May 19, 2005

Last year, Newsweek called and asked if I would be willing to sit for an extended interview with the magazine on guerrilla warfare (someone there had read my book Guerrillas in the Mist: A Battlefield Guide to Clandestine Warfare). I had my doubts about Newsweek and the little voice in my brain-housing group said, “Don’t do it, man. These guys have integrity and ethics issues,” but I acquiesced as a public service. The article was published–complete with mistakes made by the reporter–in the magazine’s World Wide Web edition.

That was a mistake. I should have listened to that little voice. Mais c’est la vie et c’est la guerre.

Newsweek ’s Michael Isikoff and John Barry published a bogus story–now retracted after 17 Muslims were killed in riots caused by the story–in the May 9 th 2005 edition of the magazine claiming to have high-level government “sources” that told them a copy of the Qu’ran had been tossed into a toilet by interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to elicit a reaction from a Muslim prisoner. After the totally unverified story ran and people began dying, Newsweek was forced to admit that these two “journalists” had failed to vet the story and that their so-called “sources” could not or would not verify claims made in the article.

However, despite the deaths, damage to our efforts in the war on terror, and the magazine virtually admitting in writing the story that it had illegally acquired classified intelligence, the leftists who run the rag are, as of today (May 18 2005), insisting that no one at the magazine will be held responsible for the results of the fatally fraudulent piece.

In other words, Newsweek’s executives feel that Isikoff and Barry’s jobs are far, far more important than the lives of 17 or so Third World camel jockeys. And so what if their fake story harmed our efforts to win the war on terror? I mean, after all, American military and intelligence personnel are simply right-wing government lackeys who like to bayonet babies and blow up villages filled with women and children, right? Newsweek has made it very clear that harming the Bush Administration, aiding the terrorists by giving them more reasons to hate America and selling magazines easily outweighs the lives of most people.

Isikoff and Barry claimed that they had “sources” (plural, mind you) who told them about the alleged Qu-ran incident and also about a detainee being led around with a “collar and dog leash.” Naturally, they didn’t name that source, which means either (1) the sources knew they were illegally releasing classified information and Newsweek wanted to protect their identities or (2) there never were any sources, i.e., in an attempt to sell more magazines and get a leg up on Time, Isikoff and Barry simply invented the story. I’ll let you decide which one to believe.

Newsweek says the article was written in “good faith,” which is a ludicrous claim given the facts. This piece was penned with malicious intent, pure and simple. Freshman-level journalism students are taught to independently verify information before running it as news. Isikoff and Barry refused to do this and knew or should have known what the result would be in the Islamic world. That’s the very definition of malice in my book and is plain evidence of a classic absence of ethics among two infamous “journalists.”

This brings up the question of the media knowingly and willingly illegally acquiring classified intelligence and then publishing it. The mere act of acquiring it is a felony, of course, and publishing it could easily be taken as treason (aiding the enemy) during time of war, yet we see the media do this with astonishing frequency and the government refuses to arrest those who admit they committed a felony.

Why? Why is it that when a news outlet or “journalist” admits to have knowingly and willingly received classified stolen intelligence, they are not immediately arrested, their computers and files seized and their offices sealed for the duration of the investigation?

Why has it become chic and trendy in the war on terror to aid the enemy, when during World War II such acts would have been unthinkable to most reporters and would have been dealt with severely had a reporter gone over to the other side?

Self-centered media types unable to see the big picture say that committing such felonies is protected under the 1 st Amendment. Funny, but I’ve read the 1 st Amendment hundreds of times and nowhere in it does it say that.

So which is more important: the ability of a “journalist” to get people killed by abusing the 1 st Amendment, or winning the war on terror while keeping as many American military and intelligence personnel alive as possible?

The USA Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act should be brought to bear upon media outlets and “journalists” who knowingly and willingly put American military and intelligence personnel in mortal danger by receiving and disseminating classified intelligence. The FBI should be using wire taps, reading the emails of, and otherwise monitoring media members who have admitted to or who are suspected of illegally receiving classified intelligence.

I’ve broken dozens of stories in the war on terror and made dozens more accurate assessments and predictions in the war on terror. If the FBI wanted to know how I am able to do this, all they would have to do is ask if they can read my emails, listen to my phone calls, etc. I would say they certainly could because protecting my country is more important to me than my privacy. This is heresy to the likes of Isikoff and Barry, of course, who would pale at the suggestion that the survival of America and her citizens is more important than their journalism careers.

A listener emailed me and suggested that since the liberal media is all for a federal mandatory waiting period for someone who wants to exercise his or her 2 nd Amendment rights and buy a firearm, that perhaps we should have a waiting period before someone would be allowed to exercise their 1 st Amendment rights. After all, it now painfully clear that words can kill just as efficiently as guns can kill.

Isikoff and Barry’s act killed people. Should or will they be held in some way accountable for their act?

They should, but they likely won’t, at least to the degree they should be. In fact, just as Dan Rather recently received a Peabody Award despite his scandalous Rathergate debacle, these two clowns might very well be rewarded for their perilous, deadly acts.

And that’s just fine with many liberals.

Bob Newman