. . . serves a republic the way a conscience serves an individual.
Newsweek's dubiously-sourced Koran-flushing story was seized on by cynical extremists in the Muslim world to whip simple believers into an anti-American frenzy, and by cynical honchos in the Administration to whip the American right into an anti-press frenzy, thus cleverly diverting attention from our own government's heavy-handed blunders in conducting the terror war. Bad stories have bad results.
Good stories are another story. No one has cast doubt on The New York Times' May 20 story about the beating deaths of two Afghan prisoners at Bagram in 2002, which is based on the Army's own investigative report. In yesterday's follow-up story about the Army's initial slowness to investigate, the Pentagon's response was, in stark contrast, chastened and somber:
"I would acknowledge that a lot of these investigations appear to have taken excessively long," the Defense Department's chief spokesman, Larry Di Rita, said in an interview on Friday. "There's no other way to describe an investigation that takes two years. People are being held accountable, but it's taking too long."
Mr. Di Rita said the Pentagon was examining ways to speed up such investigations, "because justice delayed is justice denied."
And in the Muslim world, in contrast to fanatics pouring fuel on the conflagration of error and ignorance, you have an expression of shock and anger from our ally, the cultured and moderate Afghan president Hamid Karzai.
Does it harm the U.S.'s war effort and reputation for such stories to come out, even -- or especially -- the good, impeccably documented ones? In the short run, sure. In the long run, the scrutiny of government and the military by a free press applies pressure toward that higher standard of conduct that would be our sole unassailable source of power and pride.
- amba
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