Newsweek and the "Liberal Media"

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The U.S. could build itself a death star and threaten to blow up earth if it continues to be so darn uncooperative, and it would change nothing - unless if the US have a secret plan to relocate it's population to Mars.

 

Phew, the plan is working. Ragusa's concentration is on Mars and he hasn't noticed anything strange on Titan.

 

Umm...maybe this may show my ignorance of the Koran (well, its size at least)...

But how the heck do you flush a book down the toilet?!?

I would say with a scissors and much swearing...but I just don't see how that is possible...

 

We've got pocket bibles, right? Why not pocket korans?

 

You allege that these backward fanatics (a) can read and (b) be so smart to have pockedt Korans?

Kidding.

Yes, as last item in this swiss online shop you find a pocket Koran, measuring 7x12cm, that's 2,75 x 4,7 inches. It could fit a loot, but that's pretty irrelevant anyway, maybe there are smaller books.

Besides, the Koran can also be had on the communicator, as freeware.

Well, we'll have to revoke 'backward'.

And besides, who needs flushing? You really think the prisoners had WC's in Gitmo? Or maybe just old fashioned buckets?

So you see.

The Korans weren't flushed. According to ex-detainees, Korans were "thrown in the buckets used for the toilets", which is even technically not flushing Clearly, Newsweek is widely off mark.

Everything fine then, I presume ...

 

As far as I know, no other country or group in history has made such an effort to minimize casualties -- the resources the Americans have expended on "smart" weapons are astronomical. Now, those weapons don't work so well, but the fact is that the Americans at least make the effort -- they are ahead of the game in that sense. It's like the kid in the class with the best marks out of anyone there, but yet, everyone in the class is telling them to do better!

As for the idea of using force to stop the Islamic fundamentalists, such a policy HAS worked in the past. After the U.S. flattened 2 Japanese cities, their government realized that they didn't have a chance. The Japanese surrendered. In a similar vein, after the Nazi war machine had been rolled up by the Russians on the East and the other Allies on the West, the Nazi government too surrendered and gave up. IMHO, they then benefited from a LOT of U.S. aid and became pretty good places to live (I know Japan is a nice place to live, did it for 2 years, and I assume West Germany is a pretty nice place based on the facts that the East Germans really wanted to join up, it is presently an economic and social force in Europe and it does not have a reputation as a third world country.

If we can get it through the heads of the Islamic fundamentalists that they are not going to make any significant headway in their terrorist efforts, the possibility exists that they will do the rational thing and stop bombing things.

This is not a Westro-centric fantasy -- I'm not saying that they will all drop Islam and start singing the Star-Spangled Banner, but they could very well decide to focus their energies elsewhere -- maybe building up their economies and living life, rather than killing their own future via suicide bombing.

 

Eh, we haven't focused on smart weapons to minimize casualties, but rather to maximize effectiveness.

During the bad old days of WW2, the RAF (okay, not american, but bear with me) managed to land a mere 2% of the bombs it dropped during daylight "precision" raids within two or three miles of the intended target.

So you can see why the development of guided weaponry has been a priority over the years.

Oh, sure, THAT would work. However, not even Bush has the will to do that. And if he DID, he'd be impeached in a nanosecond. The only way for overwhelming force to work is if you inflict overwhelming casualties on the civilian population, not just the fighters. We simply don't have the will to do that.

Not to mention that, since a rather significant portion of the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan are "foreign fighters", we'd have to go blow the holy hell out of, erm, pretty much all of the middle east, allies included.

 

I know we don't have the political will to do that, which is sad in a way. You can't win a war or any conflict if you go in with one hand tied behind your back. And you CERTAINLY can't win if you are following a set of rules that the other fellow isn't playing by.

If things keep going the way they are, we're going to see a lot more instances of private armies (Ross Perot put together some whacko mercenaries at one point, IIRC) and groups like these Watchmen or whatever who are going to guard the border of Mexico (and theoretically Canada, but good luck policing THAT sucker, guys; besides, we're not flooding you folks like Mexico is (except with British Columbian marijuana, sad to say )

People are tired of not feeling safe because we're too CIVILIZED to take off the gloves and stop violent offenders and terrorists.

 

The Watchmen group is a result of people gettng fed up with the government's unwillingness to put a halt to illegal immigration. Here's hoping the group finally prods ye olde feds to do something about the problem. And, if not, here's hoping they can make a difference on their own.

Frankly, the idea that we would go and nuke (or napalm or carpet bomb) the hell out of the mid east scares the crap out of me. We would, essentially, be killing millions upon millions of people--and then reducing millions more to abject poverty and starvation--in order to save the lives of, theoretically speaking, a few thousand to a million Americans.

The very idea is horrifying, even if it is good for a bit of gallows humor.

 

Choose your enemies well because that's who you will become the most like.

BTW, this thread is starting to drift off topic quite a bit...

 

My apologies for the drift.

As for killing millions of people, it's horrible, I don't deny that. Diplomacy is much better. But sometimes it doesn't work. There must be a fist inside the velvet glove or you'll get walked on.

