Rice urges calm, calls Koran desecration abhorrent

[richlevy]

Oh sweet Lord, here we go again.

Can someone please tell these idiots that they are not helping. There are people in a war zone who would probably appreciate not bearing the brunt of the monumental stupidity these guys will show.

Interrogators at the U.S. military prison in Cuba reportedly put Korans in toilets and in at least one case flushed the holy book away, triggering violent demonstrations in Afghanistan, where seven people have died in related violence in the past two days. The Pakistani government has also formally protested.

"We have heard from our Muslim friends around the world about their concerns on this matter. We understand and we share their concerns. Sadly some people have lost their lives in violent demonstrations," Rice said, alluding to reports that at least seven people had died in Afghan protests this week.

"I am asking that all our friends around the world reject incitement to violence by those who would mischaracterize our intentions," she added in a surprise statement at the start of testimony to U.S. lawmakers.

"Mischaracterize our intentions"?

I remember the lawyers summation in the movie A Time to Kill.

Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she's white.

Someone should tell the guys at Guantanamo "Pretend it's the Bible".

[russotto]

Destroying a Koran isn't tantamount to torture, no matter how you spin it.

Doesn't mean it isn't nasty and stupid, but it isn't torture.

And any Christians who feel that strongly about doing the same to the bible are idolators, so there :-)

[tw]

Originally Posted by russotto

Destroying a Koran isn't tantamount to torture, no matter how you spin it.

But nothing is more evil than destroying an issue of The Economist.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by tw

But nothing is more evil than destroying an issue of The Economist.

Whoever you are, please don't mistreat tw.

[lookout123]

yeah, i have to agree. if i saw someone do that to the Bible - i would consider them stupid... but i don't think i would feel tortured.

but making those poor prisoners endure the sight of a topless american women...
- oh wait, i don't see how that is torture, either.

torture would be someone driving a rusty nail through your scrotem while demanding to know where you hid a nuclear arsenal.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by lookout123

...torture would be someone driving a rusty nail through your scrotem...

*flashing back to Serpent and The Rainbow*I want to hear you scream...

[wolf]

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

*flashing back to Serpent and The Rainbow*I want to hear you scream...

Damn! I thought I was the only person who saw that movie.

Unfortunately, I went to see it because I had read the book.

It was not a good adaptation.

[jaguar]

Is there actually any evidence this happened or is this just some crazy rumour that got out of hand? Would've thought flushing a book would be difficult.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by jaguar

Is there actually any evidence this happened or is this just some crazy rumour that got out of hand? Would've thought flushing a book would be difficult.

From the article it appears that everyone is assuming it did happen. Whether they tore it apart, just put it in the bowl, etc, is beside the point.

Technically, it is not physical torture. It is incitement. If someone went to downtown Little Rock, threw a bible on the street, unzipped and peed on it, it would probably start a riot.

Whoever is doing the interrogations is crossing a very dangerous line when they go beyond personal abuse to denigrating a prisoners beliefs. Word of that kind of stuff gets out and makes us look bad.

In the movies, it is always the bad guy who is trashing the prisoners religion. When stuff like this is done in real life, the perpetrator looks bad in the eyes of the people in the middle, the swing voters. These are the people who will ultimately win the war one way or another. It's not the diehard insurgents or the rabidly pro-Coalition supporters who will make the difference.

The middle swinging is why the civil rights movement took hold in the South. It's why in less than a decade, segregation went from tradition to bad idea. A lot of this happened when one side overreached. People watched the beatings and bombings, and the people in the middle made up their minds. It's why the Klan are viewed as a hate group and not patriots.

The middle in Iraq and Afghanistan is still soft. The recent elections have resulted in more help being given to the coalition. They were just coming to believe that a coalition-supported democracy could take shape which would also respect their culture.

And then these assholes have to grandstand.

In programming we have a saying, that one 'aw shit' equals 100 'attaboys'. How many small acts of kindness by individual soldiers, how much goodwill built by civil affairs officers has been wiped out by one moron?

We have been trying to keep this war from being viewed as an attack on Islam ever since Bush used the word 'crusade'. Having a soldier deliberately trash a copy of the Koran is not helping.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by jaguar

Is there actually any evidence this happened or is this just some crazy rumour that got out of hand? Would've thought flushing a book would be difficult.

Day-amm!

Jag's channelling me.

I wondered the same thing. It doesn't really matter if this is quashing a rumor or speaking to something that actually happened. The public reaction tends to be the same with respect to rumor vs. truth.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Protests over the report began in Jalalabad on Tuesday. The following day police fired on crowds after government offices were set on fire, shops looted and U.N. buildings and diplomatic missions attacked.

Yeah, I heard somebody, somewhere disrespected a book. I guess it's time to do my spring looting.

C'mon people...do you honestly think we'll ever coexist with these assholes? That there will ever be a time we aren't at odds with the muslim world? Fat fucking chance of rationalizing that.
People in the muslim world do things we don't approve of all the time but we're not burning down our own government buildings or looting the DC stores. That is beyond stupid.
It follows the same thinking as wacking yourself with chains, barbed wire or knives to prove you're more devout. Sure, If I burn down a bigger government building than you do, it proves I am more outraged therefore more devout than thee. Assholes.

[Undertoad]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapc...protests.reut/

Meanwhile in Washington, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said an investigation has so far turned up no evidence of U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrating the Quran.

Gen. Richard Myers said Thursday that an investigation by the U.S. Southern Command, which has jurisdiction over the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has so far turned up no evidence that that incident took place.

"They have looked through the logs, interrogation logs, and they cannot confirm yet that there was ever the case of the toilet incident," Myers said.

...

Myers said the only incident recorded in the prison logs was of a detainee tearing pages from a Quran and using them in an attempt to block a toilet as a protest, and even that incident, he said, was unconfirmed.

"It's a log entry that has to be confirmed," he said. "There are several log entries that show that the Quran may have been moved and detainees became irritated about it, but never an incident where it was thrown in the toilet."

[lookout123]

there are far too many instances of "log" and "toilet" appearing in that excerpt for me to contain my 5th grade sense of humor.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapc...protests.reut/

From 2003 - U.S. Pledges to Avoid Torture

Friday, June 27, 2003

The Bush administration pledged yesterday for the first time that the United States will not torture terrorism suspects or treat them cruelly in an attempt to extract information, a move that comes as the deaths of two Afghan prisoners in U.S. custody are being investigated as homicides.

"All interrogations, wherever they may occur," must be conducted without the use of cruel and inhuman tactics, the Pentagon's senior lawyer wrote after members of Congress and human rights groups pressed the White House to renounce abusive tactics reported by U.S. government officials.

On a day when President Bush asserted that his administration intends to lead by example in a global fight against torture, Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes II said that anyone found to have broken the law in the Afghanistan deaths will be prosecuted.

I think we dipped into the credibility well one too many times.

[Undertoad]

From an hour ago:

Newsweek says may have erred in Koran report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newsweek magazine on Sunday said it may have erred in a May 9 report that said U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to victims of deadly violence sparked by the article.

The weekly news magazine said in its May 23 edition that the original source of the allegation was not sure where he saw the assertion that at least one copy of the Koran was flushed down a toilet in an attempt to get detainees to talk.

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst," Editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the magazine's latest issue, due to appear on U.S. newsstands on Monday.

I think we dipped into the credibility well one too many times.

Not we. You. You certainly have. And now, once again.