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mrsx said:I haven't removed Pat Robertson or Billy Graham's kid who are preaching that Islam is a satanic religion and calling for a Crusade. That doesn't mean I am in agreement with them implied or otherwise. Yours is a silly way to look at the complexity of the Muslim world. The leaders in Saudi Arabia or the Palestinian Authority keep these guys up there for the same reasons that George Bush and Don Rumsfeld keep Jerry Boykin on the job despite his fanatic bigotry - it suits their political needs and keeps the base energized. It's politics, not theology, and most Muslims haven't any more to say about it than do I about Crazy Jerry.
Here is a fine example of over-generalization. I am a Congregationalist and choosing (and un-chosing) pastors has always been a central pillar of our church polity. In case you don't recognize us, we are the Pilgrims and the Puritans who founded this country. We are hardly alone in this practice. I believe (but am not sure) that Graham and Robertson are Southern Baptists. How does that church select it's pastors?no1tovote4 said:The difference here would be that Mullahs are CHOSEN by the Congregation in the Muslim religion, it is not so in the Christian religion.
mrsx said:Here is a fine example of over-generalization. I am a Congregationalist and choosing (and un-chosing) pastors has always been a central pillar of our church polity. In case you don't recognize us, we are the Pilgrims and the Puritans who founded this country. We are hardly alone in this practice. I believe (but am not sure) that Graham and Robertson are Southern Baptists. How does that church select it's pastors?
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
25 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - U.S. officials have substantiated five cases in which military guards or interrogators mishandled the Quran of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay but found "no credible evidence" to confirm a prisoner's report that a holy book was flushed in a toilet, the prison's commander said Thursday.
Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, who commands the detention center in Cuba, told a
Pentagon news conference that a prisoner who was reported to have complained to an FBI agent in 2002 that a military guard threw a Quran in the toilet has told Hood's investigators that he never witnessed any form of Quran desecration.
The unidentified prisoner, questioned at Guantanamo on May 14, said he had heard talk of guards mishandling religious articles but did not witness any such acts, Hood said at a Pentagon news conference.
"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 Quran down a toilet," Hood said. "We did identify 13 incidents of alleged mishandling of the Quran by Joint Task Force personnel. Ten of those were by a guard and three by interrogators."
Of 13 alleged incidents, five were substantiated, he said. Four were by guards and one was by an interrogator. Hood said the five cases "could be broadly defined as mishandling" of the holy book, but he refused to discuss details.
In three of the five cases, the mishandling appears to have been deliberate. In the other two, it apparently was accidental.
"None of these five incidents was a result of a failure to follow standard operating procedures in place at the time the incident occurred," Hood said.
Everyone in Dogpatch perhaps; the story is playing a bit differently in the Arab world. Perhaps if this anonymous detainee were free to speak without the well-documented "inducements to cooperation" offered by his military captors we might get at the facts. When even the FBI is appalled by your brutality, it could be time to 'fess up. Who would Jesus torture?Kathianne said:Interestingly enough, the left is making so much out of this debunked story, that if something really happens, everyone is going to go, 'ho hum...'
http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc/world/guantanamo_detainees
mrsx said:Everyone in Dogpatch perhaps; the story is playing a bit differently in the Arab world. Perhaps if this anonymous detainee were free to speak without the well-documented "inducements to cooperation" offered by his military captors we might get at the facts. When even the FBI is appalled by your brutality, it could be time to 'fess up. Who would Jesus torture?
mrsx said:Everyone in Dogpatch perhaps; the story is playing a bit differently in the Arab world. Perhaps if this anonymous detainee were free to speak without the well-documented "inducements to cooperation" offered by his military captors we might get at the facts. When even the FBI is appalled by your brutality, it could be time to 'fess up. Who would Jesus torture?
mrsx said:Everyone in Dogpatch perhaps; the story is playing a bit differently in the Arab world. Perhaps if this anonymous detainee were free to speak without the well-documented "inducements to cooperation" offered by his military captors we might get at the facts. When even the FBI is appalled by your brutality, it could be time to 'fess up. Who would Jesus torture?
May 26, 2005
HOWARD KURTZ THINKS THAT NEWSWEEK HAS BEEN VINDICATED, but it's not clear to me why that is:
Just to review: Newsweek made a specific error, saying this would be in a forthcoming military investigative report, and had to apologize and retract. But that never meant there was no Koran desecration--in fact, The Post reported such a charge in 2003 (as did other outlets later), but the charges were always attributed to detainees. Even these documents (which I'll bet were seen by Isikoff's source) atrribute the allegations to detainees. But that casts the outraged White House and Pentagon reaction in a slightly different light, doesn't it?
(Emphasis in original.) If you read the story that Kurtz references, though, it also says that investigators found no basis to the allegations. It seems to me that Newsweek's report -- that government investigation did support the claims -- was rather different, and that this constitutes something rather short of vindication.
UPDATE: Joe Gandelman has a survey of the issue, and agrees that this doesn't get Newsweek off the hook, even though it's being spun that way.
This report from the New York Times would seem to make that clear:
The accusation that soldiers had put a Koran in a toilet, which has been made by former and current inmates over the past two years, stirred violence this month that killed at least 17 people in Muslim countries after Newsweek magazine reported that a military investigation was expected to confirm that the incident had in fact occurred.
Newsweek retracted the report last week, saying it had relied on an American government official who had incomplete knowledge of the situation.
