Gee, guess Newsweek was right after all

[tristano's ghost]

But when oh when will the Bush administration get around to apologizing for its lies and mangling of intell that have cost tens of thousands of lives in Iraq?

Newsweek story

[hornplayer]

Originally Posted by tristano's ghost

But when oh when will the Bush administration get around to apologizing for its lies and mangling of intell that have cost tens of thousands of lives in Iraq?

Imo, never. I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally Posted by The blog TG linked to

Right now it looks like the only thing Newsweek got wrong is the claim that the story would be "in an upcoming report by the U.S. Southern Command in Miami." In other words, the story is true, but Newsweek erred in believing the military would own up to it. The football was there, until Lucy jerked it away.

Afaik, this was always the point of contention. A portion of the media ran with it and transmuted it to the claim that NW was entirely wrong about the whole incident. Of course, NW didn't help matters by wimping out.

In any case, this wasn't the first time this incident (desecration of the Koran) was alleged to have happened.

[crawjo]

And given all the other methods of "interrogation" employed by the United States, I'm mystified as to why anyone would be surprised by this in the first place.

[Doc Martin]

Originally Posted by crawjo

And given all the other methods of "interrogation" employed by the United States, I'm mystified as to why anyone would be surprised by this in the first place.

Exactly!

[groover]

I don't think anyone was really surprised, and it was actually a minor item in Newsweek. However, things are still slow in Afghanistan, so I guess they needed something to get fired up about. You'd think with all the strong dope they have over there, they'd be too drugged to get angry, but apparently not. Religion isn't their opiate, it's their stimulant!

[bostontricky]

From the "damn liberal media" thread:

Originally Posted by Coda

This is the post you choose after yet another liberal media outlet releases incorrect info? Put you glasses on Frank and look at any of today's headlines.

You're going to confuse the poor boy. First, the "liberal media" says one thing, then they backpedal, then they turn out to be right all along...

[clinthopson]

How about the Shrub administration flushing the Bill of Rights down the toilet?

[patricia]

Well, I can only think that because the report by Dan Rather regarding President Bush's National Guard record was totally discarded, because the source was shown to be unreliable, they simply thought the same thing would happen with the Newsweek story.
Unfortunately for them, there have been reports from more than just Newsweek about the Koran being disrespected and even desecrated all along, from several eyewitnesses, since the beginning. I remember mentioning that the former detainees are a keg of dynamite waiting to explode, once they are released. This isn't going away.

[groover]

FBI RECOVERS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL COPIES OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS

http://www.billofrights.com/FBIRecoversOriginal.htm


The original copies are all safe now, Clint.

However, most Americans ought to be smart enough to recognize the real value is in the concepts, and the application of those concepts, not the physical copies.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by groover

FBI RECOVERS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL COPIES OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS

http://www.billofrights.com/FBIRecoversOriginal.htm


The original copies are all safe now, Clint.

However, Americans should be smart enough to recognize the real value is in the concepts, not the physical copies.

Which is why the desecration of the Koran [or the Bible] is such a sign of contempt. It's not about whether the entire book was flushed down a toilet, or ripped up, or whatever else is done to it. It's the inherent disrespect for the beliefs of an entire religion. We wouldn't stand for the Bible being disrespected, as a method of interrogation. Neither will the followers of Islam stand for it. It's not about paper, bound in a book. The desecrations are tantamount to spitting in the faces of the thousands of people whose religion is Islam. Not cool.

[groover]

To be fair, Muslims are so hypersensitive regarding treatment of any mass-produced physical copy of the Koran, it's virtually impossible for American soldiers to avoid offending them. However, they could have tried a lot harder. This has been yet another sad chapter in long tragic chain of events that could have been avoided by different decisions from the start.

Even if we find out that inexpensive mass-produced copies of the Bible were treated similarly in interrogation of our captives, I wouldn't see the need for riots in the streets, but others must feel differently.

I'll give those Muslim radicals some small credit. They may have cut off a few heads, but they haven't yet trashed a Bible, to my knowledge.

