HARSH TREATMENT = WIDESPREAD ABUSE = RAMPANT TORTURE

The New York Times starts off its article on the abuse of detainees in Afghanistan:

Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.

Did his tormentors know or even imagine the man was dying? Probably not. There's similar subtle anti-US bias throughout. Read it and decide for yourself.

Reuters picks up the NYT article, reporting:

A confidential U.S. Army report contains graphic details of widespread abuse of detainees in Afghanistan in 2002 carried out by "young and poorly trained soldiers,'' The New York Times reported on Friday.

The NYT report does not use "widespread" because it doesn't address how widespread was detainee abuse in Afghanistan. The soldiers aren't to blame because they're young and poorly trained; the army's at fault. Further subtle bias.

Australia's Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) isn't content with subtle bias, it just makes things up - see earlier SBS post below. Here's the SBS headline for its report on the NYT article:

REPORT FINDS 'RAMPANT' TORTURE

Neither the NYT nor Reuters reports mention torture and in fact there was no torture described. Having set the tone with the headline the report continues:

The New York Times reported on Friday that two Afghan prisoners held at Bagram were tortured to death by American soldiers in 2002, according to the leaked file.

"Harsh treatment" cited by the NYT evolves into "widespread abuse" according to Reuters and ends up as "rampant torture" according to SBS. What with the MSMs mutiple levels of checking and editing it impossible for this to be a simple mistake, it must be intentional. It's also inexcusable, especially from a publicly funded news outlet.

So, what's with this sudden push for bad news from Afghanistan? The SBS report inadvertently answers that in the last paragraph:

The latest allegations of prisoner abuse, as well as recent anti-US protests in Kabul sparked by an erroneous story about desecration of the Koran by US guards, threaten to overshadow a visit by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Washington beginning on Saturday.

So, Newsweek, the NYT, Reuters, and SBS are part of a vast left-wing conspiracy to report bad news that will take attention off any progress in Afghanistan. Go figure.

Oh yeah, anyone so inclined can contact SBS at theworldnews@sbs.com.au. They encourage feedback, by the way.

Update: Australia's ABC picks up the story:

Two Afghan prisoners held in a US-run prison in Bagram were tortured to death by American soldiers in 2002, The New York Times reported on Friday, citing a 2,000-page file on the US Army's criminal investigation of the case.

That's our ABC.