Still Upset About Alleged Koran Abuse in Gitmo? Stop.

After a Newsweek article mentioned allegations of the desecration of the Koran at Gitmo, there were riots all over the Arab world, especially Afghanistan. Never ones to miss a trip on the anti-American bandwagon, the American Left was right there with them.

Well, Mr. and Mrs. America-I'm here to tell you to stop feeling bad. First off, these are *allegations*. But more than that-this Muslim outrage is a farce. You heard me. It's a farce.

Shortly after that report sparked riots a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque in Pakistan. Now, how many copies of the word of Allah were desecrated in *that* blast? And the reaction from the Muslim world?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/30/pakistan.karachi.blast.ap/index.html

Overwhelming silence.

And that's not even getting into the dozen or so other attacks on mosques in Iraq. So much for the sacredness of the Koran.

If they can only find it in them to riot over alleged abuses by the very people who freed them while ignoring the documented transgressions by their fellow Muslims (edited)

-Kiamat Dusk
...not suitable for Liberal consumption...

Kiamat, you've really gone past simple ethnocentrism into religious intolerance here.

At best, you've mis-stated your point in a blatantly insulting manner.

Are you kidding? How hard is this?

There are unsubstantiated allegations of possible abuse and they riot.
Someone blows up a mosque and they don't riot.

Clearly it's not as important to them as they would have us believe. It's just a big guilt trip and we shouldn't fall for it.

Should we be desecrating holy books? Of course not. But we shouldn't think that we sparked riots with our allegedly callous behavior.

Here's something else to think about.
-Kiamat Dusk

Kiamat, our own FBI went into GITMO and official reports say that interrogation techniques employed are far beyond their standards and are much more likely to provide faulty data from duress.

As for the allegations, who is there to back up the allegations? Abu Graib was unsubstantiated until the photos were leaked, too. The fact that Bush & Co. has repeatedly stated that they don't feel they need to adhere to Geneva conventions from a technicality should be enough suspicion to have some independant oversight listened to - like the Red Cross, which also reports human rights offenses. (By a technicality, it's "international" territory and the prisoners were not taken in combat so they do not get POW or US prisoner status)

And here we go with the "blame America first" campaign.

If people at Gitmo are mishandling the Koran, it's not because Bush sent out an email telling them to do so. It was the acts of individuals. And I don't subscribe to your idea of-well they're not government employees so their desecration doesn't count-Juro. It doesn't wash. if you're not going to apply your outrage evenly, then I'm not going to be bothered with it. I felt the same way after the Rodney King riots when there were no further riots after the aquittal of Reginald Denney's attackers. The rioters said it was about injustice, but as soon as an equal (I would say greater) injustice was committed, they didn't say a word.

But let's talk about Government sactioned destruction of Holy books. Saudi Arabia routinely shreds Bibles and destroys crosses and Stars of David. Where's your outrage? Where are the threads denouncing this religious intolerance?

http://209.197.233.93/content/view/269//
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200505/FOR20050519a.html

Hiro,

No matter what you and ICRC say, *this* is how the Geneva Convention defines a POW:
Article 4

A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.

4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.

5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.

6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

B. The following shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention:

1. Persons belonging, or having belonged, to the armed forces of the occupied country, if the occupying Power considers it necessary by reason of such allegiance to intern them, even though it has originally liberated them while hostilities were going on outside the territory it occupies, in particular where such persons have made an unsuccessful attempt to rejoin the armed forces to which they belong and which are engaged in combat, or where they fail to comply with a summons made to them with a view to internment.

2. The persons belonging to one of the categories enumerated in the present Article, who have been received by neutral or non-belligerent Powers on their territory and whom these Powers are required to intern under international law, without prejudice to any more favourable treatment which these Powers may choose to give and with the exception of Articles 8, 10, 15, 30, fifth paragraph, 58-67, 92, 126 and, where diplomatic relations exist between the Parties to the conflict and the neutral or non-belligerent Power concerned, those Articles concerning the Protecting Power. Where such diplomatic relations exist, the Parties to a conflict on whom these persons depend shall be allowed to perform towards them the functions of a Protecting Power as provided in the present Convention, without prejudice to the functions which these Parties normally exercise in conformity with diplomatic and consular usage and treaties.

The people in Gitmo were not wearing uniforms. They did not have any recognizable symbol. They were not subordinate to a state. Moreover, they are not signatories to the treaty.

In short-they do not qualify. Get it through your head. Also, are you aware that if we gave them POW status that we couldn't interrogate them? Is that what you want? Furthermore, the ICRC's anti-American bias is clear.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041201-122434-2465r.htm


-Kiamat Dusk

The invading country should always be examined first. We, as Americans, should be proud to be examined first, and stand by our reputation.


