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: