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Observers of the printed page, the White House, and anyone interested in responsibility in the media were rightly outraged that Newsweek recently botched a report about Koran desecration by the U.S. military and started rioting in Afghanistan that ended lives and injured many. It has long been known, but apparently not often reported by the mainstream media, that in places like Saudi Arabia, Bibles are not flushed at airport customs but are shredded. And if you are carrying enough of them, you may well receive 70 lashes if not execution. Little is heard publicly about such contempt. The reason? It...

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's kleptocrat strongman, destroyed a mosque the other day. It was in Hatcliffe Extension, a shantytown on the edge of Harare, razed by the "police." Mr. Mugabe is an equal-opportunity razer: He also bulldozed a Catholic-run Aids center. The government destroyed the town to drive the locals into the countryside to live on land stolen from white farmers. Quite how that's meant to benefit any of those involved or the broader needs of Zimbabwe is beyond me, but then I'm no expert in Afro-Marxist economic theory.

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's kleptocrat strongman, destroyed a mosque the other day. It was in Hatcliffe Extension, a shantytown on the edge of Harare razed by the "police." Mugabe is an equal-opportunity razer: He also bulldozed a Catholic-run AIDS center. The government destroyed the town in order to drive the locals out into the countryside to live on the land stolen from white farmers. Quite how that's meant to benefit any of the parties involved or the broader needs of Zimbabwe is beyond me, but then I'm no expert in Afro-Marxist economic theory.

Indian Muslims ask a boy to urinate on a U.S. flag during a protest against the alleged desecration of the Koran during a demonstration in Calcutta May 20, 2005. (Yahoo News Photos)

All the headlines about "Abuse of the Koran at Gitmo" are absolutely accurate. Brig. Gen. Jay Hood's internal investigation has uncovered some shocking incidents. On at least six occasions, Korans were ripped up. They were urinated on three times, and attempts were made to flush them down the toilet at least three other times. Why aren't millions of Muslims rioting in response to these defilements? Because the perpetrators were prisoners, not guards. As John Hinderaker notes on weeklystandard.com, the most serious desecrations of the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility were committed by the Muslim inmates themselves. You'd never...

Maybe the U.S. Government shouldn't be in the revival business at Guantanamo in the first place. Why shouldn't the prophet's followers furnish their own sawdust? The official line of the Pander Corps appears to be, different strokes for different folks. A crucifix in urine, the Virgin Mary in elephant dung, is High Art, but if someone accidentally steps on a Koran it's time to haul out the guillotine. The Pentagon's generals are investigating accusations that certain officers at the Air Force Academy have been conducting Christian revival meetings among the cadets. If they determine that the Air Force is instructing...

Flushing the Koran or Reason Down the Toilet? By Edward Hudgins Perhaps Newsweek did get it wrong; an American interrogator did not flush a copy of the Koran down a toilet in order to get information from a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. But apparently there were abuses of Islam's holy book, some intentional, some accidental. Many Muslims have strict rules concerning its handling. The Bush administration angrily denied the flushing charge and lambasted Newsweek for its negligence. It certainly didn't endorse desecration. In fact, the reason there were opportunities for abuse is that the administration...

JTF-GTMO-JDOG-CO 19 JAN 03 MEMORANDUM FOR All personnel, JDOG SUBJECT: Camp Delta Interim SOP Modification: Inspecting/Handling Detainee Korans Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) 1. General. The purpose of this SOP is to provide guidance and set specific procedures for the handling and inspecting of detainee Korans. 2. Intent. To ensure the safety of the detainees and MPs while respecting the cultural dignity of the Korans thereby reducing the friction over the searching the Korans. JTF-GTMO personnel directly working with detainees will avoid handling or touching the detainee’s Koran whenever possible. When military necessity does require the Koran to be search, the...

A week after the US Defense Department acknowledged that guards at Guantanamo Bay Prison in Cuba defiled several Korans, MK Ahmad Tibi joined Palestinian security detainees and Muslim clerics protesting Tuesday claiming that prison guards at Megiddo Prison in the north defaced the holy book during a routine cell search. Palestinian prisoners said that following a routine morning roll call, prison guards raided their cells and tents, brutally and violently turning over their belongings. While the guards found 81 cellular phones and 40 knives and other sharp objects during the search, the prisoners claimed the guards ripped up several Korans.

First, Newsweek pulled a Dan Rather on us, running a fabricated story just because they wanted it to be true. They told the world that an American guard at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center had ripped pages from a prisoner's Koran and flushed it down a toilet. As a result, innocent people died when practitioners of Islam rioted in protest in Afghanistan. Oops, said Newsweek, it seems we can't back up our story. Oh well, it's probably true; we just can't prove it. (Isn't it convenient for Newsweek that the media now have "Deep Throat" to talk about so...

