The VERY Simple Question That Goes Unasked

Amid all the hrummphing going on re: Newsweek, the Koran, toilets, and/or flushing, it seems that a very simple question could make heads or tails of the matter:

Can the pResident categorically state that United States civilian or military personnel NEVER engaged in activities that could reasonably be construed as 'desecration of the Koran?'

You won't find that question here, though it's getting apparent that the McClellan gangsta strut is hiding a not-so-secret secret: Koran desecration seems to have been--and may well still be--a typical "softening" tactic in Operation-Let's-Play-Right-Into-bin-Laden's-Hands:

"Contrary to White House spin, the allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo such as those described by Newsweek on 9 May 2005 are common among ex-prisoners and have been widely reported outside the United States. Several former detainees at the Guantanamo and Bagram airbase prisons have reported instances of their handlers sitting or standing on the Koran, throwing or kicking it in toilets, and urinating on it."

Link.

Newsweek magazine's now-retracted story that a military guard at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet has sparked angry denunciations by the White House and the Pentagon, which have linked the article to Muslim riots and deaths abroad.

But American and international media have widely reported similar allegations from detainees and others of desecration of the Muslim holy book for more than two years.

James Yee, a former Muslim chaplain at the prison who was investigated and cleared of charges of mishandling classified material, has asserted that guards' mishandling and mistreatment of detainees' Korans led the prisoners to launch a hunger strike in March 2002. Detainee lawyers, attributing their information to an interrogator, have said the strike ended only when military leaders issued an apology to the detainees over the camp loudspeaker. But they said mishandling of the Koran persisted.

Link.

Dogs, nudity, sexual harassment, even fake menstrual blood:

There is no question that these were tactics designed to offend, no question that they were put in place after 2001 and no question that many considered them justified.

Riverbend has a few things to say about this--and provides a local perspective on the recent rash of bombings that are making Baghdad life even more hellish than usual. As always, her latest post is worth checking out.

And it'd be damn nice if SOMEONE at the gaggle would actually ask McClellan the question noted above.