My dig was at sloppy journalism. I took an instance which was the most widespread I could think of, and Bush was, in part, implicated in that, but he was collateral damage. The real dig was at the media. As far as evenhandedness the conservatives inclination to play the victim is showing. Newsweek and Bush are not on opposite sides, so taking swipes at both of them does not display a lack of evenhandedness unless... we are going to here those poor victim conservatives complain again on how everyone is out to get them, and thus on an opposing side.
You are right to be offended. But remember that when someone is dismissive and insulting of others faith it is they who look bad, and not those who follow the faith. What he said made him seem, ignorant, insensisitive, and disrespectful, it didn't make you or Islam come off negatively at all. I know that is of little comfort and does nothing to lessen the offense.
i think you're wrong here. similarly to CBS news, newsweek allowed its antipathy to bush to undermine its commitment to fair standards of reporting, with the result that people got killed. not only are bush and newsweek on opposite sides, the result in this instance makes it fair to question newsweek's patriotism.
If you look, you will see that I was responding to a comment on this board and asking what people on this board would do if a toilet paper comment was made regarding the Bible, Torah, or any other book considered holy by someone. I wasn't talking about Muslim extremists that kill at whim nor was I referring to Christian fundamentalists that bomb abortion clinics. Keeping the context of my comment in mind, am I running out and killing people? I don't think you'll win too many supporters on this board equating me to extremist Muslims in Afghanistan, especially considering that my comment had nothing to do with what people are doing elsewhere.
DD is for sure........................................ an a$$hole. MR. MEOWGI.....well there is a difference between using fake menstrual blood technique and using the Quran.... your disrespecting the religon at hand.... saying it is trash.....there are about 7 - 9 million muslims in the U.S....you are disrespecting them....if the government officials show disrespect to what they believe...then you are disrespecting them... so i don't really understand your point. and Madmax your little story is a fallacy of hasty generalization...so your story is pointless.. just a question...did Kerry win MOST of the east/west coast in the last elections?...sorry side note...just wanted to know. just by seeing most of these posts you can see why the U.S is hated by most foreigners. ..actually nothing new.
My point is flushing the Koran, and using fake menstrual blood as religious based interrogation would both be disrespecting the Muslim religion as a whole.
I'd have had a lot more respect for Newsweek (which still isn't saying much), if they had stuck by what they reported. After their waffling, they look bad from all sides. They reported something incendiary that may or may not have been true, caved under pressure, and then admitted that it wasn't ironclad journalism. Too pathetic. Personally, I believe the initial report. I don't see why our interrogators wouldn't do it.
They aren't on opposite sides, since Bush isn't on any side on this particular issue. The article was about procedures at gitmo. It wasn't antipathy toward Bush that caused them to run the article, it was rushing to put out the story. The story, even if 100% credible, and able to be verified would only have been anti-Bush if Bush failed to follow up by taking action to correct the problem. The original claim came from an army report. The retraction was that he wasn't sure the army report could be trusted 100%. Newsweek didn't say anything that an army report didn't also say. To question the patriotism of one is to question the patriotism of the other. However to question the patriotism of either is a misuse of patriotism, and a weak attempt to isolate those that aren't seen as agreeing with the powers that be. A better instance of questioning patriotism would be to wonder why so many are so willing to toss aside the words of our founding fathers so easily. I've posted about how I feel concerning the declaration of independence. The actions of others and support of those actions that directly oppose the words in the preamble are what I question.
Dadakota's areligious, so you'll get other people jumping on you instead of him. I'm not sure if people here tolerated or accepted the ass comment, but just took it for what it was from the poster.
I agree with what you have to say. The mindset of a Muslim is different from the mindset of a Christian and that is different of the mindset of a Jew. The followers of each faith have a different type of relationship with God and a different way of looking at things with respect to faith. No better no worse. Just different. If we are to compare texts between Islam and Christianity, I think the most appropriate comparison would not be between the Bible and the Qur'an, but rather the Bible and the Sunnah (the teachings of the Prophet PBUH). The reason being that the Bible is not direct revelation, but rather interpretation of revelation. That's why the Bible has different books, each of which have different authors based on their individual interpretation. Additionally, that is why all of the Bible is in 3rd person (the exception being when the author quotes someone, whether that be God or anyone else). The Sunnah in Islam is the same way. The Sunnah is written by companions of the Prophet PBUH and they reference the activities of the Prophet PBUH and his teachings. Each book of Sunnah has a different author, each of whom have individual interpretations. The Qur'an on the other hand is direct revelation. The Qur'an is the word of God through Gabriel, literally. The Qur'an is in 1st person. That is why the Qur'an has never been altered and never will be altered. Furthermore, that is why translations of the Qur'an are never held in the same regard as the Qur'an itself. When man translates the word of God, it is no longer the word of God, but rather man's interpretation. That is why Muslims respect not only the message so immensely, but the physical text as well. When Muslims travel, they do not put Qur'ans in regular luggage because luggage is thrown around. In Muslim homes, Qur'ans are always kept in high places and never in a place where someone's feet would point towards it when sleeping. Muslims have to be clean and properly dressed when reading the Qur'an. With the topic at hand, that is why Muslims get so offended (and rightfully so) when others desecrate and disrespect the Qur'an, because in our view, it is directly desecrating the word of God. Please do not interpret that to mean that desecrating a book of Sunnah is fine and dandy because it's not. I guarantee you that extreme Muslims will be in an uproar if that happens as well. Bottom line is that we as Americans value religious freedom (at least we did at one time). We have love for America, but we have love for God as well. We cannot let our love of country and our love of God become competing interests. When that happens, it becomes truly dangerous. I can speak for myself in saying that my love for God supercedes my love for any country. I have an allegiance to God before I have an allegiance to George W. Bush. If it gets to a point where I have to choose one or the other, I'll just leave for Canada I'm sure that argument extends to most religious people. If I were to ask Pat Robertson to pick God or Bush, I'm pretty sure he would pick God. Subsequently, we cannot become a nation where people have to make such calls. We take pride in being a country where a Muslim can live next door to a Jew, who can live across the street from a Christian. Our faith does not get in the way of us watching a ballgame together and standing side by side, in unison, when they play the Star Spangled Banner. We are different in faith, but united in our love for America and the American way of life. Let's not change that. If you compel Muslims to choose between God and America today, there is no guarantee that you won't make Christians do it somewhere down the line. As a country, let's not get to that point.
