A look at today’s page one stories on Koran abuse by three large US newspapers plus the AP headline offering clearly shows the anti-military bias of the MSM. After weeks of constant follow up trying to vindicate the discredited Newsweek story of a Koran being flushed down a toilet at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, the media finally gets its hands on the official investigation report. The report does acknowledge at least five (5) confirmed cases of abuse by military personnel and at least fifteen (15!) cases of Koran abuse or desecration by the prisoners themselves.

So, as far as I can tell, the main story coming out of the report should be Inquiry of Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay reveals three times more Koran desecrations by the prisoners themselves than by U.S. military personnel. With that information in mind, let’s take a look at how these MSM sources covered the story, shall we?

Starting with the opening paragraph of the AP wire service article by Robert Burns. Headline: U.S.: Gitmo Quran Was Splashed With Urine

WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. military officials say no guard at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects flushed a detainee’s Quran down the toilet, but they disclosed that a Muslim holy book was splashed with urine. In other newly disclosed incidents, a detainee’s Quran was deliberately kicked and another’s was stepped on.

In the next few paragraphs they detail more of the confirmed incidents, and finally in the sixth paragraph we get the results of the investigation:

Hood said in a written statement released with the new details that his investigation “revealed a consistent, documented policy of respectful handling of the Quran dating back almost 2 1/2 years.”

In the last six paragraphs of this story the prisoners’ own abuse and desecration of the Koran is finally discussed:

Hood also said his investigation found 15 cases of detainees mishandling their own Qurans. “These included using a Quran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Quran, attempting to flush a Quran down the toilet and urinating on the Quran,” Hood’s report said. It offered no possible explanation for the detainees’ motives.

In the most recent of those 15 cases, a detainee on Feb. 18 allegedly ripped up his Quran and handed it to a guard, stating that he had given up on being a Muslim. Several guards witnessed this, Hood reported.

The New York Times actually has a more legitimate title to their story: “Military Details Koran Incidents at Base in Cuba”, which opens with:

WASHINGTON, June 3 – A military inquiry has found that guards or interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba kicked, stepped on and splashed urine on the Koran, in some cases intentionally but in others by accident, the Pentagon said on Friday.

They manage to get their digs in, for sure, but also acknowledge the accidental nature of some of the incidents, information which took the AP half way through theirs to reveal. At least they report the statement of Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, commander of the Guantánamo Joint Task Force, who headed up the investigation.

In releasing those details in a final report on Friday, General Hood emphasized that any abuse of the Koran was unusual and that the military had gone to great lengths to be sensitive to the detainees’ religious faiths, including issuing more than 1,600 Korans at the detention center.

“Mishandling a Koran at Guantánamo Bay is a rare occurrence,” General Hood said in a statement released by the military’s Southern Command. “Mishandling of a Koran here is never condoned.”

They do continue with the full laundry list of alleged and confirmed abuses by US military personnel, but to their discredit, they mention in passing the 15 confirmed accounts of abuse of their own Korans by the detainees. Seems a bit one sided . . . ya think?

On to the WaPo coverage titled “Pentagon Details Abuse Of Koran at Guantanamo”. Truthful, let’s see where the Washington Post goes from there. Uh oh, here’s the subtitle — “Detainees’ Holy Books Were Kicked, Got Wet”. You smell a bit o’ bias?

The U.S. military released new details yesterday about five confirmed cases of U.S. personnel mishandling the Koran at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, acknowledging that soldiers and interrogators kicked the Muslim holy book, got copies wet, stood on a Koran during an interrogation and inadvertently sprayed urine on another copy.

At least they only wait until paragraphs 4 & 5 to present the General’s statement of findings of the investigation, and finally a White House follow up comment.

“Mishandling a Koran at Guantanamo Bay is a rare occurrence,” Hood said in the statement. “Mishandling of a Koran here is never condoned. When one considers the many thousands of times detainees have been moved and cells have been searched since detention operations first began here in January 2002, I think one can only conclude that respect for detainee religious beliefs was embedded in the culture of [the task force] from the start.”

In a statement, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that “our men and women in the military adhere to the highest standards, including when it comes to respecting and protecting religious freedom.”

Also finally, some details of the 15 cases of detainee Koran abuses:

Hood’s investigation also turned up 15 incidents in which detainees mishandled Korans between Nov. 19, 2002, and Feb. 18, 2005. Many of the cases involved detainees ripping up their own Korans, throwing the Koran or its pages out of their cells, or trying to deface a Koran belonging to another detainee. One detainee used his Koran as a pillow, one used pages from it to cover the air vent in his cell, and another ripped up his Koran and handed it to a guard, stating that he had “given up on being a Muslim.”

Three of the detainee cases involved spitting or throwing urine on Korans, and in one case, on Jan. 19, 2005, a detainee allegedly “tore up his Koran and tried to flush it down the toilet,” according to the report. Four days later, a detainee ripped pages from the book and tried to flush them down the toilet as a protest, because he wanted to be moved to another part of the camp.

Let’s give Josh White and Dan Eggen some credit for that last two paragraphs, as we all know that the first couple and the last ones are the most important. They could have buried that information in the middle of the long article, or made a passing mention ala the NYT, or left the details out altogether like the AP did.

