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Pelley cites others' claims to have also been tortured, but he has no names. And that some U.S. military officials acknowledged that such torture took place, though again, no names. And no specificity about what these U.S. soldiers said. Said Pelley: "Kurnaz isn't alone in these allegations. Other freed prisoners have described electric shocks at Kandahar. And even U.S. troops have admitted beating prisoners who were hanging by their arms. Kurnaz's story fits a pattern." This is apparently the basis for believing Kurnaz's story. No names, no facts.

What fits a pattern is 60 Minutes' effort to discredit the war, the administration, and the U.S. standing around the world. 60 Minutes had a story they wanted to tell, and they were perfectly willing to leave out key facts that would clearly have influenced what people thought about this man. They show parts of documents to the millions of viewers who watch the show each week, and leave others buried on their website for a fraction of the people to dig out the rest of story.

Ironically this show aired the same day that the remains of Army Staff Sergeant Matt Maupin were publicly identified after being discovered. He was captured four years ago this week, and, according to this TV station report (web site) from Maupin's hometown of Cincinnati, "the Arab television network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape showing Maupin sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles. On June 28, a video purporting to show his execution was released, but Army officials said the quality was so poor that it could not be verified." This was a stark, timely reminder of the potential consequences of irresponsible reporting like this 60 Minutes story.

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Roger Aronoff is a media analyst with Accuracy in Media. He can be contacted at roger.aronoff@aim.org.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

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