However, I suspect they have little respect for the Bill of Rights, either.

I'll bet some copies of the Koran have been destroyed inadvertently as a result of Muslim bombings, also, but that's o.k. because they're doing it in defense of Islam.

Originally Posted by particia

It's the inherent disrespect for the beliefs of an entire religion.

Oh my................

You can't be serious.

Look at the disrespect that Christianity receives around here.

Originally Posted by particia

We wouldn't stand for the Bible being disrespected, as a method of interrogation.

Who's "we", mademoiselle?

Most here would barely muster the empathy to lazily raise an eyebrow if that were to happen.

[tristano's ghost]

Now the Pentagon claims the detainee has retracted his allegation re: flushing.

Wonder how long they hung him from the ceiling till he retracted--so to speak? How can there be any credibility anymore when we sanction torture and create our own little gulag?

[patricia]

Originally Posted by tristano's ghost

Now the Pentagon claims the detainee has retracted his allegation re: flushing.

Wonder how long they hung him from the ceiling till he retracted--so to speak? How can there be any credibility anymore when we sanction torture and create our own little gulag?

Exactly my point and thank you.
Scott's comment that there are those who claim to be Christian would maybe raise an eyebrow, should the Bible be desecrated, would seem to be the prevailing thought of many who wonder what the big deal is. It's not about the book as an object, but the attitude that would prompt such an indication of contempt by the guards and others, apparently responsible.

No apologies would seem to be forthcoming from anyone from the military, which I think is a mistake. It's of course a single facet of a much bigger problem of the contempt that many of the guards seem to have had and still have for the detainees, few of whom have been charged with anything . There seems, so far, to be a defense of ignorance and accidental "mishandling" that has been admitted. Kind of an "OOPS" defense.

[groover]

Don't millions of Muslims still believe that the CIA and the MOSSAD engineered 9/11 to instigate a war against Islam? I doubt this retraction, even if genuine, will change public opinion in the Muslim world.

Originally Posted by particia

Scott's comment that there are those who claim to be Christian would maybe raise an eyebrow, should the Bible be desecrated, would seem to be the prevailing thought of many who wonder what the big deal is.

That is not what I said at all.

Please re-read both of my previous posts.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

That is not what I said at all.

Please re-read both of my previous posts.

My dear Scott. I wasn't quoting you. I was paraphrasing. Was I misinterpreting what you said??

I did read both your comments.
The first referred to the lively debates and even spirited arguments we have here on JC, regarding our opinions about religion.
The second referred to your opinion that most of the people who post here would not care very much if the Bible were desecrated, at least to the point of launching a Western version of a Jihad.

Both those statements being true does not negate the fact that the Koran is a holy book to those who follow Islam and that desecrating it may mean more to the detainees who follow Islam than desecrating the Bible would mean to some who only casually follow Christianity.

That was the point I was attempting to make.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

I get the feeling we are talking about two different things.

Perhaps we are.
Read my expanded answer to your original posts and see where I am in the discussion of the events and their aftermath.
Were you saying that this is a tempest in a teapot??

Oy, the site is doing some funky shit today. So let me try this again:

Originally Posted by patricia

My dear Scott. I wasn't quoting you. I was paraphrasing. Was I misinterpreting what you said??

I get the feeling we're talking about two different things.

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Who's "we", mademoiselle?

You said "we". Well, "we" aren't Christians, nor do we pretend to be. and no, we wouldn't give two shits if the Bible was desecrated, let's be perfectly honest.

But as long as the evil Bush admin is doing something evil, it is "our" duty to jump on the outrage bandwagon.

[patricia]

Well Scott, you may not care, but people were killed in riots over this in Afghanistan. They obviously care.
I don't care if someone mishandles a book, or a flag or any other symbol, but that doesn't mean that I don't try to understand why others would.
Cultural differences are one of the basic causes for unrest in the world and for the launchings of violence, sometimes wars. So, yes, I care about actions born of ignorance that make things worse than they already are.
But, that's just me.

