Newsweek gets it wrong

[Snarf]

Which would have been, what? I know you weren't in command, I was just wondering what you'd have done to try to save their lives. You've ranted against Reno and called her incompotent, but I've not seen any ideas coming from you as to how that situation could have been handled.

And you're a professional law enforcement officer who'd know what to do in a situation like this? Or are you just an "armchair quaterback" who calls other people incompotent, yet so far doesn't have a clue as to what could have been done differently?

Looks like the latter to me.

I know I'm not a professional at that, that's why even though I figure she may have been incomoptent, I'm willing to give her the benefit of a doubt, which seems to be something that you've horribly twisted in your next statment, implying that I don't care about human life.

Yeah, it's no big deal that kids may have been molested in the compound, that's why I figured they had to get in there and try to get them out.

I know. Do you think I LIKE that?! Still, I've yet to see you have any ideas about how that could be handled.

Remember, they were dealing with religous fanatics, who by there very nature are unpredictable. There may or there may not have been anything that they could have done to save the innocent people in there.

Maybe, being religous yourself, you've got a mindset that's able to figure those people's motivations and their possible actions better than a "secularist" can?

That seems to have been the point of an earlier post...

Kew's just jealous because he wants conservatives to have a monopoly on killing.

[Amazing Rando]

I believe that the US Military, while questioning a prisoner, wouldn't hesitate to flush a Koran.

Is the original claim so far out of the range of possibility?

Certainly not after what we've seen from Abu Ghraib.

[spiritmech]

Certainly not after what we've seen from Abu Ghraib.

I want a job where I can be paid to do fake, but accurate work. Just because A was true does not make B true. That's the job of a real journalist. That's the job that the journalists are so darned proud of when they consider themselves real, honest, objective media.

To me, even worse than the political aspects of this are the religious. For the next 1000 years Muslims and Christians, rather than being able to discuss compassionately the differences between them, are going to be discussing this awful story: "Remember that time you flushed the Koran, Christian?"

I would be infuriated at any Christian who did such a thing. Only the looniest loonies of certain Christian sects would ever consider burning or ripping or whatever-ing a Koran.

I would be infuriated at the government if the story were true. It's pretty obvious that they crossed the line in certain situations with respect to treating humans decently. That is a real story. Go get some facts and tell us how bad it is. Our government (in theory) is supposed to be protecting us and flushing a Koran is the opposite of that. Symbols mean things. This was destined to be a thousand times more embarassing and aggravating than Abu Ghraib.

sm

[Meh_Gerbil]

I'm in an odd place here people.

I think the Koran is a steaming pile of poopie but I don't like the Secularist attitude towards people of faith in that the Secularist doesn't have a clue as how to handle religious people. If I had to chose between Islamic Fundamentalists and a Secularist state I think I might want the Muslims to win.

I'd lose my civil rights but at least I'd be with people who have a sense of 'holy' and 'right and wrong' even if it is misdirected. I find the utter cowardice of the Secularist to be nauseating as well. Additionally, the bills for a Secularist culture are starting to come due and I don't like what I see anymore than a Muslim would.

Go easy on me, I'm just kicking this around in my head.

Nothing compares to the wrong headed nonsense of a Secular state. A towel-headed AK47 toting maniac on a camel makes a great deal more sense then a Secularist. I fear the fallout of Secularism more than Islam.

[spiritmech]

Gerbil,

Obviously there's nothing wrong with holding your opinion. Be wary of loving the enemy of your enemy, because that is exactly what the people at Newsweek are doing. The secularist press hates Christian culture, and would rather Islam win and their own freedoms repressed than for Christians to be right about anything.

sm

[Amazing Rando]

I want a job where I can be paid to do fake, but accurate work. Just because A was true does not make B true. That's the job of a real journalist. That's the job that the journalists are so darned proud of when they consider themselves real, honest, objective media.

To me, even worse than the political aspects of this are the religious. For the next 1000 years Muslims and Christians, rather than being able to discuss compassionately the differences between them, are going to be discussing this awful story: "Remember that time you flushed the Koran, Christian?"

I would be infuriated at any Christian who did such a thing. Only the looniest loonies of certain Christian sects would ever consider burning or ripping or whatever-ing a Koran.

Funny, I would think the same of Christians who attach electrodes to prisoners' genitals and make them strip naked and form a human pyramid. But apparently it happened. There are, unfortunately, a small minority of people in our armed forces who are willing to do such things to people for their own amusement, not to mention extracting "intelligence" from them. I'm with Gerbil in that it's entirely possible that such people would also stoop to desecrating the Quran in front of Muslim prisoners- even if these same people claim to be Christians.

I would be infuriated at the government if the story were true. It's pretty obvious that they crossed the line in certain situations with respect to treating humans decently. That is a real story. Go get some facts and tell us how bad it is. Our government (in theory) is supposed to be protecting us and flushing a Koran is the opposite of that. Symbols mean things. This was destined to be a thousand times more embarassing and aggravating than Abu Ghraib.

sm

Well said.

[Meh_Gerbil]

Gerbil,

Obviously there's nothing wrong with holding your opinion. Be wary of loving the enemy of your enemy, because that is exactly what the people at Newsweek are doing. The secularist press hates Christian culture, and would rather Islam win and their own freedoms repressed than for Christians to be right about anything.

sm

Interesting.

[Jaltus]

Funny, I would think the same of Christians who attach electrodes to prisoners' genitals and make them strip naked and form a human pyramid. But apparently it happened. There are, unfortunately, a small minority of people in our armed forces who are willing to do such things to people for their own amusement, not to mention extracting "intelligence" from them. I'm with Gerbil in that it's entirely possible that such people would also stoop to desecrating the Quran in front of Muslim prisoners- even if these same people claim to be Christians.