aggierocket good post. MR. MEOWGI...... you did'nt get my point.... i don't understand why you can;t get this..... the Quaran represents Islam as a whole.....when your using the Quran then it the whole religon that your trashing..... menstrual blood has nothing to do with it.....by using menstrual blood you are not trashing the whole religon....you may by defying it...but not trashing it...two different things.
you're giving newsweek way to much credit. their actions here make CBS news look like paragons of virture. newsweek lied, people died. and the devil of bush-hate made them do it.
I guess I don't take things a literally as you do. Geez... You can trash something physically, verbally, directly and non-directly etc. I also said disrespecting, not trashing.
Who cares ??? I mean really??? It is not that they cut off anyone's head or anything. Perspective people...perspective... It is a BOOK !!!...maybe people should wipe their ass with the Newsweek instead of the Koran? DD
So was it Isikoff's rabid anti-Bush hatred that made him write this defense of Bush and critical analysis of Michael Moore and F9/11? Basso your hysterics are getting a little out of hand. More Distortions From Michael Moore Some of the main points in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ really aren’t very fair at all WEB EXCLUSIVE By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball Newsweek Updated: 6:26 p.m. ET June 30, 2004 June 30 - In his new movie, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” film-maker Michael Moore makes the eye-popping claim that Saudi Arabian interests “have given” $1.4 billion to firms connected to the family and friends of President George W. Bush. This, Moore suggests, helps explain one of the principal themes of the film: that the Bush White House has shown remarkable solicitude to the Saudi royals, even to the point of compromising the war on terror. When you and your associates get money like that, Moore says at one point in the movie, “who you gonna like? Who’s your Daddy?” But a cursory examination of the claim reveals some flaws in Moore’s arithmetic—not to mention his logic. Moore derives the $1.4 billion figure from journalist Craig Unger’s book, “House of Bush, House of Saud.” Nearly 90 percent of that amount, $1.18 billion, comes from just one source: contracts in the early to mid-1990’s that the Saudi Arabian government awarded to a U.S. defense contractor, BDM, for training the country’s military and National Guard. What’s the significance of BDM? The firm at the time was owned by the Carlyle Group, the powerhouse private-equity firm whose Asian-affiliate advisory board has included the president’s father, George H.W. Bush....... © 2005 Newsweek, Inc. © 2005 MSNBC.com URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5335853/site/newsweek/
MR. MEOWGI….. I did’nt mean trashing in the literal sense anyway….ill try to explain it more clearly….disrespecting something can be done at different levels….you can disrespect a certain aspect of a certain culture….then there is disrespect to the whole culture as a whole…. Two different things?? Am I wrong here??? Anyway flushing the Quran down a toilet is disrespecting the whole religion…… menstrual blood does not represent the religion…the Quarn does…. Anyway if you don’t get it now…then we should just agree to disagree…. And DD….. you may not care….but from the news there were some people in muslim countries that did….oh yeah I forget….who gives a f**k.
Newsweek may have gotten the story right afterall. Guantanamo Controversies The Bible and the Koran The Pentagon has claimed that the incident did not occur. Although the corporate media are now reporting that Newsweek had "backed off" the report, that isn't true. Newsweek explains that in response to Pentagon queries, Isikoff's source, in other words, stands by his report of the incident, but is merely tracing it to other paperwork. What difference does that make? Although Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita angrily denounced the source as no longer credible, in the real world you can't just get rid of a witness because the person made a minor mistake with regard to a text citation. It is like saying that we can't be sure someone has really read the Gospels because he said he read about Caiaphas in the Gospel of Mark rather than in the Gospel of John. Newsweek has, in other words, confirmed that the source did read a US government account of the desecration of the Koran. Nor is this the first such indication of this sort of incident. On August 18, 2004, ANSA, the Italian news agency, wrote of the families of detainees from Bahrain at Guantanamo:
It's very telling that the liberals in this thread are doing the least to give our troops the benefit of the doubt on this issue. Very telling, indeed, yet hardly surprising. Anything to give the liberals that "I told you so" satisfaction - our brave troops be damned.
Well either you act respectful or you don't. You are picking hairs. Using aspects of ones religion against someone in a torturous manner is more disrespectful than flushing the Koran imo.
