from the Binxton...

> When we here at The Binxton were looking for news stories to
> write/talk about, we found a couple that really jumped out at us.
> When we dug a little deeper, we found that these stories were
> related (in more ways than one.) We also found that the main themes
> of these stories were not so much about the topics of their
> discussion, but rather the news itself.
>
> It may be a little bit choppy, but I promise that it will all come
> together in the end. Here are the stories:
>
> —Story 1—
>
> In the May 9 issue of Newsweek, the magazine reported that there
> would be a military report on alleged interrogation abuses at the
> detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In its piece, Newsweek
> states that, ’sources’ tell NEWSWEEK: Interrogators, in an attempt
> to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur’an down a toilet and led a
> detainee around with a collar and a dog leash.”
>
> This one little sentence fueled anti-American riots in the Muslim
> world that injured dozens, and killed at least fifteen.
>
> On May 16, Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker offered a retraction by
> stating, “Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original
> story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Qur’an
> abuse at Guantanamo Bay.”
>
> On May 17, Michael Gawenda of Newsweek wrote that, “A report that
> Islam’s holy book was flushed down a toilet, which sparked fatal
> riots is inaccurate.”
>
> Let’s stop here for a moment. Read the quote in the above paragraph
> one more time. We here at The Binxton find it rather interesting
> that Mr. Gawenda would have included the words, ‘which sparked
> fatal riots’. There was no need to, everyone would have known what
> he was talking about had those four words been omitted.
>
> Have you ever heard the line, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill
> people”? We think that what Mr. Gawenda was saying in his quote
> was, “Words don’t kill rioters, rioters kill rioters.” Besides, any
> first-year law student can tell you that words alone are never
> enough to justify violence. Also, you may find it interesting that
> the (at least) fifteen that were killed four paragraphs ago weren’t
> Americans.
>
> So where are we? Let’s see, Newsweek rang a bell, riots ensued
> because of the noise, and Newsweek tried to unring it.
>
> Gut Feeling—
> Although no one on staff here at The Binxton is of Middle Eastern
> descent, claims to be Islamic or Muslim, has ever been to Iraq,
> Afghanistan or Cuba, or has ever been affiliated with any branch of
> the United States military in any way whatsoever, it is our
> collective gut feeling that in the three plus years that detainees
> have been held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a Qur’an has probably been
> flushed down a toilet.
>
> We can loosely (and do I mean loosely) back this up by appealing to
> common sense with two points.
>
> Point #1—
> We’ve all seen the pictures of the “abuse” at Abu Ghirab—if you’re
> wondering why the word abuse is in quotes, you’ll know by the end
> of this—and it’s clear (perhaps reaching the level of common
> knowledge) that these people are not exactly treated like guests of
> the Waldorf-Astoria.
>
> Point #2—
> Right now there are roughly 200,000 members of the armed forces
> throughout the world, with a gentleman by the name of George W.
> Bush as their leader. We want you to imagine for a moment that you
> are the parent of roughly 200,000 men and women predominately aged
> 18-35. Some of them are bound to be screw-ups. And let’s face it, A
> lot of these people aren’t exactly the cream of the American crop.
> You know that a good portion of our military population enlisted
> only because they thought that doing so was better than any other
> opportunity that was or was not knocking on their door. Can you
> imagine that frame of mind? ‘There is nothing better that I can do
> with myself than to go halfway around the world to some godforsaken
> desert, and spend every waking moment literally fighting for my
> life. Even if the number of said type of soldier is only one
> percent, that still leaves 2000 bad apples out there.
>
> Okay, back to Newsweek. So they caved, why? Who knows. Who knows if
> pressure was brought to bare by the White House, or the Pentagon.
> Did they cave because it’s an outright lie? Or, is it true that
> some things are just better left unsaid? Who the hell knows?
>
> —Story 2—
>
> When we here at The Binxton first heard of this story, we were fighting over the headline
> within minutes. The top two by the way were, “Boxers or Briefs, Mr.
> Hussein” and “Saddam in Brief”. The story seems to have disappeared
> faster than tickets for Eagles tickets on a college campus, so if
> you’re unfamiliar with it, allow us; there is a magazine/newspaper
> type thing in the U.K. called The Sun. It’s not exactly a pillar of
> western journalism, just look at page three. Anyway, The Sun
> somehow procured some pictures of Saddam Hussein while in custody.
> One of them being an image of Mr. Hussein wearing nothing but a
> pair of what are commonly called tighty-whiteys.
>
> Two questions come to mind; who took the pictures, and how did The
> Sun get them? The answer to the first question is quite simple –
> who knows, we’ll never know, it might as well have been Ansel
> Adams. The second however, is much more interesting. According to
> The Sun, U.S. “military sources said they handed over the photos in
> the hope of dealing a body blow to the resistance in Iraq.”
> Interesting, isn’t it?
>
> The more we thought about this, the more we wondered why the photos
> didn’t end up in the mailbox of an American tabloid magazine. You
> don’t think that The Enquirer would have paid the equivalent of the
> gross domestic product of a small South American nation for them?
> After all, who enjoys a fall from grace more than we Americans? See
> O.J. Simpson, Martha Stewart and Michael Jackson.
>
> Then we thought that maybe the reason why they went to the Brits is
> because we Americans are really not all that interested. Let’s face
> it, most of us have all but forgotten about 9/11. It’s just
> something that happened a long time ago in a place far away.
> Especially to those of us in California. The battles in Iraq and
> Afghanistan are even further away. In fact, I’d bet that more than
> half of all Americans couldn’t point out either country on an
> unlabeled map of the world.
>
> We see the images on the news, but we don’t pay attention to the
> real world. We’d rather watch Desperate Housewives, or Paris Hilton
> hocking cheeseburgers, or newlyweds eating earthworms for a shot a
> fifty grand.
>
> Once again, pressure will probably be brought to bare by the
> Pentagon/White House regarding the photographs. In fact, the
> Pentagon has already issued the following statement; “These photos
> were taken in clear violation of DOD directives and possibly Geneva
> Convention guidelines for the humane treatment of detained
> individuals.”
>
> Tom Newton Dunn, editor for The Sun issued a statement of his own
> which most of the world could hardly agree more to, when he said
> that Mr. Hussein is, “hardly entitled to a single human courtesy.”
>
> So there you have it, two takes on two very interesting stories.
>
> What do you think?
>

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