DoD DoA (Further lessons in media revisionism) posted by Richard Seymour

The Road to Surfdom has discovered that:

The Department of Defense mailing list has gone to the trouble of sending around the following message:

Please disregard earlier AFPS story, "Rumsfeld Apologizes to Iraqi Victims of Prison Abuse," datelined May 5, 2004, and issued on this listserv.
Please use the revised text, which follows:


And then follows the full story which you can find here. The link to the previous story is no longer operative, in fact, it takes you to the new story.

The two articles are virtually identical except for the opening and the title. The orginal went like this:

Rumsfeld Apologizes to Iraqi Victims of Prison Abuse
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 5, 2004 – Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld apologized today to Iraqis abused by American prison guards in Abu Ghraib.

"Any American who sees the photographs that we've seen has to feel apologetic to the Iraqi people who were abused and recognize that that is something that is unacceptable and certainly un-American," Rumsfeld said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

The secretary left open the door that compensation could be paid to the abuse victims.


The updated article reads as follows:

Prison Abuse 'Unacceptable, Un-American', Rumsfeld Says
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 5, 2004 – "Any American who sees the photographs that we've seen has to feel apologetic to the Iraqi people who were abused and recognize that that is something that is unacceptable and certainly un-American," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today.

Rumsfeld discussed the alleged abuse of Iraqi detainees by American guards at Abu Ghraib prison on ABC TV's "Good Morning America." The secretary left open the door that compensation could be paid to the abuse victims.


I guess they really don't want us to get the impression that the Secretary would apologise. So noted.

I apologise for extracting the entire post, but the details are important for what follows. Cursor links to an MSNBC news story which is advertised as follows:

MSNBC reports that acccording to U.S. military officials, unreleased images from Abu Ghraib "showed U.S. soldiers severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner and 'acting inappropriately with a dead body.' The officials said there was also a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys."

Unfortunately, the story they link to now says something different completely. It no longer contains, for instance, the cited paragraph. Why?

Google has the answer. A search for that paragraph on Google locates the exact article to which Cursor link, with those words highlighted. However, clicking on the link only produces the altered article again. Instead, if you click on "Cached", you get this :

Rumsfeld apologizes to abused Iraqis

Defense secretary warns that worse photos, videos are yet to come

...

Rumsfeld did not describe the photos, but U.S. military officials told NBC News that the unreleased images showed U.S. soldiers severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi female prisoner and “acting inappropriately with a dead body.” The officials said there was also a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys.

Not only have MSNBC removed the terms of apology as requested by the DoD (instead it is the American people who must "feel apologetic to the Iraqi people who were abused and recognize that that is something that is unacceptable and certainly un-American"), but they have also scrubbed out the bulk of the worthy news...