Ed Hum – 5/20/05

This page was last updated on May 22, 2005.

Who [sic] do we believe?; Ed Hum; Beaver County Times; May 20, 2005.

This is at least the 6^th anti-Bush/anti-Republican letter from Mr. Hum since July 2004. He usually claims to be a Republican, though I have my doubts.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Is it hard to believe someone flushed a Koran down a commode?”

[RWC] Yes, actually. You can flush a toilet, but not a commode.

Second, unless it’s a very small Koran, how do you flush a book down a toilet?

Frankly, I don’t care if someone flushed a Koran or not. If it would help save lives, they could flush a Bible for all I care. Like it or not, interrogating prisoners is not pretty and lives can be in the balance.

What I believe gets missed is this. Even if the story were true, I believe Newsweek had no business publishing it. Newsweek had to know how this would appear to the Muslim world. In publishing the allegation, Newsweek materially undermined our diplomatic and military efforts in the Middle East. Whose side is Newsweek – and the majority of the mainstream press – on? We expect stories like this from Al Jazeera; we should not expect stories like this from U.S. media outlets.

“Look at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. An Army Reserve MP battalion trained to guard prisoners and direct traffic was activated. A few bad enlisted men went to pet shops, bought dog collars and leashes, put them in duffel bags and shipped out to Iraq. Without pictures we would never have known.”

[RWC] “A few bad enlisted men went to pet shops, bought dog collars and leashes, put them in duffel bags and shipped out to Iraq?” Where did this come from? Does Mr. Hum expect us to believe the few deviant MPs knew in advance they were going to humiliate prisoners?

Mr. Hum probably believes the world revolves around CBS News, but the Pentagon disclosed the Abu Ghraib allegations and investigation during a regular press conference months before CBS news “broke” the story.

Besides, what was so bad about Abu Ghraib? Though the behavior of the soldiers was clearly un-American and violated U.S. military law, the prisoners were not hurt or physically tortured. Remember who these prisoners were.

Panties on a prisoner’s head received far more “news” coverage than beheaded Americans.

“The authorities investigated; found the guards had acted on their own without orders and court martialed them.

“Case closed: except we still don’t know where they got the dog equipment.”

[RWC] Can Mr. Hum really be this ignorant? I’m not an expert on this subject, but even I know MPs routinely use trained dogs, just as civilian police officers do.

“So, we believe politicians or reporters. Gee, do we have any reason to doubt politicians?”

[RWC] Of course we have reason to doubt politicians, but let’s look at this case.

Newsweek admitted the story was bogus, and the circumstances were eerily similar to Dan Rather’s memogate. The “reporter” used a single source that did not have first hand knowledge of the alleged incident and provided no documentation to back up his claim. In other words, the reporter accepted one person’s gossip without any verification. The reporter did not get corroboration from other sources. When the story “hit the fan,” the single source admitted he didn’t remember where he read about the alleged flushing.

If I read Mr. Hum’s letter correctly, he wants us to believe the story is true even after Newsweek admitted it had no evidence to support the allegation. Some people simply want to believe the worst about the U.S., and this allegation isn’t even that bad given the context.