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon late Friday confirmed five incidents of Koran desecration at the prison for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wrapping up a high-priority investigation. The findings concluded that one soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book, other guards hit it with water balloons, and a soldier's urine splashed on a prisoner and his Koran...more from LA TIMES IN LINK ---- Koran desecration at all time highs. Dilby.com reports that people are submitting video. This site "The Dilby News Monitor" also has a huge picture of a burned Koran for their frontpage today. I guess this has infuriated people...

GITMO DETAINEES DESECRATE QURAN By Michelle Malkin   ·   June 03, 2005 09:57 PM That's the headline you won't be reading over this AP story filed tonight on investigative findings released by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the commander of the detention center in Cuba. Buried down in the AP story about Quran abuses at Gitmo, we learn: [Hood] said his investigation found 15 cases of detainees mishandling their own Qurans. "These included using a Quran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Quran, attempting to flush a Quran down the toilet and urinating on the Quran," Hood's report said. It...

WASHINGTON, June 4, 2005 – An inquiry into allegations of mishandling of the Koran by U.S. personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, reveals "a consistent, documented policy of respectful handling" dating back almost two and a half years, the general who led the effort said June 3. Army Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, released results of his inquiry, which was launched following allegations in the media that U.S. personnel at the detention facility had flushed a Koran down the toilet. The inquiry found no credible evidence that the flushing incident occurred, U.S. Southern Command officials said...

Guantanamo Bay personnel cited in 4 incidents confirmed by military A detainee sits in his cell at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a 2004 file photo. (CNN) -- A U.S. military investigation has found four incidents in which guards at the Guantanamo Bay prison mishandled the Quran, but said that it was detainees who threw the Muslim holy book in the toilet. The report said it confirmed four times when U.S. personnel at the base mishandled the Quran: guards kicked a detainee's Quran; a guard's urine "splashed" a detainee and his holy book after coming through an...

CRAWFORD, Texas - A Pentagon report detailing incidents in which U.S. guards at Guantanamo Bay prison desecrated the Quran is creating another public relations challenge for President Bush. Two weeks ago, the White House was thrown on the defensive by a now-retracted Newsweek report alleging that U.S. interrogators at the detention center for alleged terrorists in Cuba had flushed a Quran down a toilet. The story stirred worldwide controversy and the Bush administration blamed it for deadly demonstrations in Afghanistan. Saying America's image abroad had suffered irreparable damage, the White House responded with a verbal offensive against the media. On...

ASHINGTON - The Pentagon on Friday confirmed for the first time that a U.S. soldier deliberately kicked a Guantanamo Bay prisoner's Muslim holy book in violation of the military's rules for handling the Quran. In other confirmed incidents, prison guards threw water balloons in a cell block, causing an unspecified number of Qurans to get wet; a guard's urine splashed on a detainee and his Quran; an interrogator stepped on a Quran during an interrogation; and a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Quran. The findings are among the results of an investigation last...

In the course of the inquiry, 15 incidents were identified where detainees mishandled Korans. These included using a Koran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Koran, attempting to flush a Koran down the toilet, and urinating on the Koran.

(2005-06-04) -- Friday's release of a Pentagon study on mishandling of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay detention center has sparked Saudi Arabia's leader to call for similar probes of Bible handling in detention facilities throughout the Muslim world. Since May, the Pentagon has examined thousands of pages of documentation, finding five confirmed cases of Koran mishandling by U.S. personnel, and 15 cases in which Muslim prisoners desecrated their own complimentary copies of the book that they had received from the U.S. government. The Pentagon has distributed some 1,600 taxpayer-funded copies of the Muslim Holy Book to suspected terrorists detained at...

An interrogator accidentally stepped on a prisoner's Koran, copies of Islam's holy text got wet when guards tossed water balloons into a cellblock and one was "splashed" by urine, according to the final results of a Pentagon probe. But the investigation sparked by accusations in the press about desecration of the Koran here found "no credible evidence" that prison guards or interrogators "ever flushed a Koran down a toilet," the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the prison for terrorism suspects, said yesterday. The findings show that al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at the detention center themselves mishandled Korans on 15...

A U.S. military investigation into the mishandling of the Muslim holy book at the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists has determined that detainees -- not U.S. soldiers -- attempted to flush the Quran down the toilet there. -SNIP-In one incident, on February 23, 2004, the report said a guard saw a "detainee place two Qurans in his toilet and state he no longer cared about the Quran or his religion. Five minutes later, after the detainee retrieved the Qurans, he ripped several pages out of one Quran and threw the pages on the floor. Then, he placed both Qurans...