Ooops...Looks like Newsweek was kinda right with that Koran Story..

[KennedyGuy]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201219.html

snip
"FBI agents witnessed possible mistreatment of the Koran at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including at least one instance in which an interrogator squatted over Islam's holy text in an apparent attempt to offend a captive, according to bureau documents released yesterday.

In October 2002, a Marine captain allegedly squatted over a copy of the Koran during intensive questioning of a Muslim prisoner, who was "incensed" by the tactic, according to an FBI agent. A second agent described similar events, but it is unclear from the documents whether it was a separate case"
snip
"After an erroneous report of Koran abuse prompted deadly protests overseas in 2005, the U.S. military conducted an investigation that confirmed five incidents of intentional and unintentional mishandling the book at the detention facility. They acknowledged that soldiers and interrogators had kicked the Koran, had stood on it and, in one case, had inadvertently sprayed urine on a copy".
snip


I remember well how the White House caused Newsweek to retract the article and how the right wing was whipped into a froth about it..
Think anyone will cover it?

[peacebird]

1. I heard this on NPR today as well

so yes - it is getting coverage

[originalpckelly]

2. May I ask how they "inadvertently sprayed urine" on a copy of the Koran?

What were they reading it in the bathroom?

[lapfog_1]

5. Yes, and things just got out of hand....

:evilgrin:

[Jackpine Radical]

8. Maybe jerking off to it--

You know, that part about all the virgins waiting for Muslim martyrs...

[Kagemusha]

3. Yes, I remember that! Good catch!

No apologies forthcoming, I'm sure.

[KennedyGuy]

4. "Snit" Hume didn't mention it on his Grapevine either..

Think Orielly or hannity will bring it up?

[MrModerate]

6. I predict that the Guantanamo episode . . .

Will end up being one of the darkest stains on the filthy rag that is the Bush presidency. Despite the fact that the Iraq was was infinitely more costly and at least as stupid, the damage done at Gitmo to American principles of justice, our standing in the world, and the honor of the participants will be among the most historically intriguing of Bush's crimes.

[angry_chuck]

7. I am laughing really hard

filthy rag is tooo good! hahahahaha!

[IntravenousDemilo]

9. This is what happens when people invest some fucking stupid fictional book with way more importance

than it deserves -- inflamed and misplaced passion. People could get passionate about doing good for others, but NOOOOO! They have to get caught up in this "holy holy holy" shit, so much so that they're distracted from, or ignore altogether, the plight of the downtrodden just because they might be "infidels". I'm not only talking about Muslims, either, but also the Children of the Corn who infest the "bible belt", the rampaging Zionists within Likud, radicalized Hindus, and people who unquestioningly accept the Great Pumpkin or whatever as their personal saviour, irrespective of logic and evidence.

[Straight Shooter]

12. I agree. The book, itself, is not holy. It is the faith which is holy.

You can't physically desecrate something which is intangible. Also, a book is replaceable. "Desecrating" it doesn't mean it's the last one to exist.

JMHO.

[struggle4progress]

15. Ordinary decency generally suggests respecting people and their beliefs ..

.. even if one disagrees with them. If soldiers pissed on your dining table, I doubt you would be mollified much if I explained the real problem was your taste in furniture.

[IntravenousDemilo]

18. My point is that a book, any book, is merely a THING - like the dining room table of your analogy...

...and thus not worth getting noisily and/or homicidally agitated over if it gets damaged. I feel the same way about flags, too.

People worry too much about things -- mostly their things, of course -- and not enough about other people. And they presume to call themselves moral. Feh...

[DrFunkenstein]

17. Yeah, Like Someone Setting a WTC Model On Fire For A Laugh

I mean just because the model represents a symbol of the people who lost their lives, you don't have to get all hot and bothered because someone is lightheartedly violating the feelings you have about their loss.

Oh, wait. Then again, it is completely arrogant and disrespectful and basically something only a real a-hole would do.

Just because some feelings don't happen to be your feelings, doesn't mean they have to respect the rules of logic and evidence to mean something.

I can't stand religious nutballs just as much as the next godless heathen, but it is their intolerant acts that I dislike, not their right to find importance in nonsensical hoo-hah.

[IntravenousDemilo]

19. And when someone does something that is completely arrogant and disrespectful and basically

something only a real a-hole would do, the correct response is to say, "What an a-hole!" and then either just let it go at that or ignore him completely, and maybe tell one's friends to avoid the a-hole. The incorrect response is to go off half-cocked, scream purple-facedly, and set fire to things. It is illogical, irrational, and disproportionate, in the same way that the Muslim response to last year's cartoons depicting Muhammad was quite outstandingly illogical, irrational, and disproportionate.

