Desecration?

This is coolbert:

We need to talk about the desecrations of the sacred Koran at Gitmo [Guantanamo Bay, Cuber [Camp X-Ray]. 

What does this exactly consist of?

And why is it happening?

Has the military of the U.S. and U.S. society in general turned into a bunch of desecrators of the holy book of another religion? What is going on here?

These allegations of desecrations of course were spurred by the Newsweek story of the supposed flushing of the Koran down the toilet by interrogators at Gitmo.

And did this desecration and other desecrations occur??

Well, the U.S. military has done investigations into this matter.

And it does seem that desecration has occurred. On a number of occasions.

No less than an Air Force general addressed this problem at a news conference. This shows the degree of seriousness given to the issue by the U.S. military.

And the headline for the local paper says, "Koran mishandled, General says". For the casual observer, this only seems to conform to the impression the general public has. That desecrations and violations of the Koran HAVE occurred!!!

And, yes, this General officer did agree that incidents [a grand total of thirteen] had occurred. But it was denied that a Koran had been flushed down the toilet.

At this point, let me stop. From now on during this blog entry, I want the reader to decide for themselves, and ask themselves, if by any coherent, reasonable, yea, even if by an extreme definition of what could be considered desecration, DID desecration of the HOLY KORAN take place.

Here are the incidents and what occurred, as investigated by the U.S. military and also perhaps FBI investigators.

To begin with, the investigators [and this General was the man in charge of the investigators], asked the detainee about the flushing incident. And the detainee said, "he allowed as how he hadn't [seen the actual flushing], but he had heard guards - - that guards at some other point in time had done this."

HE [THE DETAINEE] HAD HEARD THIS!!!!! [from whom he had heard it from is not made clear??!!]

HE [THE DETAINEE] HAD NOT ACTUALLY SEEN THIS FLUSHING OCCUR, HE HAD HEARD IT!!!!! [that it had happened!!]

FURTHER!!

In five of the eleven cases investigated, the "incident" was "the result of a failure to follow standard operating procedures in the place at the time the "incident" occurred." During these five incidents, "another, unspecified rule" was broken. What this rule was is not mentioned.

NOW, HERE IS WHERE IT GETS GOOD!!!

Six more incidents were investigated.

And in these cases:

Guards in each instance, "either accidentally touched the Koran, touched it within the scope of his duties, or did not actually touch the Koran at all"

"ACCIDENTALLY TOUCHED, TOUCHED WITHIN THE SCOPE OF HIS DUTIES, OR DID NOT ACTUALLY TOUCH".

TOUCHED, TOUCHED, TOUCHED. ACCIDENTALLY, WITHIN THE SCOPE, OR DID NOT EVEN TOUCH!!!!!

THIS IS COUNTED AS DESECRATION WARRANTING INVESTIGATION!!!???

[keep in mind this fact. In the eyes of SOME Muslims, a non-Muslim merely touching the Koran is considered to be a desecration. An absent minded, bored guard just thumbing through the Koran would be in the eyes of SOME Muslims, a desecration!!!]

Further.

[Some Muslims would also insist that non-Muslim, to prevent desecration, if handling a Koran, do so wearing gloves!!!!! Presumably doing so wearing unused gloves [white if possible I suppose] in pristine condition taken from a container certified as being "approved". Gloves that would be used only one time and then discarded in a "proper" manner.]

As for the two remaining "incidents".

"interrogators either touched a Koran or stood over the Islamic holy book during an interrogation".

Further description of the "incidents" state that:

"one involved placing two Korans on a television", and the second the Koran was not touched and the perceived insult was unintentional."

STOOD OVER, TOUCHED, PLACED, NOT TOUCHED, UNINTENTIONAL!!!!!

Now, a new allegation exists. That a guard "kicked" the Koran. Did THIS occur?? I cannot say. I do not have the info to be able to say one way or the other.

However, regarding desecrations, there is more!!!

The investigation led by the General also looked into fifteen reports of additional "desecrations". "Desecrations" committed by the DETAINEES themselves. This did include ripping pages out of the Koran and the flushing of pages down the toilet, allegedly to stop up the toilets and cause an overflow. [this flushing may have been the work of one detainee, that is not clear??]

I REPEAT FOR THE CASUAL READER SO THAT WE ARE CLEAR ON THIS. MORE ALLEGATIONS OF DESECRATION WERE MADE AGAINST THE DETAINEES THEMSELVES THEN WERE MADE AGAINST U.S. PERSONNEL AT GITMO!!!!

Furthermore!!

You will never, never, be able to do enough protocols, procedures, regulations, processes, etc., to satisfy the detainees with regard to handling the Koran. Indeed, it is not the handling of the Koran in and of itself that is at issue here. YOUR very existence [as a guard or interrogator] is an affront to the jihadist. Whether they be a hard core militant or even a tepid militant, YOU are an abomination to them. NOTHING YOU DO can satisfy them. Indeed, just the attempt to placate the detainee is a game the detainee themselves are playing on the guards. THEY, the detainees, are forcing YOU to conform to HIM, NOT YOU forcing the detainee to conform to your rules. THIS IS ASS-BACKWARDS!!!!!

Are any of these allegations of desecration valid according to a reasonable thinking person thinking reasonably? NO!!

Did the guards or interrogators make the detainees eat pages of the Koran? Did the detainees have to walk on torn pages of the Koran? Did the guards use torn pages of the Koran for toilet paper? Did the guards draw lewd and disgusting pictures on paper torn from the Koran?

NO!!! A thousand times NO!!!

Was this intentional or cavalier brutality or just plain meanness or cussedness at work here?

NO!!! A thousand times NO!!!

Sounds to me like what happened at Gitmo is inadvertencies carried to extremes only in the fevered minds of the jihadists and their lackeys!!!

Also written about in Newsweek and relayed via the international mass media in a manner that was and is very ungenerous and maybe even a deliberate and malicious provocation.!!!

One FINAL note.

Up to this point I have spelled Koran as K-O-R-A-N. Believe it or not, in the eyes of some "fundamentalists" and jihadists, just spelling the word Koran as I have done is of itself A DESECRATION!! Other spellings are preferred by the fevered minded ones. Such as Q'uran or Qu'ran. I am not sure who prefers what. But. JUST BEWARE your spelling!!! It seems that in the eyes of some Muslims, just writing this blog entry is a desecration of the Koran itself??!!

[And finally: I have mentioned this before. The Muslim living in the U.S. is living in the one place in the world where they can practice their faith as it is intended to be practiced. This is the one place where the government does not interfere in the practice of the religion. AND THIS BY THE ADMISSION BY THE MUSLIM, EVEN IF GRUDGINGLY SO!!! EVEN IN MUSLIM COUNTRIES SUCH AS EGYPT, SAUDI ARABIA, OR OF COURSE AFGHANISTAN UNDER THE TALIBAN, THE GOVERNMENT DID INTERFERE IN THE PRACTICE OF THE RELIGION. NOT IN THE U.S.!! AND YET WE FIND THESE ACCUSATIONS BEING MADE AGAINST THE PERSONNEL OF GITMO!! [HOW SAD!!]

coolbert.