FBI records say.

"Their behavior is bad," one detainee is quoted as saying of his guards during an interrogation by an FBI special agent on July 22, 2002. "About five months ago the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Koran in the toilet."

Di Rita, the chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld (search ), said that U.S. military officials at Guantanamo Bay had recently found a separate record of the same allegation by the same detainee, and he was re-interviewed on May 14. "He did not corroborate his own allegation," Di Rita said...."

But it gets much worse, they go on to take tiny clips out of context and completely distort the actual story.

Below I've included the web link to two different threads I started at the web site Democratic Underground .com, an open, high traffic, forum for Democrats to exchange ideas and vent. I posted more of the Fox News distortion there (in case the Fox site suddenly takes this page down) where you can read some of it, as compared to the report from Reuters.

I don't know if you can bring legal action against Fox for this outrageous distortions of the facts, but I hope you do. They shouldn't be aloud to do this kind of crap.

(name withheld here)

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1810111&mesg_id=1810111>

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1810162&mesg_id=1810162>