Fuck people if they can't take a joke. And god save us from people and their "things", whether they be actual material "things", the possession of which is often touted by the possessors as evidence of their superiority, or whether it be their unexplainable emotional queasiness about stuff, such as "I have this 'thing' about two men kissing".

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

10. Kinda funny how things which cause "uproars"

and retractions demanded from the White House turn out to be true after all, ain't it?

Let's see...

there was Bush's DWI
Bush's AWOL/Rathergate
Abu Grahib torture
GITMO problems
Extreme Rendition
The Niger Uranium forgery
Unwarranted wiretapping of US citizens
Iraq's WMD's
Irag's ties to Al Quiada and 9/11
Valerie Plame WH Leak

all of which have since been since quietly proved to be true, all denied by the WH at the time

so, what else is true....?

MIHOP/LIHOP
Bush Cocaine Arrest
Bush girlfriend abortion
Bush is a closet homosexual
Karl Rove is human

I am sure I have missed a few... fill in the blanks

[Miss Chybil]

11. How do you inadvertently spray urine?

Maybe, it's a guy thing...

[Morgana LaFey]

13. Exactly my question

but I don't tbink it's a guy thing, not if you mean to shrug it off by that statement.

[Miss Chybil]

16. Nah. I was just being a smart-aleck. I have four sons.

Sometimes they inadvertently spray urine around the toilet, but never on anything such as a Koran, or even a Hot Rod magazine. Those Gitmo guys used a piss poor excuse, if you ask me. (Pun intended.)

Perhaps, when the guards get doused with a cup of piss when they're doing their rounds, the inmates can say it was inadvertent spray?

[struggle4progress]

14. Wingnuts huff-n-puffed about a Koran being flushed down the toilet.

The Red Cross raised Koran handling issues with US officials almost as soon as they had access to Guantanamo detainees, and the military then issued specific guidelines for handling the Koran. FBI documents released to the ACLU showed that an inmate claimed the Koran placed in (or on?) a toilet which was flushed, a claim the Pentagon immediately reframed as "a Koran flushed down the toilet" (though, of course, everybody knew no book that size could be flushed down a toilet). In early May 05, Newsweek retracted its story; somewhat later, the military released a report admitting Koran abuse but hyping the fact that nobody could verify that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet.

Red Cross raised Guantanamo Koran abuse concerns
Friday May 20, 2005

WASHINGTON - The International Committee of the Red Cross told the Pentagon as early as 2002 detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison had reported US personnel mishandled the Koran, Red Cross and US officials said ...

In January 2003, the US military issued guidelines to personnel at the base that included the order: "Ensure that the Koran is not placed in offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet or dirty/wet areas."

"The guidelines didn't come out of nowhere. You don't get such orders unless there's some problem, concern or controversy," said a US official who asked not to be named ...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10126589


Documents Say Detainees Cited Koran Abuse
By NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: May 26, 2005
... The prisoners' accounts are described by the agents in detailed summaries of interrogations at Guantanamo in 2002 and 2003. The documents were among more than 300 pages turned over by the F.B.I. to the American Civil Liberties Union in recent days and publicly disclosed Wednesday ... The prisoner said that "the guards in the detention facility do not treat him well," the agent wrote. "Their behavior is bad. About five months ago, the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Koran in the toilet. The guards dance around when the detainees are trying to pray. The guards still do these things." The document does not indicate whether the agent believed the account ... Since the Newsweek article was published, the Pentagon has been reviewing records, but "we still have found no credible allegations that a Koran was flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo," <deputy Pentagon spokesman> Mr. Whitman said ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/26/politics/26koran.html?ex=1274760000&en=dec5323939a421e0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Although the prisoner appears says a toilet was flushed with a Koran in it; if the prisoner was not a good English speaker, he might have confused in with on. Note the Pentagon reframes this as claiming "a Koran was flushed down a toilet."


Last Updated: Saturday, 4 June, 2005, 06:16 GMT 07:16 UK
US Guantanamo guard kicked Koran
... In one instance, a guard was said to have urinated near an air vent. The wind allegedly blew his urine through the vent, soiling one detainee and his Koran ... Other Korans became wet after night-shift guards had thrown balloons filled with water into a cell block, the report found ... Finally, a prisoner found a "two-word obscenity" in English written in his copy of the Koran ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4608949.stm


Earlier Allegations Guards Threw Koran in Toilet
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2005/05/15/480/22035