Auntie: “How do you like your news little dears?”
Public: “If you’re asking whether we like our news rancid and shot through with mould in a congealed puddle of grease or fresh, we’ll take the latter. Somehow, Auntie Beeb, this does not seem like a real choice.”
It may be a bit rotten and unfounded but the BBC (al Reuters , Amnesty International and the ACLU) think you need another serving of a two-year-old ‘story’ alleging Koran-flushing. Recall that the “allegators” are suspected terrorists with no love for the USA passing unverified charges to people whose sole purpose in life seems to be sliming the USA. This is news? Power Line looks at the misleading headline by Reuters but their analysis fits the Beeb like a wart on a witch’s nose.
This story has been marked by two features, I think: lousy reporting, and a desperate desire on the part of leftists worldwide to believe that assertions made by Guantanamo detainees, no matter how outlandish and uncorroborated, are true.
I need some Alka Seltzer!
UPDATE: John Podhoretz notes the following in The Corner:
The Washington Post has a big story about the charges of Koran desecration at Guantanamo and how they appear in an FBI report. Big deal. All this means is that the terrorists at Guantanamo were retailing the story about a Koran flushed down the toilet and told interrogators about it. There are a few possibilities here. One is that the allegation is true, which seems to be a common presumption even though there is no evidence for it but the same prisoner tales repeated over and over until they sound like a cascade of differing reports. It seems at least as likely that the whole allegation is a gigantic game of telephone where the prisoners exchanged stories, the stories got retold and this is where it all ended up. It’s also very possible that the whole thing is an Al Qaeda distortion game of the sort discussed in the infamous training manual uncovered in Manchester, England — in which terrorists were instructed to use the softness of liberal democracies against liberal democracies should they get captured.
These are sociopaths we’re talking about here. Andrew Sullivan would do well to remember that. As would the Washington Post. And Newsweek. And Amnesty International. [And the BBC!-kb]
I’m feeling a bit better.
UPDATE 2: And now the BBC is reporting that the US military is able to confirm that the Gitmo detainee who alleged flushing of the Koran retracted his allegation.
The inmate who made the original allegation about the Koran being flushed down the toilet had retracted it, he said. A Pentagon spokesman characterised the incidents as mainly inadvertent handling of the Muslim holy book.
And how many confirmed incidents were there since 2001? Five.
How does the BBC headline read? Inquiry finds Koran ‘mishandling’
How does the al Reuters headline read? Pentagon says detainee retracts Koran allegation
Apropos of nothing at all…NewsWeak is owned by the Washington Post Company.
I have searched the net diligently and have been unable to find an instance of a Koran/toilet image, whether floating half submerged in the bowl or (by NMR imaging) entering the sewage system. However, for those who have sufficiently strong stomachs, you can see(the horror! the horror) a real instance of Koran destruction.
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/180/1304/640/h1.jpg
Can you find this image on the BBC’s site?
‘mishandling” their holy book
What the BBC and the other media are so careful to avoid mentioning is that Islam regards non-muslims as simply un-clean and are thus not fit to even touch the Arabic version of the Koran (the only true versions of their book, translations are not held in the same regard).
When it comes to handling the Koran, as in much else in Islam, non-muslims are in effect regarded as untermenschen.
Boy Blue,
They also hid the fact that Shabina Begum, the girl who won the right to wear a full-length jilbab to a UK secular school, originally said she couldn’t wear the school’s perfectly modest uniform because “unbelievers” also wore it.
Is the BBC institutionally racist against non-Muslims?
Susan
In that corner of a foreign field that is forever Beebland, racism can only be committed by white skinnned westerners.
Which in itself is racist, why deny others the right to indulge?
jon livesey
You can’t judge the entire US military based on what a small handfull of troops did. It sounds to me you’ve let the BBC brainwash you into thinking it’s EVERY US SOLDIER, which is total BS. If you’re going to worry about anything maybe it should be losing your sovereignty to Brussels and extreme Islam taking over Europe.
Hmmmm… you know, I have an idea that could put this constant leak of “abuse” and “desecrations” in Gitmo to an end, once and for all.
Here is my suggestion:
Gather together the leadership of Amnesty International, the ACLU lawyers, and any other “human rights” group who wants to go, and take them to Gitmo.
Then, through interpreters, make a general announcement to the prison population that Gitmo is going to be closed down due to complaints of abuses leaking out to the news media, and the prisoners all shipped back to Afghanistan. After all, the Afghanis have a prior claim on their heads in any case.
Then stand back and watch the prison riot commence.
Jon Livesey: “And if you think about it for even a moment, if I was a commie – or any other boogie-man of your choice – I’d be delighted by the US Army’s misbehaviour, not worried by it.”
Your contention that there even IS US Army “misbehavior” worries me. As stated in one of the articles quoted by our host:
“A Pentagon spokesman characterised the incidents as mainly inadvertent handling of the Muslim holy book.”
That is “inadvertent handling”. Four of them ACCIDENTALLY TOUCHED it! One of them gestured above a Koran that was lying on a table… didn’t touch it at all, just had his hand above it.
How on earth can you characterise this as “misbehavior”????????????????