I never heard of any of those people claiming to be Christians. Do you have evidence for this, AR?

[Amazing Rando]

I never heard of any of those people claiming to be Christians. Do you have evidence for this, AR?

It's quite possible that I'm assuming something to be true that isn't. But neither do I have any evidence to the contrary.

However this article from Christianity Today notes that at least one of the soldiers involved in the abuse (in fact, Charles Graner, the ringleader of the abuse) is a professing Christian:

Now it's become clear that at least one of these infamous "bad apples" was apparently a Christian. Spec. John Darby, the soldier who reportedly confronted Spec. Charles A. Graner, the ringleader of Abu Ghraib, claims that Graner told him, "The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the correction officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself.' " Other accounts suggest that guards abused prisoners out of hostility toward Islam—one soldier reportedly asked a prisoner if he believed in anything, and when the man responded that he believed in Allah, the guard replied, "I believe in torture, and I will torture you."

Graner, the worst of all of them, claims to be a Christian. What does this quote tell you?

According to the whistleblower of the scandal, Graner told him "The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the correction officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself.'"

Dang.

[Amazing Rando]

The thing about that quote that bugs me the most is the fact that it's all too illustrative of Christian attitudes toward peace and justice issues. We compartmentalize our faith, as Graner did, and refuse to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit telling us that this is wrong, because our faith has been shoved into a little box in the corner and our "occupation" or role in the "public sphere" dominates our thinking.

When Christians realize that there should be no such thing as the false distinction we've set up between "public morality" and "private morality," then atrocities like Abu Ghraib won't happen and tarnish the Christian witness to the world. For Graner to say this is to admit that Jesus is ony Lord of one little part of his life, not the whole thing.

This is of serious consequence to me because of my pacifism, which stems directly from my faith conviction that Jesus was nonviolent and wanted his followers to love their enemies as well as one another, which in my book, precludes killing them! If Graner really took Jesus seriously in his life and decided to follow him rather than just worship him, first of all, he would not have mistreated the Iraqi prisoners like he did, but secondly, he would not be killing his enemies in a so-called "just war" either.

edited to add:

I like what the rest of the Christianity Today article I linked to says at the end:

Ultimately, we must realize that what happened at Abu Ghraib is symptomatic of a disease all of us are infected with—sin. Paul's damning words of Romans 1 trace the fall of ordinary, "good" people into all kinds of heinous acts: "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened …. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another…. Since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done."

Let's rightly react with revulsion when we see these pictures, and call for an accounting for the crimes committed. But let's also recognize the evil nature in ourselves, and out of this recognition, cheer on the work of Christian Peacemaker Teams and others seeking to counter the evil done by Christians who have failed to live up to their calling. May God have mercy on us and the guards and prisoners of Abu Ghraib.

If you're interested in what Christian Peacemaker Teams are currently doing to combat "evil with good" in the words of Paul, check out their website here.

[Mujibur]

Christian Peacemaker Teams are great. I know the directors of the Canadian branch personnally. They are very devoted to promoting peace worldwide.

[EvoUK]

I do find blaming the whole Koran fiasco solely on secularists to be quite amusing- where did you get the idea that the people who did it must have been secularists I wonder...?

[spiritmech]

I agree with you wholeheartedly Rando. Our thoughts, words, and deeds must be consistent.

sm

[Meh_Gerbil]

I do find blaming the whole Koran fiasco solely on secularists to be quite amusing- where did you get the idea that the people who did it must have been secularists I wonder...?

Assuming you are speaking to me, I never claimed Secularists did it -- only that they would be about the only ones astounded that such an action (or claim thereof) would touch off a firestorm.

Remember when you wrote this?:

The whole story was absurd.

Bloody religious regressives.. I think it's blown out of porportion even if true. I mean really, they probably have a million and one reasons to be upset but seriously? Flushing a book down the toilet? This is what's sparking riots and people getting shot?

The fact that the people are being held at camp X-Ray without trial and without the rights of prisoners of war is a far more serious problem, IMO. After that comes the inhumane treatement, physical and mental torture. Somewhere way after that comes annoying them by burning their books.

Putting aside the obvious lunacy associated with believing that some book written by humans is "sacred" or "divinely inspired" or "holy", and putting aside the totally insane notion that someone who flushs such a text down the toilet deserves to be killed----there is another disturbing issue here.

That is basically an admission that such a reponse is completely outside your ability to comprehend, much less predict. Just as Janet Reno was caught off guard at Waco so Newsweek was caught off guard when faced with the power of religious belief.

Ask just about any Christian -- or any person of faith for that matter -- and they would have predicted that printing such a thing would have resulted in death. Here is another hint for the Army: Flushing a Koran isn't going to break a Muslim; however, it will steel his resolve to cut your throat and confirm absolutely everything about you his cleric has been telling him.

However, like you, the boys over at Newsweek are so disconnected from about 90% of the planet that the dangers of throwing a report out there like that doesn't even occur to them until it is too late.

That is why secular governments are always such abysmal failures (Soviet Russia, China, North Korea, etc). They are too naive to be responsible for making large decisions -- they don't know how to handle people in touch with the reality of the spiritual. (1)















NOTES:
---------------------------------------------
1: MG picks a fight with EvoUK.

[Jaltus]

Interesting find, Rando. I find it very telling that he intentionally went against his Christian beliefs in doing what he did.

What fruit does that show? Certainly not Christian fruit.