Thursday, May 26, 2005

Media Clog: The Koran-toilet mess has floated back to the surface, like some stubborn turd. Media outlets, such as The Washington Post, are splashing articles on their Web sites stating that, indeed, detainees have made allegations that American captors flushed their beloved holy book down Gitmo sewer pipes.

Clearly people are going to look at this as vindication to Newsweek, who suffered through all the crap that rained on them from their retracted story on the same topic. But the fact remains that Newsweek published unsubstantiated claims based off one anonymous source, which is just shoddy reporting. Newsweek did the right thing afterwards by retracting the story immediately and apologizing. But its defenders are making fools of themselves.

Let's be clear now. Even if the allegations are true, this does not constitute torture, mistreatment, or even hazing. The U.S. military has taught Gitmo captors to treat our enemy's religion and holy relics with respect. However, if a few bad actors do something un-PC with the Koran, that is not a war crime.

And remember, Al Qaeda members are trained to lie about their captivity. They rely on sympathetic media coverage to make America look bad. So they make up stuff. This is really old news.