Newsweek deserving of apology? Pentagon Confirms Koran Incidents

no, newsweek does not deserve an apology. they owe the country one.

 

It doesn't look like Pentagon pushed the matter further after Newsweek's retraction. The witness doesn't sound credible anyways, and with that scant a detail, Newsweek article should never have been published in the first place.

It's unfortunate the Newsweek article will generate a larger reaction than this one that has corroborating sources.

 

what's unfortunate is that so many people, muslims, and those in this country and elsewhere who seek to besmirch the admin, will attach such importance to a bit of book defacement. sure, it's ostensibly the owrd of god, but i didn't see christians rioting over andre serrano's "piss christ", which was arguably a much greater blasphemy. it's time for the muslim world, and their apologists, to grow up and join the 21st century. civilized people don't kill because someone damaged a book.

 

If the Koran didn't have a common value among Muslims, then the military interrogators implement's defacement as a coersion technique.

It'd be ridiculous to blame terrorism on Koran incidents alone. Maybe their "apologists" are questioning Bush who claims to want to win the "hearts and minds" of the Muslim people.

 

LOL! I always find it hilarious how each side proclaims the need for the other to "civilize".

Funny how everyone thinks the other side is the "uncivilized" one.

ahh, human beings are sooo similar, they just don't know it yet.

 

What the Pentagon is objecting to is on technical ground, and not the FACT that the Koran was desecrated by US personnel.

The Pentagon is objecting to the "flushing down the toilet" story, not the general accusation that guards desecrated the Koran.

But obviously the Newsweek story is a convenient way for the administration to divert attention from the real problem here.

But hey, who cares really? The PR damage has been done, regardless of who said what and who did what. The further damage to our image worldwide is the issue at heart of this whole thing. But I really don't think this Koran "scandal" was the straw that broke the camel's back, the camel's back has already been broken a long time ago.

I just hope the media stops talking about this, it's beyond pointless to keep bringing the story to the forefront over and over again, it has already been beaten to death, and the Pentagon is doing the country a disservice when they keep talking about it. So everyone just shut up and let this story die already

 

The Newsweek story looks to be basically correct, now that we have the details from the non-troop supporting, American hating pentagon. But the thing is that their reporting still didn't live up to the journalistic standards it should have.

Is that as big of a story as what was done to the Koran? I don't know. In itself it isn't, but if that kind of reporting is systemic then everyone loses.

The Whitehouse, however, do end up looking like the bullies they are, and their attempt to deflect criticism by using Newsweek as a decoy doesn't seem to have worked out to well for them.

 

Oh dear, the story just won't die, and as a consequence of this, more people will die

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050604/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_bay_quran

U.S. Confirms Gitmo Soldier Kicked Quran

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon on Friday released new details about mishandling of the Quran at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects, confirming that a soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book and that an interrogator stepped on a Quran and was later fired for "a pattern of unacceptable behavior."

In other confirmed incidents, a guard's urine came through an air vent and splashed on a detainee and his Quran; water balloons thrown by prison guards caused an unspecified number of Qurans to get wet; and in a confirmed but ambiguous case, a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Quran.

The findings, released after normal business hours Friday evening, are among the results of an investigation last month by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the commander of the detention center in Cuba, that was triggered by a Newsweek magazine report — later retracted — that a U.S. soldier had flushed one Guantanamo Bay detainee's Quran down a toilet.

The story stirred worldwide controversy and the Bush administration blamed it for deadly demonstrations in Afghanistan.

Hood said in a written statement released Friday evening, along with the new details, that his investigation "revealed a consistent, documented policy of respectful handling of the Quran dating back almost 2 1/2 years."

A spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Lawrence Di Rita, did not address the confirmed incidents of mishandling the Muslim holy book. Reached while traveling with Rumsfeld in Asia, Di Rita said that U.S. Southern Command policy calls for "serious, respectful and appropriate" handling of the Quran.

"The Hood inquiry would appear to affirm that policy," Di Rita said.

