The right is still lying I see. These intelligence services did not believe that Saddam was anywhere at all close to producing WMDs in 2002. Not even the intelligence service of the UK believed this—this was the whole scandal of Tony Blair’s political people “sexing up” the actual intelligence the professionals had on Iraq.

The question of whether Saddam had a “program” of some sort that was “working” on something (that is, whether there were people in an office somewhere in Iraq thinking about how nice it would be to have WMDs) is different from the question of whether he had anything tangible that could actually be a threat to the U.S.

The administration trying to change the subject from the numerous corroborated reports of torture of Muslims and insults to Islam to whether a Pentagon source saw something written in a specific report is brilliant.

What is lost in this Newsweek non-retraction story — and the week of cable-news segments and endless blog posts on the subject — is that U.S. forces reportedly gunned down protesters in Afghanistan, and that widespread anti-U.S. protests actually began three weeks ago, after U.S. airstrikes killed Afghan civilians in late April.

i believe i mentioned it twice, which in your apparently limited (or Bush-like) grasp of the English language means “usually”.

I mentioned it because I assumed that otherwise you torture-apologist types would immediately chime in with “oh well you must be of (religion X) and that’s why you’re defending this behavior”.

I know it’s tough, but when you get to high school your reading comprehension should improve, so at least you have that to look forward to.

abb1, when i use the term fundamentalist, I am sticking to a literal interpretation rather than the attempt to hijack the language to suit the political whims of the folks fighting the, ahem, “war on terror”. Those being the same people who actually manage to convince the sheeple in society that you can declare war on a noun.

a fundamentalist is one who subscribes to the fundamentals of the religion in question, and not what the politicos would have you think (“wild eyed radical”). contrast that with a modern day “religious” person who may profess a faith but does not really act in accordance with it. for example, it always amazes me when catholics get pissed off at the Vatican for taking a specific stance on, say, birth control, and want the rules changed. If you don’t believe in the teachings of a religion, change your religious affiliation, or create a new church – don’t try to change the “rules” of the church, because that would be like changing the word of the God you subscribe to…. see the inconsistency?

Anyways, sorry for the digression but I get tired of watching our already eubonicized language get further butchered by people with an agenda. In the same way I get sick of being told i’m “anti-semitic” because I criticize Zionism or Israel. Of course, it isn’t my jewish friends who call me anti-semitic. Now that is irony for you.

Try this: approach a random (Christian, Jewish or atheist) guy and spit into his face. See how he reacts. Hey, it’s just a little bit of saliva, couldn’t he just wash it off? Was this really a reason to act like a madman? What’s the big deal?

no, i’m 37 next week.

if you’d read my previous posts you might get a clue as to what my underlying point really was. i chose to be blunt because Jerry seems incapable of comprehending the actual source of the outrage that has spurred the rioters to violence – that for people who (regardless of faith) are actually fundamentalists (i.e., that they actually BELIEVE that their religion reallly IS sent to them by a God) the only logical response to the desecration of their religious texts (again, words from GOD) might be extreme violence. It happened before and will happen again.

As an athiest, I might envy the simplemindedness of blind faith for the comforts it may provide in day to day life, and also understand the motivations such a blind adherence can generate. But it doesn’t mean I subscribe to belief, just as I stopped believing in the tooth fairy and santa claus.

So how old are you?

I recall also a special Channel 4 did on torture in which they recreated the conditions and treatment methods for inmates at Guantanamo with volunteers. The religious humiliation was done in more than one way, it may appear as the least troubling of those forms of abuse, but it is both offensive in itself and because of the context, both immediate and general.

I’m always impressed at the torture apologists trick of making a single incident or method being reported, usually those least to do with physical abuse, sound as if that’s all there was to the definition of torture, and then proceed to ignore the rest.

I have a feeling this Newsweek story fit that pattern, too. At least, the ‘sources’ must have known what they were doing.

“There’s an article today on Antiwar.com noting several previous foreign and US reports of Koran desecration at Guantanamo…This stuff was just buried on back pages until Newsweek moved it forward. Given the large number of independent prior reports, the most plausible hypothesis is that the Pentagon just strongarmed Newsweek into their retraction.”

At least as far back as march, 2003, references to US troops putting the Koran in toilets, or otherwise defiling Islam’s sacred text, presumably to psychologically torment detainees, have appeared in news articles in and outside the US. In October of 2004, a court ordered the US to turn over detainee-mistreatment related documents to a group of human rights organizations that was suing the USG based on its treatment of detainees. Thousands of documents were released, and the organizations began making them public in December. The content of the publicized documents was such that the Washington Post ran its “War Crimes” editorial.

Reading this thread, I get the impression that many are not familiar with these developments. In my opinion, they are extremely relevant to the subjects under discussion here. I would humbly suggest anyone who is interested in this subject to read the WaPo editorial and the other article that I posted at #136 above. The article discusses FBI reports of religious harassment of detainees that to me (I’m not a Muslim) seemed more disgraceful than the Koran desecration.

Also, below are excerpts from articles that have appeared in the past that specifically refer to US troops putting the Koran in the toilet.