None of the documents released Wednesday indicate any such confirmation that the incident took place.
(Emph. added). I think that Newsweek's defenders would be wise not to make too much of this.
MORE: A reader notes a bit of goalpost-moving:
In a recent post, you quoted the NYT as writing this in a report:
"The accusation that soldiers had put a Koran in a toilet, ..."
Notice how it is now 'put a Koran in a toilet'. No longer is the phrasing 'flush a Koran down the toilet'. A subtle, yet important change. This version is _plausible_. And easier to get someone to substantiate (or at least say "well, I can't say that it didn't happen").
As Martin Peretz said, they've circled the wagons on this one.
posted at 11:13 AM by Glenn Reynolds
The latest evidence of Koran abuse and violation of the Geneva Convention by U.S. military at Guantanamo comes from internal memos sent by FBI agents at the interrogation center to headquarters back in Washington warning of illegal practices. I ask Jesus to forgive you for calling me a "stupid troll."Kathianne said:WTF are you talking about? Can't you read you stupid troll?
mrsx said:The latest evidence of Koran abuse and violation of the Geneva Convention by U.S. military at Guantanamo comes from internal memos sent by FBI agents at the interrogation center to headquarters back in Washington warning of illegal practices. I ask Jesus to forgive you for calling me a "stupid troll."
no1tovote4 said:Those in the Temple changing money and selling animals for sacrifice. According to the Bible He took a whip to them and turned over their tables and ran them from the Temple.
and He would listen to you why?mrsx said:The latest evidence of Koran abuse and violation of the Geneva Convention by U.S. military at Guantanamo comes from internal memos sent by FBI agents at the interrogation center to headquarters back in Washington warning of illegal practices. I ask Jesus to forgive you for calling me a "stupid troll."
This is such an idiotic statement, I understand why nobody has replied to it.mrsx said:Perhaps a thread should be started to discuss trinitarian vs unitarian Christian belief. It is a great topic but not really related to the hypocrisy of Islam. I understand that there are some Christians that say that Jesus was the God of Abraham and than none can be saved except through Him. I respect that school of thought. I don't belong to it. I suppose you could say I am not your kind of Christian, but you can't say I'm not a Christain. Thanks for being courteous about this "hot" issue.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=791547no1tovote4 said:
We'd like a link to verify the source of the information.
Ask your Sunday school teacher about petitionary prayer and you'll find out.Kathianne said:and He would listen to you why?
mrsx said:http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=791547
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1492517,00.html
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N25227168.htm
also, for Barney & Miss Beasly's Spring Garden Tour: http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/
An FBI agent wrote in a 2002 document made public on Wednesday that a detainee held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had accused American jailers there of flushing the Koran down a toilet.
An FBI agent wrote in a 2002 document made public on Wednesday that a detainee held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had accused American jailers there of flushing the Koran down a toilet.
Well, I can imagine how you find all this absurd. It comes from reading books and such. I'd say, save your breath - you'll need it to blow up your Ann Coulter Love Doll.freeandfun1 said:This is such an idiotic statement, I understand why nobody has replied to it.
How can you claim to be Christian, yet deny the ONE and ONLY point that gives Christianity its base? The entire definition of being a Christian is to believe that Christ is God and He suffered as a Man, for our sins. I cannot understand how you can contradict yourself on this with a straight face. Such a fool.
I'd have to agree with you that the evidence is not conclusive. I'd also agree that detainees may well be lying. The problem is, we have U.S. military "disappearing" people, holding them in custody without outside supervision. I can't prove the detainees are telling the truth. What's hurting America is that you can't prove they are lying. In the climate created by the documented torture the presumption goes against us. By changing the rules and surrounding everything with secrecy the administration has hurt its case. Guantanamo detainees who have been released are appearing on TV all over the Muslim world with stories like this. It may all be just the perception of mistreatement but there are a lot of Muslims who are going to believe "their guy" when we have no better defence that this.no1tovote4 said:First link:
In an earlier post in this thread it was discovered that the detainee says now that he has never witnessed such a thing, only heard of it.
The second link:
Is written in the First Person from the Detainees POV, again the words of one detainee who now says he saw nothing of the sort, that it was only hearsay.
The third link:
Again a memo says that a Detainee said this, he now says he never saw such a thing and was reporting hearsay.
The links are not evidence of your argument but actually further strengthen the arguments of others.
You shouldn't swallow a report of something that has no real evidence to back it up. Even the witness says he saw nothing like it.
mrsx said:I'd have to agree with you that the evidence is not conclusive. I'd also agree that detainees may well be lying. The problem is, we have U.S. military "disappearing" people, holding them in custody without outside supervision. I can't prove the detainees are telling the truth. What's hurting America is that you can't prove they are lying. In the climate created by the documented torture the presumption goes against us. By changing the rules and surrounding everything with secrecy the administration has hurt its case. Guantanamo detainees who have been released are appearing on TV all over the Muslim world with stories like this. It may all be just the perception of mistreatement but there are a lot of Muslims who are going to believe "their guy" when we have no better defence that this.
Your delusion is not my fault; I live in a media-controlled tyranny myself. Why not let Prime Minister Sharon know of your brilliant scheme, I'm sure he would be very interested.rtwngAvngr said:The mass delusion of an entire people is not our fault. They live in media controlled tyrannies.
It's not our fault, but it is our problem. I say nuke the whole region. Glass the desert. Turn it into one big glass punchbowl of oil, for the world party.