Hood said that of nine mishandling cases that were studied in detail by reviewing thousands of pages of written records, five were confirmed to have happened. He could not determine conclusively whether the four others took place.

In one of those four unconfirmed cases, a detainee in April 2003 complained to FBI and other interrogators that guards "constantly defile the Quran." The detainee alleged that in one instance a female military guard threw a Quran into a bag of wet towels to anger another detainee, and he also alleged that another guard said the Quran belonged in the toilet and that guards were ordered to do these things.

Hood said he found no other record of this detainee mentioning any Quran mishandling. The detainee has since been released.

In the most recent confirmed case, Hood said a detainee complained on March 25, 2005, of urine splashing on him and his Quran. An unidentified guard admitted at the time that "he was at fault," the Hood report said, although it did not say whether the act was deliberate. The guard's supervisor reprimanded him and assigned him to gate guard duty, where he had no contact with detainees for the remainder of his assignment at Guantanamo Bay.

As described in the Hood report, the guard had left his observation post and went outside to urinate. He urinated near an air vent and the wind blew his urine through the vent into the cell block. The incident was not further explained.

In another of the confirmed cases, a contract interrogator stepped on a detainee's Quran in July 2003 and then apologized. "The interrogator was later terminated for a pattern of unacceptable behavior, an inability to follow direct guidance and poor leadership," the Hood report said.

Hood also said his investigation found 15 cases of detainees mishandling their own Qurans. "These included using a Quran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Quran, attempting to flush a Quran down the toilet and urinating on the Quran," Hood's report said. It offered no possible explanation for those alleged abuses.

In the most recent of those 15 cases, a detainee on Feb. 18, 2005, allegedly ripped up his Quran and handed it to a guard, stating that he had given up on being a Muslim. Several of the guards witnessed this, Hood reported.

Last week, Hood disclosed that he had confirmed five cases of mishandling of the Quran, but he refused to provide details. Allegations of Quran desecration at Guantanamo Bay have led to anti-American passions in many Muslim nations, although Pentagon officials have insisted that the problems were relatively minor and that U.S. commanders have gone to great lengths to enable detainees to practice their religion in captivity.

Hood said last week that he found no credible evidence that a Quran was ever flushed down a toilet. He said a prisoner who was reported to have complained to an FBI agent in 2002 that a military guard threw a Quran in the toilet has since told Hood's investigators that he never witnessed any form of Quran desecration.

Other prisoners who were returned to their home countries after serving time at Guantanamo Bay as terror suspects have alleged Quran desecration by U.S. guards, and some have said a Quran was placed in a toilet.

There are about 540 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Some have been there more than three years without being charged with a crime. Most were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 and were sent to Guantanamo Bay in hope of extracting useful intelligence about the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Both President Bush and Rumsfeld have denounced an Amnesty International report that called the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay "the gulag of our time."

The president told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday that the report by the human-rights group was "absurd."

On Wednesday, Rumsfeld called the characterization "reprehensible" and said the U.S. military had taken care to ensure that detainees were free to practice their religion. However, he also acknowledged that some detainees had been mistreated, even "grievously" at times.

 

Grow up. He kicked a book. If these were Christians and it was the Bible, no way it garners this kind of press.

 

If the Bible was pissed on and kicked around by officials from a Muslim government? Oh, you bet your azz the media would be all over it. You kidding?

One thing I have learned over the years: Don't f*ck with other people's religions. Nothing good has ever come out of it.

Again, I just hope this damn story goes away, we don't need any more bloodshed for God's sake

 

Do you honestly believe that? There's no way the media would be anywhere near such a story. I'm not saying you're ignorant for thinking otherwise because unless such a thing happened we couldn't be sure. I don't recall a media firestorm about the Gay Jesus doll that went on sale last year. Not exactly the same thing but it's still disrespecting a symbol of a particular religion.

And who said anything about bloodshed? I don't recall anyone being killed over this.

