Writing in Tech Central Station, Jack Birnbaum observes a key historical precedent for Newsweek's "story":

So now riots in Afghanistan have left at least 15 people dead. Some experts say (now they've got me doing it… see how easy it is?) that our efforts to introduce democracy there have been irreversibly damaged. There are protests across the Islamic world, from Indonesia to Pakistan to Egypt. And everyone who had a reason to want to believe the original story, now believes that the magazine's own admission that the story was unsubstantiated is just further proof of conspiracy and suppression of the truth about the evil of America.

In the early years of the 20th century, Russian secret police reprinted an old forgery called "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a supposed outline of Jewish plans to dominate the world. In the time since, millions have read it and been swayed by it; it probably played at least a minor role in the recrudescence of European anti-Semitism that ended in the Holocaust. Still, today, in the 21st century, it is a best seller in much of the Muslim world.

Now Newsweek has given us their own "protocols". Only time will tell how deep and long-lasting the damage will be, and even then, we will never really know how much of a role it may have played in a failure to succeed in bringing free political systems into the Arab world, or in an Iranian use of a nuclear weapon, or in a group of suicide attackers spreading smallpox around American cities. But we do know this: Newsweek has forfeited any pretensions it had about being a reliable source of information. The only honorable thing to do would be to apologize without conditions, and to shut itself down. I'm not holding my breath. But then, I'm not subscribing any more either. I can't even bear to look at it.