Rice urges calm, calls Koran desecration abhorrent

[elSicomoro]

Newsweek says, "Blame the Defense Department."

[Undertoad]

In the meantime, as part of his ongoing reporting on the detainee-abuse story, Isikoff had contacted a New York defense lawyer, Marc Falkoff, who is representing 13 Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo. According to Falkoff's declassified notes, a mass-suicide attempt—when 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves in August 2003—was triggered by a guard's dropping a Qur'an and stomping on it. One of Falkoff's clients told him, "Another detainee tried to kill himself after the guard took his Qur'an and threw it in the toilet." A U.S. military spokesman, Army Col. Brad Blackner, dismissed the claims as unbelievable. "If you read the Al Qaeda training manual, they are trained to make allegations against the infidels," he said.

So the original complaint came from a lawyer taking allegations from his Yemeni al Qaeda prisoner.

[jaguar]

"If you read the Al Qaeda training manual, they are trained to make allegations against the infidels," he said.

Does he think he's any more credible after everything else that's come out of that hellhole? I don't know whether it happened or not but shit, they need to hire better PR people. Consider what the Koran says about suicide. Consider how devout most of these people are. Consider: 'mass suicide'.

[mrnoodle]

Saw "Kingdom of Heaven" over the weekend. Visually cool, but the characters weren't so great. They were trying to make sure that the "voice of reason" character was present in the Christian camp, the Muslim camp, and to a lesser extent, the Jewish side. What ended up happening instead was a whole range of people who were indistinguishable from one another save for the style of their headgear.

The scene where the Muslims breach the wall but can't make it through was shot from overhead and showed a mass of ant-like people hung up at the breach and unable to move in any direction...kind of a visual interpretation of the whole fight for Jerusalem over the years.

Not sure where I was going with this. No point, really. But they figuratively flushed the bible and the koran a long time ago, at least from a moral standpoint...why are we giving two hoots about physically destroying them? And when is America going to stop walking on eggshells when it comes to politically correct garbage? We have no problem with deliberately and/or wantonly offending every religious faith on the planet -- just turn on MTV for 10 minutes to see an example.

Even more importantly, would it kill our own media to have an occasional outbreak of pro-American bias? Anyone who dares say anything positive is immediately branded a Bush apologist and a shill for Rupert Murdoch. There are too many fronts in this war as it is without making more on our own soil.

Bleh. I really did have a point, I think.

[Happy Monkey]

What facts did Newsweek get wrong? They'd seen multiple reports of the event, and then got confirmation from one of their sources. Once the furor started, their source backed off the claim, and Newsweek reported that.

[elSicomoro]

Technically, none...although one could argue that Newsweek should not have taken this to be confirmation of the event:

Whitaker wrote that the magazine’s information came from “a knowledgeable U.S. government source,” and writers Michael Isikoff and John Barry had sought comment from two Defense Department officials. One declined to respond, and the other challenged another part of the story but did not dispute the Quran charge, Whitaker said.

IMO, they should have gotten confirmation from at least one more source.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by jaguar

From my experience and understanding I'd wonder how much was genuine outrage and how much just might possibly be people taking advantage of the protest to do a little looting. But of course that gets in the way of the oh-so-easy muslims are savages theory doesn't it?

Actually, the whole rioting to be able to loot notion you bring up reinforces the the idea that Muslims = Savages.

Obviously, in large measure they do not.

[jaguar]

I remember the big anti WTO riots in melbourne in 2000, the area around the building it was being held in and half the CBD was full of protesters, the vast majority of whom were peaceful. The serious action was throwing eggs at cars and sit-down roadblocks. Then there was the fringe who threw bricks at police, broke windows and generally used it as an excuse to get away with doing criminal damage. I don't think that all of us involved should be judged by their actions, same applies here.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by jaguar

I remember the big anti WTO riots in melbourne in 2000, the area around the building it was being held in and half the CBD was full of protesters, the vast majority of whom were peaceful. The serious action was throwing eggs at cars and sit-down roadblocks. Then there was the fringe who threw bricks at police, broke windows and generally used it as an excuse to get away with doing criminal damage. I don't think that all of us involved should be judged by their actions, same applies here.

Well, at Kent State the people who got shot probably weren't the ones who threw the rocks.

By being in or near a protest, you basically run the risk of injury, sometimes at the hands of law enforcement personnel. The odds of them being held accountable are not good. Some of those rules we learned in grade school - sometimes the entire class suffers for the actions of a few people, sometimes the person being attacked is the one who is caught and punished, still apply once we become adults.

The shootings killed four students and wounded nine. Only one of the four students killed was participating in the protest, and one of the students killed, William Schroeder (who was observing but not participating in the demonstration) was a member of the campus ROTC chapter. Of those wounded, none was closer than 71 feet (22 m) from the guardsmen. Of those killed, the nearest was 265 feet (81 m) from the guardsmen.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by jaguar

Then there was the fringe who threw bricks at police, broke windows and generally used it as an excuse to get away with doing criminal damage. I don't think that all of us involved should be judged by their actions, same applies here.

You (generic you) are also judged by who you associate with as well. Self-policing can go a long way towards changing people's opinions. If you don't want people to think you're nothing but a bunch rock throwing thugs then when one of you picks up a rock, you stop him.

This policy works on many, many levels and would go a long way towards reducing the opportunities that law enforcement have to intervene. Reduce those opportunities and the LE won't have a legitimate excuse to step in and crack skulls.

[mrnoodle]

Any large gathering of people is prone to become a mob, sadly. Individual thought tends to go out the window when you're with 10,000 of your closest friends and bitterest enemies. Look at soccer matches, rock concerts, evangelical tent revivals, Mardi Gras, Nazi rallies in the '30s, etc. etc. If you could somehow pull any individual out of one of those gatherings and put them in a room alone (while they continue acting the same way), you'd usually have a case for wolf's floor at the hospital.

Nah, the reason I think some people are savages is because they wake up throwing rocks and firing guns in the air, they throw rocks and fire guns in the air all day, and before they go to bed, they throw rocks, burn effigies, fire guns in the air and tape bombs to their women before their shopping trips. Probably load em up with rocks to throw too.

[Skunks]

You could argue that the Qur'an is slightly more analogous to Jesus than to the Bible, actually: according to itself, the Qur'an is the revealed word of god (there's actually a whole theological debate that I can't recall the main points of as to if the Qur'an is the Word of God or God or which came first or something, but let's ignore that) in its unmodified, original form.

Ignoring the Christological debate, too, let's just say that Jesus is significantly more than 'just another prophet' in the eyes of Christianity. Taught both through actions and sayings, both of which were recorded in the bible. He didn't write it, some other guy down the line did. So the Christian progression goes God -> Jesus -> main guys -> Bible -> everyone; the Muslim version goes God -> Qur'an -> Muhammad -> everyone.

Muhammad lived his life in accordance with the Qur'an and was/is said to be the best example of how to be a Muslim, which would be roughly analogous to the apostles or saints or some other individual. The Bible would be closer to the Sunnah of the Prophet (recorded sayings/actions of Muhammad) than the Qur'an, in this interpretation.

You could also just say that Islam doesn't have as many holy objects/symbols/people, so the religious fervor is more concentrated.

[wolf]

Yeah, boy, haven't I gotten you to watch Reverend Pastor and General Overseer Geno??

[Undertoad]

Don't forget the women who claimed to spread menstrual blood on a prisoner's face knowing full well that this is an attack on religious beliefs. Why would a Koran in the toilet be any different?

It's no different at all. Both actions are harmless.

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

It's no different at all. Both actions are harmless.

However, you do end up pissing off your plumber and laundry guy.