Something is wrong when respected news agencies become the makers, rather than the reporters, of news. The most recent case of this flip-flop came over the weekend, when a report in Newsweek magazine that US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated copies of the Koran in hopes of squeezing information from prisoners had sad and bloody results. The report unleashed rowdy anti-American sentiment in already explosive and unstable Afghanistan. Seventeen people died. On Monday -- facing enormous international and government pressure -- Newsweek retracted  its report, chiefly, it said, because its anonymous source shifted his take on the story and the details surrounding the supposed Koran desecration. The magazine still maintains, however, that a top Pentagon official was given a copy of the story beforehand and was asked if it was accurate. The source found no fault with the Koran toilet bowl incident, but made some other minor changes to the piece, the magazine says.

The messiness of the saga -- and the fact that no one really knows what the truth is -- is disheartening. Especially given the fact that people died over what was written. And, as an editorial in Tuesday's Jordan Times rightly insists, there is, in this post-Abu Ghraib era, a "credibility deficit." In other words, the paper implies, America has already blown its image as a benevolent and sensitive conquerer. "Even an ordinary illiterate peasant understands, that Newsweek's apology was a decision by America to save itself," the paper says, quoting an Afghani Muslim cleric. "It comes because of American (administration) pressure."

Arab cynicism is excusable

The paper insists that such Arab cynicism is "excusable" given the current climate and the fact that flushing the Koran down the toilet "as a means of exerting psychological pressure on Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay seems entirely consistent with other reprehensible interrogation tactics known to have been applied elsewhere." Think Lynndie England. Also troubling is the fact that other former Guantanamo detainees have made similar charges. The Pentagon has always dismissed these accusations as unsubstantiated. But how many unsubstantiated claims does it take to make something suspect?

"As the West never tires of telling us in the Arab region, transparency is the mother of credibility," writes the Jordan paper. "It is the absence of transparency that breeds cynicism." Indeed. The Pentagon has not only denied the accuracy of the charges in this particular case, but also said that other reports of Koran desecration have been investigated and found not credible. Can someone please tell us what charges they are talking about? When did they occur? How often and where?

The Jordan Times also nails one of the biggest problems of U.S. President Bush's administration: its utter distrust and disdain for the media. "This administration is one of the most secretive in recent memory -- some say since the Nixon administration," the paper writes, not unjustly. "Many members of the media report intimidation and denial of access in the pursuit of information." Not only does this secrecy create a climate where administration officials are forced to speak anonymously, it also makes it necessary for news sources like Newsweek to rely more and more on unnamed sources. So should the real blame be laid at the feet of the Bush administration? Partly. But not entirely.

An explosive situation in Afghanistan

The truth is, as Newsweek is quick to point out in an editorial, the Koran report arrived at a delicate moment in Afghan politics. Opponents of the current government -- including deposed Taliban despots -- have been itching for ways of exploiting widespread public discontent. The Afghan economy remains weak, morale is low and innocent Afghan men still get caught in U.S. military round ups and end up jailed unfairly for months. When they are released, many tell tales of abuse. Plus, farmers are disgruntled by the U.S. and European-backed "holy war" against opium production and the consequent destruction of huge swaths of profitable poppy fields. So the population is ripe for revolt. Not only that, Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- who many Afghans see as a US puppet -- is scheduled to come to Washington next week. What better time to create friction?