HELIOLITH

The BBC writes of a newly declassified FBI report, that was released today after requests from the ACLU. The report documents that at least one inmate had raised allegations in 2002 that the Koran was mistreated and flushed down a toilet. It’s odd how quick so many seemed to pretend it was absurd that such an infraction might occur, or to suggest we shouldn’t speak of the reality of war. Being quiet about bad things unfortunately doesn’t make them go away.

It’s very easy for me to imagine what a non-issue treatment of the Muslim holy book would be for stressed out soldiers who risk death daily. Refreshing my understanding, I skimmed through (and recommend) Wikipedia’s most informative entry on the Qu’ran. At the same time imagine how the right-wing Christian movement would react if we heard reports of bibles being desecrated.

The declassification comes (just a bit late) after the drama around a Newsweek story that’s gotten a lot of flack for being unsubstatiated, and even blamed for violent deaths in Afghanistan. Any reading of the last couple of weeks’ news will reveal some of the muck that’s been thrown at Newsweek, and the vehement and self-righteous denials of any such abuses. It’s really somewhat amusing in a sad way how pious our administration can feign to be. Clearly the Pentagon nor the Whitehouse cannot truly be so naive.

Frank Rich in the NYT op-ed page wrote this very sharp piece entitled “It’s all Newsweek’s Fault” last Sunday, which raises fact after fact to blow that whole warped meme out of the water. Rich echos many of the same issues raised in my last post on Guantanamo, and adds many more.

To paraphrase one veteran that I know and love, “These are the realities of war. They always have been, and they always will be.” As much as I believe that we should fight for the highest standards of treatment of prisoners of war, and express sorrow for the abuse of human rights (especially by our own government). Human rights groups are overworked and underfunded in these days, no doubt. I know that the only possibility for peace is in not engaging in war in the first place.

Ty Pierce of Thinking Man’s Chimp poses an important question, in his post “Can you retract a retraction?” (I think you can!) “What would it take for the international community to force a truly independent investigation on the US?” [emphasis mine]

Update: The ACLU’s own press-release is online here, and they have posted all of today’s FOIA-obtained documents online here and has a much broader index of Governmental torture-related papers here.