Detainee retracts Koran flushing allegation.

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In addition to this, an interview with a Pentagon official I saw on CNN said there was no evidence of Koran flushing, 13 counts of incidental mishandling of the Koran etc. by the US military but did not spell out what 'mishandling ' meant at this time. He said that would be further explained later as the investigation was ongoing.

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Guantanamo detainee who told an FBI agent in 2002 that U.S. personnel there had flushed a Koran in a toilet retracted his allegation when questioned this month by military investigators, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

"We've gone back to the detainee who allegedly made the allegation and he has said it didn't happen. So the underlying allegation, the detainee himself, within the last two weeks, said that didn't happen," chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told a briefing.

An FBI document, dated Aug. 1, 2002, contained a summary of statements made by the detainee in two interviews with an FBI special agent at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The names of the detainee and the agent were redacted.

"The guards in the detention facility do not treat him well. Their behavior is bad. About five months ago, the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Koran in the toilet," the FBI agent wrote.

Di Rita told reporters on Wednesday the U.S. military, as part of an inquiry into Koran treatment at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo, interviewed the same detainee on May 14, and that the man did not corroborate the earlier allegation. But Di Rita at the time said he did not know whether the man actually had recanted his earlier statement.

During his news conference on Thursday, Di Rita said he changed his account of what the detainee had said after getting more information from the commander of the Guantanamo prison, Brig. Gen. Jay Hood.

NOT KNOWLEDGEABLE

Di Rita did not identify the detainee or release his exact words.

Another senior Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said the detainee "indicated, when asked about the desecration, that he was not knowledgeable of anything."

The American Civil Liberties Union released the FBI document and a series of others it obtained from the government through the Freedom of Information Act. In other documents, FBI agents stated that Guantanamo detainees also accused U.S. personnel of kicking the Koran and throwing it to the floor, and described beatings by guards.

The Bush administration has denounced as wrong a May 9 Newsweek article that stated U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo had flushed a Koran down a toilet to try to make detainees talk. The magazine retracted the article.

The ACLU on Thursday released another FBI document that stated that Defense Department personnel at Guantanamo impersonated State Department and FBI officials during prisoner interrogations at the jail. Most of the document is redacted.

Asked whether Defense Department personnel did this, Di Rita said, "I don't know the answer," but that the matter was part of an ongoing military investigation.

Source

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Interesting.

What of the numerous other detainees who have made the complaint over the years?

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More importantly, who gives a ****?

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Evidently Pentagon does.

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Is this guy still a "detainee"? Retractions of accusations against ones jailers, while one is still in jail... I don't know.

... and to answer your question Lash, I give a ****, and many other Americans do as well.

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Hmm - who gives a ****?

Most Muslims.

And, sadly, given the way in which world hostilities are currently configured, anyone else with need of a functioning corpus callosum.

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Somehow, I don't think I've ever heard of any other detention facility in time of war being so concerned about religious artifacts and diets and schedules.

Most prisoners are fortunate to be fed.

The focus on this issue is irrational.

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And, dlowan, I know you are familiar with the therapist's rule of not playing along with false realities of someone suffering from a delusion.

Acting as though it is logical or sane to freak out over the mussing of a book is feeding in to delusion.

It is doing them a disservice. They should be given reality therapy.

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the focus on this issue came about because of a series of events demonstrating substanial abuse of prisoners. we have created a history of events wherein each event is magnfied by the events preceeding it. mole hills can become mountains.

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I know you're right, dys. It happens in news cycles all the time. <grimace> But, that doesn't make it right. <slams hand down on desk!>

I understand discussing torture. <surveys sore hand>

Not this.

I can't understand why people are falling for it.

Glad you recognise. <goes in search of cold compress>

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Excerpt:

No Intentional Abuse of Koran at Guantánamo, General Says

By NEIL A. LEWIS and DAVID STOUT
Published: May 26, 2005

WASHINGTON, May 26 - The American military commander at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, said today that investigators had found "no credible evidence" that a Koran had ever been flushed down a toilet there to unsettle detainees, and no serious incidents of intentional mishandling of the Muslim holy book by Americans.

The commander, Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood of the Army, said 13 possible incidents had been investigated in which the book might have been mishandled: 10 by guards and 3 by interrogators. Of the 13, only 5 embody "what could be broadly defined as mishandling of a Koran," the general said, but declined to provide details.

In several other incidents, he said, guards had accidentally touched the book or touched it "within the scope of their duties." And in two other incidents, both involving interrogations, there was possible inadvertent mishandling, General Hood said.

"We've also identified 15 incidents where detainees mishandled or inappropriately treated the Koran, one of which was the specific example of a detainee who ripped pages out of their own Koran," the general said.

Source

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Well. What should the punishment be for the detainee who ripped pages out of his Koran?

This reminds me of a hilarious outing on Larry Elder's Moral Court.

Two twenty-somethings--young, hip, athletic roomates...guys

The black one took the white one to Moral Court to get Larry to tell him that he cannot call him "Nigga".