Doesn't matter. As soon as it's known, leaders have an obligation to stop it, and it is not being stopped.


No, that's red herring; addressing one person's crimes does not lessen the problem of another person's crims.


I agree. And so, they are treated as:
(a) War Criminals, tried by the international court and held under international law which does not accept torture.
(b) Local criminals with all the rights of other criminals in the country they committed a crime in. Since the US had been the occupying force, it would then be our obligation to see that they are tried and/or extradicted to their home country
(c) Alien criminals in our country, subject to US laws regarding illegal aliens.

No, they are instead taken from the country where they are found in and transported to a zone outside of international country where the US gov't has claimed a carte blanche to do whatever they see fit.

And seriously, the bottom line is that they are human beings. We're supposed to be the Great America, promoting human rights, eh?

Yeah?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8040422/
At least 11 killed in Pakistan attack, riot
Mob burns KFC restaurant after suicide blast at mosque The Associated Press
Updated: 12:35 a.m. ET May 31, 2005KARACHI, Pakistan - A suicide bomber blew himself up during evening prayers at a Shiite mosque Monday, killing one worshipper and wounding 20. The bomber slipped into the mosque during a gunbattle with police that left another attacker and two officers dead.

A crowd outraged by the attack went on a rampage afterward in this southern city, setting fire to cars and shops and killing at least six more people. Police recovered the bodies from a KFC restaurant burned by the mob.

All were restaurant employees, senior police official Manzoor Mughal said.


The attack occurred at the Madinatul Ilm Imambargah in eastern Karachi, said Asif Ijaz, a Karachi police official. Three attackers stole an automatic weapon from a police guard outside the mosque and shot him to death, Ijaz said.

Other policemen opened fire, killing one of the attackers and wounding another, and an officer also was killed, he said.

But the third attacker managed to get inside the mosque and detonated a bomb strapped to his body, Ijaz said. One worshipper died and four were seriously injured, while 16 others were treated for lesser wounds, said Zafar Hussain, an administrator of the mosque.

“It appeared to be a low-intensity bomb because it did not cause major damage,” said Mushtaq Shah, chief of police operations in Karachi.

About 1,000 Shiites, many beating their chests in mourning, rioted in the neighborhood near the mosque, Ijaz said. Two electricity transformers were also set on fire, plunging the neighborhood into darkness.

Rauf Siddiqi, home minister of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, condemned the bombing and said security had been put on “high alert.”

“These incidents are happening one after the other. We are trying to find a link between them,” he told the private Geo television station. “This is a criminal and merciless attack.”

The attack came three days after a suspected suicide bomber attacked a Shiite religious gathering during a festival at a shrine near Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, killing about 20 people and injuring dozens.

Political and sectarian violence between radical groups within the majority Sunni and minority Shiite Muslims is common in Karachi.

To hijack a bit, I think I'm missing the part of my brain that understands human nature when it comes to symbolism. I can understand people getting upset about prisoner abuse, but book abuse? The "to them it represents something more" fact leaves me cold: as that's a personal interpretation. I also don't understand why people get unglued about flag burning. Some bozo burned a flag. Big deal.

That being said, if I went to a parallel universe where people believed squeezing the toothpaste tube in the middle was a horrific crime against their gods and culture, and I spotted someone blaspheming a tube of crest, I'd keep my mouth shut.

It's no more or less strange that men whose hearts are moved to murderous rage over the burning of a colorful piece of cloth.

But the desecration of the Koran was just an excuse for a handful of radicals to whip up the masses into a frenzy. Like the Rodney King beating, the act itself was just a pretext for venting existing frustrations, some justified, some clearly irrational.

The same reaction, albeit on a smaller scale, can be triggered by something as stupid as who wins a key soccer or American football match.

Mob violence is no more or less acceptable than any other type, regardless of pretext.

In the parallel universe I recently visited, human beings often replaced religion with nationalism, or conflated the two. In that universe, Muslims who flew planes into buildings did it, and Christians who tolerated perverse acts of torture did it, too.

What was really funny about that parallel universe was that all peoples then argued about the relatively minor degrees to which the other side was more wrong than they were.

Frankly there is no evidence that any memeber of the us military desecrated the Koran at Gitmo. The story was retracted by newsweek based on teh fact it was unsubstantiated, and the subsequent investigation has shown no such conduct. I think Newsweek was irresponsible in publishing, as fact, this unsubstantiated story.

Unless and until some actual substantiation of the story is brought to light, all we can do is assume the alleged desecration did not take place.

You have a point- nationalism (and probably lots of other isms) can produce zealots just as much as religion can.

The Chinese, having just recently figured out that it makes absolutely no freaking sense for one of the most historically capitalistic civilizations to have embraced Communism, is now hell bent for leather on replacing that particular "control mechanism" with fervent, anti-Japanese nationalism.