What I do know is that nobody is reporting anything about the prisoners abusing their OWN Korans.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/06/03/quran050603.html
(a shorter version of the earlier posted story, only from the CBC)

U.S. admits abuses to Qur'an in Guantanamo
Last Updated Fri, 03 Jun 2005 21:24:40 EDT
CBC News

The U.S. Pentagon confirmed Friday a list of abuses involving the Qur'an, the Muslim holy book, by American personnel at Guantanamo Bay, but said the incidents were relatively minor.

A car burns in the street as university students protest in the steets in Jalalabad, Afghanistan on May 12. (AP photo)

A story published in Newsweek last month accused an American serviceman of flushing a copy of the Qur'an down a toilet. That story was later retracted, but it touched off demonstrations around the world, including deadly protests in Afghanistan in which 17 died.

The latest confirmed abuses are contained in a report put together by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the commander of the detention center in Cuba.

They include: splashing urine on a prisoner and his Qur'an, stepping on and kicking the Qur'an, throwing water on it, and scratching an obscenity on the inside cover.

Although none of the abuses can be said to be as severe as the unfounded allegation, they still represent a list of incidents that will shock and horrify Muslims around the world who consider the Qur'an to be the word of God as dictated to and written down by the prophet Muhammad.

In a statement Hood said his investigation "revealed a consistent, documented policy of respectful handling of the Qur'an dating back almost two and a half years."

He said only five incidents could be confirmed during that time of American personnel mishandling the Qur'an. He said he found 15 cases of detainees mishandling their own Qur'ans, including "attempting to flush a Qur'an down the toilet and urinating on the Qur'an."

The statement did not provide any explanation about why the detainees might have abused their own holy books.

There are believed to be more than 500 detainees at the prison in Guantanamo Bay. Most of them were captured in Afghanistan and are thought to have information about Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Some have been held for more than three years without being charged.

 

I remember PISSED CHRIST
getting alot of run
and alot of folx VERY pissed about it

Rocket River

 

Anybody surprised if the WH demanded the Pentagon take back this story?

 

Guess what. Christians and Muslims place a different emphasis on the physical books of their respective religions. To me this is far from the worst thing in the world. However I hope I'm not so egocentric as to think that the way I look at things is the only way others can look at things.

At this point though, that issue comes second. To me what comes first is the way the Whitehouse handled thei situation. We had the Whitehouse coming down so hard on the Newsweek and and acting like they just made something up. Then the whitehouse press secretary was basically telling a 'free' media what stories they could write, when he said that they should write positive stories about Iraq etc.

Now the whitehouse act of innocence and indignation proves to be unfounded. That is the real story IMHO.

 

The terrorists do anything they can to get the liberals to bite on a story like this. They love it. The liberals' outrage over stuff like this simply erodes support for the war, which in turn gets Americans killed and causes the US to stray from its objective. It's the John Kerry model for losing a war, and the liberals just have not learned that it helps the other side. It's absurd. Frankly, it's treasonous. Particularly galling is the fact that the liberals believe they are occupying some sort of moral high ground or intellectually superior position by taking their stance. They aren't. They are being duped and manipulated by the terrorists. They are aiding and comforting the enemy in a time of war. That's what they are doing.

 

No proof yet that the Pentagon found that our jailers put the Koran in the toilet; the Pentagon just found that they pissed on it and kicked it. It is just other reasonably reliable sources that show they put the Koran in the toilet.

Great Joy for all is still well ih Bushland.

 

this is one of the thing that make me very sad. Alot of People blame others for being different, and call them savages or uncivilized. Why can't people just accept that not everybody thinks the same. Like you said, we are all human, and very similar. But people cannot see it or do not want to see it. people want an enemy it makes them feel like they are part of a group. it is just pathetic, that people kill others just to be part of a group.
How on earth can protestants and catholics kill each other over religion? Just terrible

 

Here is a question for the liberals:

Why do the liberals react with such fervor when the Koran is kicked or panties are put on the head of a terrorist, yet the libs never make mention of how the terrorists treat women as second class citizens and force them into sub-servient roles in the Muslim world?

Oh I must have forgotten, only the panties and Koran kicking helps them save face for losing the debate over the war...

 

I really hate the way we are forced to participate in their martyrdom! Why can't they be more flexible?