WHEN NEWSWEEK REPORTED that a Guantanamo Bay guard had flushed a detainee’s Koran down a toilet, the Muslim world erupted in protests, some of which turned violent. Newsweek later retracted the story. More significantly, so did the detainee who made the original allegation–a fact that went largely unreported. Nevertheless, the U.S. military commissioned Brigadier General Jay Hood to look into allegations of Koran mishandling at the Guantanamo facility. General Hood delivered his report on June 3; it can be accessed here. The report, read together with the ensuing press coverage, suggests how far our public discourse has diverged from any realistic understanding of war, prisons, or human behavior.
The Hood report documents an exquisite concern for the religious sensibilities of Guantanamo’s detainees. Consider the implications of this incident:
Or this one:
Or this:
There can’t be a single instance, in all of human history, where the spiritual sensitivities of captured enemy combatants have been so scrupulously regarded. This is borne out by those few cases where “abuse” was actually found; they are, in the words of the often-puzzling cliché, exceptions that prove the rule. Consider what the apology and disciplinary action taken in this instance tell us about the rarity of such events:
In one widely-reported incident, several copies of the Koran got wet when guards tossed water balloons into the detainees’ compound:
The Hood report doesn’t explain what led up to the water balloon bombardment, but in the murderous context of Islamist terrorism, it’s hard to get exercised about “torture” via water balloons.
The other incident that was widely reported following the Hood report’s issuance involved an unlucky soldier who couldn’t wait to relieve himself until he went off duty, and chose an unfortunate spot:
Read in its entirety, the Hood report documents an extraordinary level of sensitivity to the detainees’ religious concerns. Altogether, the investigators confirmed five instances where intentional or unintentional mishandling of the Koran apparently occurred, and four more where the guards’ conduct “may have been inappropriate.” This superlative record should be seen as a tribute to the training and discipline of the Army’s guards and translators.
The Army did find, however, 15 instances of blatant Koran abuse at Guantanamo. All were committed by detainees. For example:
On 5 JUN 03, a guard observed two detainees accuse a third detainee of not being a man. In response, the detainee urinated on one of their Korans. The detainees resided in adjacent cells. The event was recorded in FBI FD-302s, on 5 JUN 03 and 19 JUN 03.
On 19 JAN 05, a detainee tore up his Koran and tried to flush it down the toilet. Four guards witnessed the incident and it was recorded in the electronic blotter system.
On 23 JAN 05, a detainee ripped pages out of his Koran and threw them down the toilet. The detainee stated he did so because he wanted to be moved to another camp. Four guards witnessed the incident and it was recorded in the electronic blotter system.
If one were to sum up the Hood report in a headline, it might be: “Army Documents Extraordinary History of Respect for Koran.” Or, “No Truth to Claims of Koran Abuse.” Or perhaps: “Koran Abuse? Blame the Detainees.” But that isn’t how the story was played. Here were the headlines in England: “U.S. Admits Koran Abuse at Cuba Base”, and “US Admits Guard Soiled Koran at Guantanamo”. The London Times, not normally noted for anti-Americanism, led off with this summary:
In India, the headline was “Guantanamo Guards Guilty”.
Reuters’ story on the report omitted any mention of the detainees’ treatment of the Koran, and began:
Anti-Americanism in foreign news coverage is perhaps not surprising. Here at home, however, the slant was not much different. The San Francisco Chronicle, not previously known for its solicitude for things spiritual, headlined: “U.S. Tells How Koran Was Defiled”. The Los Angeles Times echoed, “Pentagon: Koran Defiled”. Newsday wrote, “Quran Abuses Verified”, while ABC headlined, “U.S. Confirms Gitmo Soldier Kicked Quran”. Such headlines could be multiplied indefinitely. Many papers dwelt especially on the few drops of urine that inadvertently landed on a Koran, which inevitably prompts the recollection that only 16 years ago, the federal government not only tolerated the immersion of a crucifix in a jar of urine as a work of “art,” but actually paid for it.
It seems that the Army–or maybe it’s the United States–just can’t win. It is almost inconceivable that the Hood report could have been more favorable to the Guantanamo guards and interrogators, yet the international and American press treated it as a confession of wrongdoing, at times with a hint that the Newsweek allegation had proven true after all. Little (frequently, nothing) was made of the fact that it was the Muslim detainees, not American guards or interrogators, who had perpetrated precisely the acts that were the excuse for anti-American riots in the Muslim world.
No matter how virtuous American conduct may be, the many members of the press raise the bar higher, with no regard for the realities of warfare, the inevitable sordidness of prison life, or the frailties of human nature. It is hard to see any purpose in this hypercriticism–no other country, except perhaps Israel, is held to such an extraordinary standard–other than to make it impossible for the United States to detain and interrogate prisoners. Or to fight a war.
John Hinderaker is a contributor to the blog Power Line and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard.
