Korangate

Here's a report on the military's investigation of the Koran "desecration" allegations. Still much ado about nothing.

Devout Muslims consider it blasphemy for a non-Muslim to touch a Koran or otherwise show disrespect to it. Of the 13 alleged mishandling incidents investigators identified, Hood said, most were ''inadvertent" touching of the Koran by military personnel. Ten instances involved guards and three involved interrogators, he said.

''We found that in only five of those 13 incidents, four by guards and one by an interrogator, there was what could be broadly defined as mishandling of a Koran," Hood said.

I'm sorry, but this is utter rubbish. The military is affording such extreme respect to a book that they are being hindered in the duties. This level of care isn't afforded to any other religion's texts and all this walking on eggs just gives the terrorists more inflammatory rhetoric to splash around. This should never have been news and allegations like this should just have been ignored.

Where were the Islamic prisoners during these incidents any way? Don't they have a responsibility to their own religion to ensure that a Koran in their keeping isn't placed in the way of potential desecration?

Let's take this desecration BS a step further. If it's of such dire importance to be respectful of Islamic texts, what are we doing about those that are in libraries and book stores? Shouldn't they be given the same protections? What about other religious texts? Don't they deserve protection at the same level? Or is this just something that must be done by our military?

Not to mention the outrage by individuals who have fighters that intentionally fight from mosques or stash weapons in mosques because they know that the US military will bend over backwards to avoid bringing fire on to a place of worship.

I watched this press conference. It was amazing just how bent the reporter's questions were. The scent of inquisition was wafting through the room for most of the time. And the obviously Islamic reporter asking if the US was going to apologize for the mistreatment of the Koran just topped it off.

CNN in this article quotes the rantings of the ACLU.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero criticized U.S. treatment of detainees Wednesday.

"The United States government continues to turn a blind eye to mounting evidence of widespread abuse of detainees held in its custody," he said in a news release.

"If we are to truly repair America's standing in the world, the Bush administration must hold accountable high-ranking officials who allow the continuing abuse and torture of detainees."

The ACLU is almost as laughable as Amnesty International in this case. Mounting evidence? More like mounting rhetoric. Thank the gods that we have such moral guardians like the ACLU.