Friday, June 03, 2005

Friday news dump

This timing should come as no surprise:
The U.S. Pentagon confirmed Friday a list of abuses involving the Qur'an, the Muslim holy book, by American personnel at Guantanamo Bay, but said the incidents were relatively minor...(The latest confirmed abuses) include splashing urine on a prisoner and his Qur'an, stepping on and kicking the Qur'an, throwing water on it, and scratching an obscenity on the inside cover. (N)one of the abuses can be said to be as severe as the unfounded allegation...

Let's put aside for the moment (1) that although flushing of the Qur'an is not yet confirmed, that doesn't mean the allegation was unfounded, and (2) that there's no credible evidence to suggest that the riots were caused by the Newsweek article rather than by other factors.
From that starting point: is there any reason to believe that a group which believes that a guard's flushing a Qur'an merits a deadly riot would react peacefully to the now-admitted fact that guards "splash(ed) urine on a prisoner and his Qur'an"?
If Bush's minions (and the echo chamber) were capable of apologies, they'd have a lot of apologizing to do.

(Edited to fix a typo.)

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