SOURCE:

Flushing Newsweek by corrente via REASON – Hit and Run (Comment by Susan at May 17, 2005 01:54 AM) via Antiwar.com (Matthew Barganier)

March 26, 2003
The Washington Post | Final Edition | SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A12 HEADLINE: Returning Afghans Talk of Guantanamo; Out of Legal Limbo, Some Tell of Mistreatment | BYLINE: Marc Kaufman and April Witt, Washington Post Staff Writers

The men, the largest single group of Afghans to be released after months of detainment at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, gave varying accounts of how American forces treated them during interrogation and detainment. Some displayed medical records showing extensive care by American military doctors, while others complained that American soldiers insulted Islam by sitting on the Koran or dumping their sacred text into a toilet to taunt them.

[...]

Ehsannullah, 29, said American soldiers who initially questioned him in Kandahar before shipping him to Guantanamo hit him and taunted him by dumping the Koran in a toilet.

June 28, 2004
Financial Times Information | Global News Wire – Asia Africa Intelligence Wire | InfoProd | Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

One of the men, Timur Ishmuratov of Tatarstan, told ORT on 24 June—prior to the release—that he had been captured by Northern Alliance forces shortly after the beginning of the U.S. military action in Afghanistan and “sold” to the Americans for $ 3,000-$ 5,000. Former prisoner Airat Vakhitov told ORT about alleged mistreatment while he was at Guantanamo. “They tore the Koran to pieces in front of us, threw it into the toilet,” Vakhitov said. “When people were praying, they forced their way in and put their feet on people’s heads and beat them.”

August 4, 2004
CNN.com | SECTION: LAW | HEADLINE: British men report abuse from Guantanamo BYLINE: By Jonathan Wald CNN
DATELINE: NEW YORK

U.S. soldiers “would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet, and generally disrespect it,” Iqbal said.

August 5, 2004
1. The Independent (London)

In the report, released in New York, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul – the so-called Tipton Three – said one inmate was threatened after being shown a video in which hooded inmates were forced to sodomise each other. Guards allegedly threw prisoners’ Korans into toilets, while others were injected with drugs, it was claimed.

August 5, 2004
Daily News (New York) | Byline: By James Gordon Meek and Derek Rose.

They say that rats and scorpions had free run of their sweltering cages, loud rock music was used to drown out the sound of prayers, and sleep deprivation was common.

“They would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet and generally disrespect it,” Asif Iqbal wrote.

[...]

Pentagon spokesman Michael Shavers said the military “operates a professional detention facility at Guantanamo” and does not condone abuse of detainees.

January 9, 2005
Sunday | FINAL EDITION | HEADLINE: Nightmare of Guantanamo…. U.S. prison camp in Cuba has become legal black hole, reporter says BYLINE: John Freeman Special to The Denver Post

“They pepper sprayed me in the face, and I started vomiting; in all I must have brought up five cupfuls. They pinned me down and attacked me, poking their fingers in my eyes, and forced my head into the toilet pan and flushed. They tied me up like a beast and then they were kneeling on me, kicking and punching. Finally they dragged me out of my cell in chains … and shaved my beard, my hair, my eyebrows.”

[...]

And earlier this year, that process finally began. In March, the government released five British men from Guantanamo after nearly three years. They had been captured in Afghanistan, where they had gone to offer humanitarian aid. Rose interviewed them that same month, two months before the allegations of Abu Ghraib first surfaced, and yet they described a period of captivity eerily similar to that of the Iraqis in Abu Ghraib.
In August Mr Ahmed, Mr Rasul and Mr Iqbal issued a 115-page dossier accusing the US of abuse, including allegations that they were beaten and had their Korans thrown into toilets.*

So you think I’m the only one in the world?

You think it’s a matter of personal projection, not, umm, principles as well as laws?

The muslim rioters object are rioting because of the (alleged) desecration itself.

And they have every right to, because of what it represents, and because of what desecration of it by US military in the context of Guantanamo represents.

There have been Muslim protests against torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, dear Mr Free, pity you have such a short memory and such a small-minded view of the world.

Sadly, I think that many Muslims in the middle east are so innured to torture (as it is so common in that region) that it really does not outrage it as much as it does Westerners.

Riiight… Nice try… Yes, Muslims in the ME (does that include Pakistan and Morocco now?) are brutal animalistic tribal people and only mind torture when it’s done by the US, of course. Because of that irrational hatred of America.

153 – another excellent apt analogy, congratulations! I have another one: if you go into a pub and start calling everyone a drunk, you may get kicked out. I mean, that’s just like what happens in Guantanamo, isn’t it?

Wasting time here…

“Yeah, I dare you to take a copy of the (Diversity Statement) to (the faculty lounge) in some small (liberal, elitist university), drop trow and (dare to suggest that there are both physiological and cognative differences between the sexes) and see how long it takes before you are (demonized, ostracized, denied tenure and probably fired) by (politically correct, radical leftist) nuts.”

Come to think of it, I would probably rather face the rednecks…

and further to the point – do you think if I went to one of those right-wing radical jewish enclaves in the Occupied Territories and let them all know that I was going to whiz and crap on a copy of the Torah in my home, that they wouldn’t try to kill me?

Cheers,
Corbetti