I find it sad that people (in general terms) can personally identify with a symbol more than their fellow humans.

Any symbol that represents something that people put great personal stake in - a flag, a religious book or icon, etc. - seems to be more highly valued than the general concept of "other people".

When you personalize a symbol to the extent that religious zealots or nationalists do, then a desecration of that symbol is seen as an attack on your person, your beliefs (which essentially make you "you". Whereas hearing about thousands slaughtered in some other country doesn't generally spark that sense of self-protection and personal identification.

What people that drift to these extremes forget is that a symbol does not equal the thing it represents. Burning the American flag doesn't mean you're destroying America. Burning the Koran doesn't mean you're destroying Islam. Removing "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegence doesn't mean you're negating Christianity.

Even scarier for us is if the day comes the Chinese see Anti-American Nationalism as more useful =(.

haha, I couldn't agree more Olympia. My copy of the bible is holding up a corner of my sofa.

So when you're sitting on it, your position is supported Biblically?

*rim shot or wawa mute here

LOL. Good one

Thats an interesting perspective you have there Jake. There have been allegations by prisoners of abuses at gitmo and elsewhere for years. Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, the gitmo commander who led the investigation even said, "We did identify 13 incidents of alleged mishandling of the Quran by Joint Task Force personnel. Ten of those were by a guard and three by interrogators." Personally, I think these are the smallest possible human rights infractions we have enaged in so far. Dropping a Quran or Bible, whether psychologically damaging or not, does not leave lasting scars or damage.

On the other hand, One prisoner interviewed during tribunals ordered by the Supreme Court last year said "Americans hit me and beat me up so badly I believe I'm sexually dysfunctional. I don't know if I'll be able to sleep with my wife or not, I can't control my urination, and sometimes I put toilet paper down there so I won't wet my pants. I point to where the pain is. ... I think they take it as a joke and they laugh." Who think these tactics would get us actionable intelligence? The real question is whether or not we can believe terrorists that are trained to lie. Who are these 500 people we have imprisoned in a POW camp on foreign soil? If they are so dangerous, why are they not publically disiplined or hung? The riots are a symptom of the damage we are doing to our image as seen by the rest of the world with secrecy and unaccountability. We need to start holding those accountable that break the rules and process the prisoners that are no longer a threat.

Well my understanding is that presumably, the riots were a reaction to the toilet flushing incident. I had no read the statement regarding 13 instances of alleged mishandling, nor do we have much detail, from what I found, to know what the mishandling in these instances is.

Now funadamentally I am in accord with the notion that these detainees should be tried or released. I just take exception to everyone flying off the handle about human rights abuses when the story is, by all admissions, incomplete.

I simply don't believe this. I think that our government does what it thinks is right or nessesary and makes rules accordingly to what it needs to accomplish. And from time to time if we need to break those rules we will do it covertly. If it takes crapping on the bible, or peeing on a Koran, or burning a flag to interigate our enemies then that's what we need to do.

Personnaly it would take physical tourcher before I thought about cracking, but if this works then good for them. It's much more humane.

Sense when did war have rules? We can get together and make rules for war but we can't come to a civile agreement about our problems? The people we are figting are not having tea with us aggreeing to rules, they are bombing mosques! They don't give a damn about conventions! When the enemy is not going to be willing to play fair so why should we? They simply know that this will make trouble for us so they make sure it reaches the media, then turn right around and do worse. This is an attempt to get the people we are trying to help angry at us.

I say we play just as dirty as the enemy if need be, and if we have to deny it then do so. This is a war here between people who don't see eye to eye on anything including on "how the game is played". We need to follow our own rules, and fight to win.

I don't like much about Bush, but I like that he has the balls to stand up to the U.N. and tends to put our national soverienty first (except where it comes to exporting labor). If I were President I'd give the middle finger to the U.N. and do what's best for our country. I don't care If I'd have to nuke half the planet because I don't even want to imagine a world without the United States. We have our problems but we are still a shinning light in a very dim world, and if we let the UN push us around the future U.S. will become unrecognizable.

I don't think it's safe to let the U.N. have too much power. Especially after seeing Star Wars. LOL

Since the time of organized warfare, War has had traditions. Some ideas that evolved were accepting quarter, not killing prisoners outright, declaring war before waging it.

The ideas of the Geneva convention came about as a decendant of "gentlemanly" conduct reguarding prisoners from the era of the American Revolution (which grew from ideas of Chivalry)

Like any other human behavior there are accepted ways of doing things.

Please do not argue that barbarism and "means justify the ways" concepts are some how the only way things can be accomplished.

Human life has value. If the person is a war criminal then treat them as such, but do not treat them however you will.