Opinions on the Newsweek Scandal:

Alright, so I promised minimum wage, but you will not be getting it. That is because something happened that is kind of pissing me off. Now Newsweek published a story last week where they claimed that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed copies of the Koran down the toilet. Apparently this "caused" protests which turned into riots and this in turn caused nearly 17 people to die. Then it turns out the story was not as solid as it should have been and Newsweek came out with that. The Bush administration has pushed for Newsweek to retract the story, which they did.

Alright, now that we are caught up, let’s examine this a little more closely because there is a lot going on here. The first thing is this issue of the riots. Now many are attempting to blame the riots on Newsweek and I really think that is just plain stupid. Sure Newsweek published something that it was not sure happened, but I honestly do not think that people would riot because they read something in Newsweek that said the Koran was flushed down a toilet. Honestly, I doubt more than a couple hundred people in the Arab region read Newsweek and those people are not the ones who would start a violent riot. So then the question becomes, how did this riot begin if it was not a spontaneous outburst of anger as a result a bombastic story in a publication few could read, and even fewer do? Well of course the riots had to be arranged in some manner. Sure the Newsweek article may have upset an official of sorts, who then encouraged people to riot, but it was not the article that caused the riots, rather an official of sorts who was able to play on peoples already existing hatred for many things outside of the one incident in which a Koran may have been flushed down a toilet.

So if we want to levy an specific blame for the riots that ensued, we can't blame an article, we have to blame decades of oppressive American foreign policy towards the Arab region, which we are attempting to rectify, but which requires an initial exacerbation of that ill will to hopefully, eventually pacify. But anyways, lets no go wild here and claim Newsweek ought to get the death penalty for what it has done.

That is all for today, but before I go, I feel guilty for not posting something about the filibuster issue today, considering it may all go down tomorrow. But I have talked about it a good deal. Let me summarize though, it will be bad if done for all parties. There you go.

-Mr. Alec