Quran desecration

Terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison told U.S. interrogators as early as April 2002, just three months after the first detainees arrived, that military guards abused them and desecrated the Quran, declassified FBI records say.

"Their behavior is bad," one detainee is quoted as saying of his guards during an interrogation by an FBI special agent on July 22, 2002. "About five months ago the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Quran in the toilet."

Lawrence Di Rita, chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said Wednesday that U.S. military officials at Guantanamo Bay had recently found a separate record of the same allegation by the same detainee, and he was re-interviewed on May 14. "He did not corroborate his own allegation," Di Rita said.

Asked why he felt certain that this detainee did not affirm his allegation out of fear of retaliation, Di Rita said, "It's a judgment call, and I trust the judgment of the commanders more than I trust the judgment of al-Qaida."

[...]

Di Rita said the charges of deliberate Quran desecration by U.S. military personnel were "fantastic" and "not credible on their face" because U.S. commanders were careful not to inflame passions among the detainees.

  Yahoo article

Right. (Insert Abu Ghraib pictures here.)

And if that's not enough for you...

The statements about guards disrespecting the Quran echo public allegations made many months later by some detainees and their lawyers after the prisoners' release from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The once-secret FBI documents show a consistency to the allegations and are the first indication that Justice and Defense department officials were aware in early 2002 that detainees were accusing their guards of mistreating the Quran.

One told an interrogator in March 2003 that guards had repeatedly mishandled the Quran. This detainee asked why the United States, as a supporter of freedom of religion, was using the Muslim holy book as a weapon.

Still another said in October 2002 that he and other detainees had been "beaten, spit upon and treated worse than a dog."

Separately on Wednesday, Amnesty International urged the United States to shut down the prison, calling it "the gulag of our time." White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the human rights group's complaints were "unsupported by the facts" and that allegations of mistreatment were being investigated.

How do we know they're "unsupported by the facts" if we haven't already investigated?

In January 2003, the military issued a three-page written guideline for handling a detainee's Quran, including a stipulation that it should be handled "as if it were a fragile piece of delicate art," and that it not be placed in "offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet or dirty/wet areas."

Now, I'm kind of wondering....why would you issue such a specific (three-page) guideline two years into rounding up and detaining people? Just spontaneous? "I've been thinking Rummy, you know we could conceivably some day have a situation where our people might outrage the enemy by mistreating their holy book. Perhaps we should come up with a guideline."

I'd find it a lot more logical to believe that there had been some complaints and a guideline was deemed necessary, either to actually hold jailers in check (unlikely - because why would it just be a "guideline" - but possible), or more likely, to point to when the news of the desecration went public as proof that "we don't do that".

But hey, it's only a guideline.

....and do what you want....you will anyway.