And, you're right. I shouldn't have said "WE , since the assumption that everybody who posts here is Christian presumes erroneously. BUT the deliberate contempt for someone else's deeply held beliefs as a method of tormenting them transcends religious differences and becomes cruelty, plain and simple.

[Sergio Zamora]

I thought this exerpt from Juan Cole's blog was interesting

Originally Posted by www.juancole.com

Friday, May 20, 2005

Why Jacoby is Wrong

Jeff Jacoby argues that there is something peculiar about the reaction of Muslims to the allegations that the Koran was disrespected at Guantanamo prison by US military interrogators.

Jacoby's position is pure bigotry. We have to be clear about this. Anti-muslimism is a form of racial prejudice no different from any other. If Jacoby said, "What is wrong with those people of African descent, that they are so violent all the time when nobody else is?" he'd probably be fired. It is not all right for him to do the same thing to Muslims. While Muslims are a religious group, in the contemporary United States they most often are racialized. It comes to the same thing.

Jacoby mentions that 17 persons were killed in disturbances in Afghanistan over this issue. But here's what is wrong with his argument to begin with. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. Most Muslims were not upset by the news or took no action about it. Pakistani politician and ex-cricketer Imran Khan couldn't get out more than a couple hundred people in Lahore, Pakistan, for a peaceful demonstration. Nobody much cared. Even in Afghanistan, go back and read the reports. A lot of the people killed were not killed by rioters. They were demonstrators shot by local Afghan police, police who may have been over-reacting in some cases, and who had been installed in power by the United States. For this, you blame the Muslim religion per se and the whole Muslim world?

Originally Posted by particia

Well Scott, you may not care, but people were killed in riots over this in Afghanistan.

Where in the FUCK did I say I didn't care?

I DO care that a small group of imbeciles rioted because they found an excuse. Innocent people died, once again, over a worthless fucking bo0ok.,

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Where in the FUCK did I say I didn't care?

I DO care that a small group of imbeciles rioted because they found an excuse. Innocent people died, once again, over a worthless fucking bo0ok.,

That's circular reasoning. You're saying, I think, that the mishandling, or desecration of the Koran shouldn't be the cause of people dying.
You're absolutely right. It shouldn't. But it apparently was and that's what we are discussing.
My own thought is that the news that the Koran being desecrated was the last straw that may break the camel's back.
I think that the continuing situation of people from Afghanistan and Iraq being held, without charging them with anything is far far more serious, but the apparent contempt, by some, of the Koran is something concrete to rally support for protests of the continuing imprisonment, without charges, coupled with the abuses known worldwide now of mainly innocent people.
It's not about THE BOOK .

That may just be the most outrageous thing you have ever posted here.


Sweetness.


Never one to put it on cruise control. I sit here in awe of your vision and drive.

[al j]

Originally Posted by patricia

No apologies would seem to be forthcoming from anyone from the military, which I think is a mistake.

My apologies. Now on to the next issue.

See?


Done deal.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Joe Christmas

My apologies. Now on to the next issue.

Maybe you could apologize to the relatives of all the thousands of dead Iraqis not to mention the dead American and coalition soldiers and this whole nightmare could be over and everyone could move on. And people think that I oversimplify things.
If only it were that easy.

[crawjo]

My understanding is that there is no real equivalent to the Koran in Christianity, in terms of the significance of the words themselves, and the pages on which they are printed. There is a lengthy list of rules and regulations for how to handle the Koran. It would be understandable, though regrettable, if these rules were not followed in every instance at Guantanamo Bay. But that's not what we are talking about here. We are talking about somebody flushing the thing down a toilet. That doesn't happen by accident. Given the various ways in which Islam has been insulted by interrogators at U.S.-controlled prisons, it would seem that somewhere along the military chain of command this sort of thing is being condoned. Muslims being held in detention have been told "Fuck Allah." Muslims have also been told to kneel down and pray, and then when they did so, they were hit in the head. This sort of thing confirms the most paranoid suspicions that many Muslims hold regarding the United States, that the "war on terrorism" is an attempt to attack and defile Islam itself. This is exactly the sort of thing Osama bin Laden was hoping for.