Last, but certainly not the least in the bias sweepstakes, our old favorite and local rag, the Los Angeles Times. Being privy to the hard copy edition as well as the online version, I can show you both the page one and inside page headlines: “Pentagon: Koran Defiled An Army commander’s report details five instances of the holy book being desecrated at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Whew, that’s a mouthful for sure, before the byline even! But good ol’ Richard A. Serrano gets all wrapped up and lets go with his best punch to start:

The Pentagon late Friday confirmed five incidents of Koran desecration at the prison for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wrapping up a high-priority investigation.

The findings concluded that one soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book, other guards hit it with water balloons, and a soldier’s urine splashed on a prisoner and his Koran.
(…)
The report established that two other cases of desecration had occurred. In one, a two-word obscenity was written in English inside a prisoner’s Koran. In the other, an interrogator deliberately stepped on the book. That interrogator was later fired for “a pattern of unacceptable behavior.”

It’s in paragraph five that Serrano gets to Hood’s statement about the investigation, which is cut off and continued on page 14, where the large inside headline reads: Pentagon Report Confirms Five Incidents of Koran Desecration, with a large picture of Muslims in Tanzania protesting after hearing about the report. I just love the sign being held by one of the protesters, “DOWN DOWN AMERICA”. Bet they looked through a huge group of photo files to get just the right one!

Like the AP, the NYT and the WaPo, the LAT does their reporting duty and labors through all five confirmed abuse incidents. At least they do report the General’s findings:

“Mishandling a Koran at Guantanamo Bay is a rare occurrence,” he (Gen. Hood) said, noting that guards, interrogators, interpreters and other military personnel were trained to handle the holy book in specified ways. Gloves must be worn and both hands are to be used in a “manner signaling respect and reverence,” the report noted.

At least some of the special handling rules were instituted after a rash of detainee complaints of mistreatment of the Koran in 2002 that led to a series of hunger strikes. After the rules were put in place, the International Red Cross reported that it received no further complaints.

That’s the first one that has reported the Red Cross’ statement. What about the 15 incidents of the prisoners’ own Koran desecration, will they cover that?

In the 15 documented cases where detainees mishandled Korans, the report said, one occurred May 11, 2003, when a guard “observed a detainee rip up his Koran and state he was no longer a Muslim.”

On June 5, 2003, a guard heard two detainees accuse a third prisoner of not being a man and saw the prisoner then “urinate on one of their Korans” in an adjacent cell.

And on Feb. 23, 2004, a guard saw a detainee place two Korans in his toilet and “state he no longer cared abut the Koran or his religion.”

“Five minutes later,” the report said, “after the detainee retrieved the Korans, he ripped several pages out of one Koran and threw the pages on the floor. Then he placed both Korans on the sink.”

On Jan. 19 of this year, the Hood report said, another detainee tore up his Koran and “tried to flush it down the toilet.”

OK boys and girls, what have we learned? That the U.S. MSM is extremely biased negatively toward our military. Even when the reporters present a not-balanced, but at least fairly complete listing of the facts, the news desk that writes the headlines slant and distort to their hearts’ content.

Also, we can see that our military is doing a very good job of anger management with our soldiers that drew guard duty down in Guantanamo. It’s certainly hard for me to imagine trying to be all nice and respectful to detainees that are imprisoned for being non-uniformed “Unlawful Combatants” that had tried to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. What most of us don’t fully understand is that concept of “Unlawful Combatant”, but Bill Whittle does and eloquently lays it out for us in his essay on Sanctuary. If you contemplate the ideas in that essay and come away not understanding how someone could want to intimidate, interrogate, or even annihilate these prisoners, then you are self-deluded beyond hope and reason.

Another thing that we learn looking at this press coverage is that the anti-military bias of the MSM is in full bloom and in full view. They don’t care if we see it, evidenced by the excruciating details presented of the 5 military incidents, and the mere passing over of the 15 detainee incidents. Actually, only 20 total confirmed incidents in over 3 1/2 years of detainee incarceration is pretty remarkable in itself. Only the desires by the MSM to back up the debacle at Newsweek, and the continual campaign to undermine our military and the Bush administration makes this news.

I would place a substantial bet on the fact that any of these reporters, if captured and threatened by radical Muslim terrorists, would whole-heartedly welcome some G.I. force feeding a Koran down the throat of an “Unlawful Combatant”, if it would get the information necessary for our guys to rescue him or her before the crazy SOB cut off the reporter’s head with a rusty serrated blade. But who knows, maybe they are that self-deluded, and would be willing to sacrifice themselves, just so a Koran would not be “defiled”.

Anyone care to take that bet? (db)

Many others are writing about this — See: The Anchoess — “If you sprinkle when you tinkle…”, Michelle Malkin’s “GITMO DETAINEES DESECRATE QURAN” gets the story details in correct order, plus loads of links to more, plus La Shawn Barber is so done with it that she states, If I See One More Koran “Mishandling” Story… I just might buy a few to kick around myself. You go, La Shawn!

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 4th, 2005 at 11:41 am and is filed under Focus On Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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