White Friend says he refuses to be discriminated against and he WILL say it as long as Black Friend and their other black friends say it.

I hooted! THIS is what I'm talking about!

Elder said Black Friend was a hypocrite--and if anybody said it--everybody could say it.

Justice.

The Moral of this story: I'm not paying homage to a book. No book, no way, no how. I don't expect them to pay homage to mine. Can any of you imagine forcing someone else to show respect for your personal religious artifacts?

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Source

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Lol - I wondered when I saw the "Who gives a ****" comment if there had been some sort of confirmation of mishandling of Korans.

I always thought that those who said "It can't possibly be true" would move to "It doesn't matter a brass razoo" if it was confirmed.

"Guantanamo probe finds 5 Koran mishandling cases
Fri May 27, 2005 01:55 AM ET

By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military has identified five incidents of "mishandling of a Koran" by U.S. personnel at Guantanamo Bay, but found no credible evidence that the Muslim holy book had been flushed down a toilet, the commander of the prison said Thursday.

Brig. Gen. Jay Hood refused to specify the nature of the mishandling of the Koran at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, other than to say it did not involve placing it in a toilet.

An FBI agent quoted a detainee in an August 2002 document made public Wednesday as saying guards had thrown a Koran in a toilet. Hood said military investigators interviewed that man this month, but did not directly ask him whether he had seen U.S. personnel put a Koran in a toilet.

But Hood told a Pentagon briefing: "I'd like you to know that we have found no credible evidence that a member of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed a Koran down a toilet."

Hood said two U.S. Guantanamo staffers had been disciplined. One was transferred to other duties, Hood said. He did not describe the other case.

Giving preliminary findings of a 12-day-old military inquiry into treatment of the Koran at Guantanamo, Hood said investigators turned up 13 allegations of mishandling the Koran, with five confirmed cases of "what could be broadly defined as mishandling of a Koran."

Four U.S. guards and one interrogator were involved in the cases, three of which appeared to be deliberate mishandling and two accidental, Hood said.

Four of the five cases took place before written guidelines were issued in January 2003 on handling the Koran at Guantanamo, Hood said.

Hood also said U.S. military investigators this month interviewed the detainee quoted in the August 2002 document. Hood said this detainee did not mention during the May 14 interview that U.S. personnel had placed a Koran in a toilet.

"The guards in the detention facility do not treat him well. Their behavior is bad. About five months ago, the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Koran in the toilet," the FBI agent wrote, summarizing the detainee's comments......"

Continued:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8622980&src=rss/topNews

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Lash wrote:

And, dlowan, I know you are familiar with the therapist's rule of not playing along with false realities of someone suffering from a delusion.

Acting as though it is logical or sane to freak out over the mussing of a book is feeding in to delusion.

It is doing them a disservice. They should be given reality therapy.

Which bit of any religion is not delusional?

Would you like some reality therapy?

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You could use some.

Let's start with how it is delusional to place so much power on an inanimate object. It is delusional and a danger to others to believe you must kill someone who "mishandles" a book.

Anyone of any religion who believes/practices these things is dangerously delusional and requires therapy--not the rest of the world winking and nodding, and acting as though their psychotic demands are rational.

You know it. Why do you pretend it is a rational demand?

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Ever here the phrase "burnng a hole in daylight?"

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I haven't heard of it-- It seems like a redundancy or something quite unnecessary--

And, if it is--why is everyone acting as though it isn't?

I'm not saying our government or our citizens should go about using Korans for poo paper--but everyone's running about like their pants are afire, as if the possibility that someone has wetted the damn thing is akin to --o, I don't know--a US soldier slicing off the head of a Muslim on viddy.

We should put a bit of truth in our statements.

We've got a witch hunt going on, when it should be acknowledged: we consider it unfortunate if it happened, and reiterate that out of extraordinary deference, our government has chosen to allow detainees to have access to their religious materials--and we went further, and have changed policy to reflect deference to their preference of how their book is handled.

That should be it.

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dyslexia wrote:

the focus on this issue came about because of a series of events demonstrating substanial abuse of prisoners. we have created a history of events wherein each event is magnfied by the events preceeding it. mole hills can become mountains.

Funny thing that what the other side does - cutting the heads off of civilians, shooting prisoners in downed helicopters, and the like - which are much worse, don't have that magnifying effect. If you look the worst abuses our worst people commit, 99% of them are less severe than abuses which are rampant on the other side.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

dyslexia wrote:
the focus on this issue came about because of a series of events demonstrating substanial abuse of prisoners. we have created a history of events wherein each event is magnfied by the events preceeding it. mole hills can become mountains.

Funny thing that what the other side does - cutting the heads off of civilians, shooting prisoners in downed helicopters, and the like - which are much worse, don't have that magnifying effect. If you look the worst abuses our worst people commit, 99% of them are less severe than abuses which are rampant on the other side.

Make a note of this Brandon WE ARE NOT THE OTHER SIDE or so we keep telling the world.

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Detainee retracts Koran flushing allegation.

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