when CNN reports it. The only thing more damning would be if Fox, for whatever reason, decided to report it.
The ACLU has discovered that soldiers in Iraq abused detainees. In one instance, forcing a father to choose which of his two sons would be executed. In another, forcing a detainee to dig his own grave before being executed. Two things, nobody was actually killed, and these were not prisoners, they were detainees. Digging your own grave? Wasn’t that a no-no in Bosnia?
The other thing we discover is that the Red Cross issued concerns to the Pentagon in 2002 about the way the Qur’an was being handled, and again in 2003.
Read these items to support my earlier post on why it doesn’t matter if Newsweek was wrong on their sourcing on this one particular issue. It simply falls in line with a larger pattern of abuse.
Technorati Tags: Qur’an
I think the accuracy of the Newsweek article matters to a limited extent. Newsweek has a responsibility to its readers to do proper fact-checking. In the general scheme of things, though, I have to agree with you: the American military has shown that it is not averse to desecrating the Qur’an and insulting Muslims’ religious sensitivities in all sorts of ways. It is a very sad statement about this military effort and the United States in general.
Thanks for pulling these sources together.
I’d like to make a point about this- the Newsweek story is being touted as “false but accurate” which is clearly ridiculous. Can we now just make up stories and then, when questioned about their veracity, claim that the point the stories were making was somehow “true”. The Newsweek allegations were refuted pure and simple.
An investigation was carried out and there were revealed to be incidences of “mishandling” of the Koran. Placing a koran on a TV, accidentally knocking one to the ground, touching a koran with their bare hands and such like. There was also one incident where a solider urinated outside a block and it inadvertantly splashed into the cell and onto a Koran. He was reprimanded for his actions.
Wasn’t it an inmate that flushed the Koran? Didn’t Muslim inmates do the same thing in an Israeli jail to try and stir up trouble there too?
As many commentators have said- the detainees at Gitmo have prayer mats, Korans and the call to prayer broadcast. It would be all too easy for the US Army to NOT provide such items but the fact that they show must be taken into account. One also has to consider the notion of “desecrating” a book- that’s an idea that no one in the West (i.e. non-Muslims) would even have thought possible before this event. A book is a book- that there are very specific rules governing how it may be touched or even be placed down is alien to non-Muslims. The US Army has regs for how soldiers should handle the Koran- I don’t think that’s a sad statement about the US or the US military, I think it speraks volumes about their efforts to do the right thing, regardless of the storm of criticism that they continually suffer.
As for the article quoted above- “At least three soldiers were investigated and reprimanded for handling detainees outside of authorized military parameters, according to the documents.”
In other words, when American soldiers do wrong, they are punished for it.