 

From what I've just heard on the TV, it appears that the story from Newsweek was actually true and evidence has been found. The soldiers have trampled on the Qoran, poured water and urine on it and drawn obscenities on the pages. As always, a Pentagon official tried to divert attention from that, claiming that the most outrageous allegation, flushing the Qoran down the toilet, was not yet proven. So, is it the same kind of "lie" as the rest of the Newsweek story, just waiting for a camera record? Or maybe pouring urine over someone's holy book isn't enough? And who is guilty? Of course, Newsweek.

 

AMaster, you're right on target, pun intended, saying that precision weaponry was rather to maximise effectiveness (that is, maximise enemy casualties) than about minimising civilian casualties.

The U.S. don't kill civilians in Iraq because of stray bombs, but because of direct hits.

Chev,
right. That was about to happen right from the start. I'm not surprised.

Sure, pouring or spraying piss over a Koran in no way is flushing a Koran down a toilet, but let's be sensible - beyond semantics, where is the difference?

It now seems clear that some of the Guantanamo guards did abuse copies of the Koran, even if they did not, as Newsweek reported, flush one down a toilet. It would be surprising if US interrogators never resorted to Koran abuse as a technique for breaking down the will of prisoners. Like sensory deprivation, psychotropic drugs and physical stress, desecrating the Koran may be an effective interrogation technique. That does not make the practice any less deplorable, but the fact that it is likely to be quite effective in destroying the morale of Muslim prisoners increases the probability that it will be applied on occasion.

It reminds me of a muslim working colleague, haven't seen her in a while as she's pregnant. Asked by me about her feelings as a muslim in face of these abuse photos in Abu Ghraib just when that scandal broke, she just replied: Never mind the details, the US keep them under wraps anyway, but we get the picture. We knew of abuse going on all along, it's only that the west has now noticed, too.

The Pentagon only admitted the Abu Ghraib incidents because there were photos that proved mistreatment beyond rational doubt. Because outright denying was ruled out now, trying to spin it away became the only option. Consequently, the rightwing chorus reaction was along the line: "Hmm, look just like frat hazing to me!" and not about 'another liberal lie'

Until Abu Ghraib broke, the only credible reportings were testimony of ex-detainees. But no newspaper in the U.S. *could* have reported that without risking become target of a smear campaign.

Just imagine a Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity with an as fictious conversation partner in full agreement: "... don't you think someone who's been held in Gitmo has an axe to grind with America and the US soldier? Wouldn't he lie? How can he be credible? .... "Yes, and don't they have not a single shred of evidence?" ... "Indeed, indeed!" ... "I mean, how can someone just stab our heroic men and woman in uniform in the back so viciously? ... "What else can you expect of a biased liberal ...blah-blah-blah" rolleyes:

That is, the consequences in the U.S. are that you become subject to a hatchet job, be accused of being unpatriotic and stabbing the troops in the back, in brief - get the Newsweek treatment. The result of this quite successful intimidation campaign is that many stories aren't even brought up in the U.S.

The predictability of the U.S. eventually admitting this bit, after brazenly denying a version just a nuance away from it first, and my colleague's reaction on US utterances after Abu Ghraib depict the problem Bush has brought the U.S. into: Near absolute loss of credibility.

Ironically, the Bush administration find themselves in the same situation today, as Saddam was in in early 2003 in the U.S.: No matter what they say, nobody believes them anything until they can prove it and until that proof passes a triple check.

In brief: They're under general suspicion, and got there all by themselves.

But back to the role of Islamic faith here, which is IMO very much underestimated in this case:

Two things explain the effectiveness of Koran desecration as a means of breaking Muslim morale. For a muslim the Koran itself is holy, much like the Holy Host in catholicism. The Koran hosts Allah's incarnate presence, so to speak. Desecrating the Koran is blasphemy, nothing less.

Host-desecration riots by Christians in 1298 led to an estimated 100,000 deaths in Germany and Austria. That was either unknown to or conveniently forgotten by The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby when he wrote his disingenious Op-Ed titled "Why Islam is disrespected." His foolish babbling doesn't even scratch the surface of the topic.

What always stuns me is the ignorant smugness of people like Jacoby accusing the Muslims to 'overreact'. Muslims actually believe in the divine character of the Koran, and thus have something to riot about.

Worshipping divine incarnation in a book has quite different implications than worshipping the incarnate presence of God in bread and wine. Textual criticism becomes heresy as a matter of course.

And without the sort of textual criticism that busied the Christian reformers at the turn of the 16th century, it is odd to speak of an Islamic reformation. A book in whose very words God reveals his presence must remain stuck in time like a fly in amber.

That only underlines the palpable ignorance and hubris of especially American politicians demanding the 'Islamic Reformation'.

To accomplish the transition from public and political religion to private and communal religion, Jews and Christians spent centuries of time and rivers of blood to make such a transition, whereas circumstances press moderate Muslims to do this on the spot.

Extensively edited

[ June 06, 2005, 16:35: Message edited by: Ragusa ]