I hope it's not true that "interrogators" at the Guantanamo Bay facility put a copy of the Koran in a toilet and flushed it as part of a campaign to dispirit prisoners and break their pride, hoping that they will give us valuable intelligence on al Qaeda.
Apparently an "investigation" is under way, but given the Abu Ghraib whitewash, I don't have a lot of confidence that we will ever hear anything resembling truth. It doesn't matter, though. Like the little boy who cried wolf, we haven't a shred of credibility left anyway. An official assurance from the U.S. government isn't worth one Italian lira on the Arab street today, or anywhere else, for that matter.
True or not, this allegation so perfectly fits the pattern of documented abuses coming out of Cuba, Iraq and elsewhere that its mere plausibility should strike fear and shame into the hearts of Americans everywhere. Who are we? What have we become?
Apparently we've become a country with a government that thinks it's okay to take a devoutly religious prisoner and allow him to be smeared across the face with what he is told is menstrual blood. Your tax dollars paid for that, by the way.
What sickens me the most is the broad, if quiet, support for these kinds of tactics in the conservative Christian community. There are actually folks out there, like Lt. General William Boykin, who argue that we can only defeat the terrorists "if we come against them in the name of Jesus." To my way of thinking, that means with a smile on your face and your arms open, not in a tank or a Black Hawk.
Jesus rebuked, but he never insulted. If he embarrassed anyone, it was because he demonstrated to them the folly and hypocrisy of their own words and actions. He did not go around ranting and raving about the evils of other religions, but he did spend a lot of time criticizing the leaders of his own faith. Jesus, who endured the ultimate torture of the cross and days in hell, is not someone who would have paraded naked prisoners around at the end of a leash, even as it was done to him. For Jesus, the end doesn't justify the means; right action and moral clarity were everything.
If we are in fact a "Christian" nation, as Boykin and others have asserted, where is our righteous indignation? Are we seriously more concerned that Janet Jackson bared a breast than that thousands of prisoners are being held and tortured in this manner without being charged with any crime, without access to counsel and without hope of a fair trial? Would Jesus travel halfway across the country to fight the "homosexual agenda" by picketing a high school graduation? Or would he have used those resources to help people in need? Where are our priorities?
In the toilet.
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7 comments:
Well, we're not a Christian nation, but if those who claim that we are were true to Jesus' teachings, they'd immediately protest actions like flushing a copy of the Koran, as well as torture, unjust wars, etc.
Those who claim to act in Jesus' name these days tend to be doing nothing of the kind. They're merely pushing their own narrow-minded evil agendas and taking Jesus' name in vain.
According to the lunchtime news on the BBC today, Newsweek has admitted its report on the flushing of the Koran may have been wrong. That said, I'm still very concerned by the lack of news from Guantanamo Bay - in this case, I can't help but think that the silence speaks volumes on the possible horrors taking place there.
No news is bad news, I fear.
But as I said, it doesn't matter, really, whether it's true or not. I mean, okay, of course it matters, it would be nice to know it didn't happen. But the thing is, it wasn't so far-fetched an allegation that it was disregarded as preposterous. I mean, do you think the Arab on the street will *ever* believe that this was essentially an editorial error?
Who cares it was a book!How could you possibly consider that torture? Would you feel tortured if you saw some fellow New Yorker chuck a copy of the Bible into the garbage?I would bet you would shrug your shoulders and go home and pray for him. If you consider that torture then American society tortures itself on a daily basis. Come back to reality. Yes I am sure they are torturing people there but flushing a book down a toilet is laughable. The other point I would like to make unless it was a extremely small pocket Koran there is no way it could fit down a toilet of any type. Not even a public restroom. If it was a standard size "Bible" it would be flushable.
The size of the book is a bit irrelevant, don't you think? It's more the gesture and the thought behind it. Bear in mind also that, yes, different people will respond to the disposal of a sacred text in different ways, but if this did take place, it was meant to provoke a reaction. It wasn't as casual a gesture as putting it out with the rubbish.
Destroying a copy of the Bible in such a deliberate, calculated manner would, I believe, be deemed offensive by the author of this blog, not to mention many of his readers - myself included. Belittling someone's religious beliefs is a dreadful act, regardless of the nature of the faith in question.
Who cares? Um, millions and millions of people. In fact, right now it's the top story on CNN.com:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/16/newsweek.quran/index.html
I'm not really arguing that flushing a book down a toilet is torture. I'm arguing that it is a monstrously despicable act that, if it occurred, highlights a persistent and disturbing undercurrent of this whole ill-conceived misadvanture: that it's a religious and cultural war and our country can't even manage to treat its prisoners of war with even the most basic respect. And for the record, Newsweek is NOT "retracting" the story. Newsweek is admitting that the source of the allegation was anonymous and unverifiable. But you know what? So was all of George Bush's WMD evidence, so no one in the GOP is in any position to throw stones.
Sigh, thanks, Newsweek, now I'm forced to retract my statement that they are not retracting the story. Regardless, my point is still valid.
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