"I wouldn't join the International Criminal Court. It's a body based in The Hague where unaccountable judges and prosecutors can pull our troops or diplomats up for trial.
"And I wouldn't join it. And I understand that in certain capitals around the world that that wasn't a popular move. But it's the right move not to join a foreign court that could -- where our people could be prosecuted." - George W. Bush 09/30/04
"Men without conscience are capable of any cruelty the human mind can imagine." - Dick Cheney 01/26/05
In my earlier post on the Newsweek Qur'ān-desecration story, I didn't go into details looking at the likely accuracy of the charge. Several other bloggers have been on the case.
The notion that "Newsweek caused the riots" was apparently the Republican Party line of the day on Monday. That seems to be at least a questionable claim. But that, of course, doesn't stop anything from reverberating through the Republican echo chamber right on cue.
Monday was a real "read Juan Cole" day, and not just on this item. I was impressed by his discussion of the evidence:
Guantanamo Controversies The Bible and the Koran, Informed Comment blog 05/16/05
Isikoff's source, in other words, stands by his report of the incident, but is merely tracing it to other paperwork. What difference does that make? Although Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita angrily denounced the source as no longer credible, in the real world you can't just get rid of a witness because the person made a minor mistake with regard to a text citation. It is like saying that we can't be sure someone has really read the Gospels because he said he read about Caiaphas in the Gospel of Mark rather than in the Gospel of John. ...
As a professional historian, I would say we still do not have enough to be sure that the Koran desecration incident took place. We have enough to consider it plausible. ...
The controversy, however, seems to me to have focused on all the wrong things. The question is why all those prisoners are still being held at Guantanamo. Saar makes clear that the majority of them just had the misfortune to be dragooned onto the battlefield by the Taliban, and aren't dangerous terrorists. There are very bad characters among them, who should be tried and kept behind bars.
SusanHu at Daily Kos provides links to some of the earlier reports on Qur'ān desecration:
The Newsweek Backtrack: Did the Right Win a Game of Chicken? 05/15/05
Tom Harper has some caustic words about the fact that the war fans are trashing Newsweek for reporting the story and blaming the magazine for the riots: Newsweek Caused A Riot 05/16/05
It figures. Last year when the Abu Ghraib tortures were first publicized, rightwing Neanderthals were up in arms. Were they furious that some inbred prison guards were violating the Geneva Convention and putting other American soldiers at risk? Nope. They were furious at the media for airing the story.
"eriposte," media watchdog at the Left Coaster, also weighs in: Will Bush nominate Isikoff for Presidential Medal of Freedom? 05/15/05
Kevin Drum has a good observation: Outrage in the blogsphere, Political Animal blog 05/15/05
As near as I can tell, the Pentagon has demonstrated more genuine outrage over this incident [the alleged mistake in the Newsweek story] than they did over months and months of disclosures of similar (and worse) actions at Abu Ghraib. It's revolting.
Here's how the Republican Party's house organ FOX is playing the story:
Newsweek Accused of Spurring Afghan Violence FOX News online 05/16/05
And the blog that is one of the leading lights in Right Blogostan (a fact that does not speak well for the standards in that neighborhood, I would say):
"Newsweek Strikes Again" is more like it by Scott Johnson, Powerline blog 05/16/05
Glenn Reynolds, aka, the Perfesser, aka Instahack, not only blames Newsweek for the demonstrations (and for the failures of Bush Afghan project to boot). He also thinks (via a quote from Clayton Cramer) that, hey, this is kind of like Bush lying about WMDs in Iraq. So, Bush's sources for the WMD maybe got one detail wrong in a report, and that was the reason we invaded Iraq? Say what?
I don't read Instahack very often. And looking at his posts on the Qur'ān-descration issue reminds me why. Aside from the whining that seems to be chronic among a lot of conservatives, Insty's posts on this issue are so full of far-fetching accusations of hypocrisy - both the (allegedly) real and the hypothetical - it reminds me for all the world of teenagers scrutinizing the behavior of their benighted elders for any hint of hypocrisy.
Did he have one of his concept-challenged sophomores write this, for instance?
I want to add that I don't think there's anything immoral about flushing a Koran (or a Bible) down the toilet, assuming you've got a toilet that's up to that rather daunting task, and I think it's amusing to hear people who usually worry about excessive concern for religious beliefs suddenly taking a different position. Nor do I think that doing so counts as torture, and I think that it debases the meaning of "torture" to claim otherwise. If this had happened, it might have been -- indeed, would have been -- impolitic or unwise. But not evil.
Good grief! Even if I thought that slashing taxes for rich people would solve all the world's problems and was convincing that global warming and evolution were unproven theories, I just don't think I could stand to hang out all the time with conservatives who launch nonsense like this from their mouths and keyboards. Look at that paragraph. First, you get a pompous white-guy sneer at them superstitious Muslims; then the obligatory reference to liberal hyporisty; and then some incomprehensible comparison at the end about how the Qur'ān desecration - if it happened which it didn't, he says - is "impolitic" or maybe "unwise" but not "evil." Why the [Cheney] is this guy talking about?
In one post he quotes some subtle scholar as saying that the real problem is "an ignorant and violent subculture within the islamic world." Dang, us Amuricans sure are more enlightened that them dumb, backward Muslims, huh? Now excuse me while I go work on my "Darwin was a Satan-worshipper" essay.
Condi, Condi has gotten into the act, too: Yahoo!/AFP Rice brands Koran desecration report 'appalling' 05/16/05.
"It's extremely unfortunate," she told a trio of reporters accompanying her on her way back from a lightning trip to Iraq. "It's appalling that this story got out there and I do think it's done a lot of harm."
She bemoaned the at least 14 deaths in violent protests in Afghanistan, which had the most violent reaction to Newsweek's report that interrogators at the US prison camp in Cuba had flushed a Koran down the toilet.
"It's also done a lot of harm to Americans' efforts to improve our image and our relationship with the Muslim world," said the chief US diplomat.
So, Newsweek is why we have problems in the Muslim world! Gosh, I'm glad we got that cleared up.
I guess we've been "through the looking glass" for quite a while now. But every now and then I'm amazed at the way Republicans have taken to creating their own reality. I know I shouldn't be. Maybe I need to spend a few months in reeducation camp to correct that flaw.
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