Fix The Methods, Not The Media

WASHINGTON

It was another self goal, another poor damagecontrol exercise and another bout of huffing and puffing bythe Bush Administration. The Pentagon pounced on Newsweekand forced a retraction of its report about the desecrationof the Quran at Guantanamo Bay, but a retraction won’t astory end. Besides, no one in the lanes and bylanes of theMuslim world will believe the retraction. The story has amillion legs now and it will travel, provoking generationalanger. Mischief by local political leaders can’t be ruled,out but the ammunition came from America.

There is just too much out there about the tactics and torture -- and testimony from detainees who have returned frombehind the American barbed wire. They have told of porkbeing forced down throats, beards being forcibly shaved,Qurans being defiled, women interrogators using unspeakablemethods to rattle and shock prisoners. British detaineesreleased from US custody have said insults to the Quranwere routine at Guantanamo. Over in Iraq, the torture ofprisoners at Abu Ghraib has been documented in photos. Thetorture techniques were built around cultural insults todeliberately hurt and shock Muslim prisoners -- from theuse of dogs to women soldiers parading naked prisoners toreports of a woman guard sitting topless on a detainee toextract information. Whether or not all of the allegationsare true hardly matters at this stage. The photos from AbuGhraib certainly are, and the Guantanamo Bay chapter buildson the preface the world is familiar with.

A lawsuit filed in Britain last year cites abuse of Britishdetainees by US guards at Guantanamo Bay prison, includingincidents of insults to the Quran. Kristine Huskey, alawyer representing Kuwaitis incarcerated at the sameprison, says her clients reported similar events, includingat least one case where a detainee watched a guard insultthe Quran. In short, the Newsweek report is not the firstallegation to hit the street.

Pentagon’s attempt to douse the fire with clever deflectionwas a sorry attempt at damage control. Gen. Richard Myers,America’s highest military officer stood on the podium todeny the desecration of the Quran by interrogators but thenwent on casually to add that the only Quran-related entryin the army logs was an unconfirmed report about a prisonertearing pages of the holy book. The detainee allegedly usedit to block the toilet as a sign of protest. The subtext:if anything happened to the holy book, it probably was doneby a Muslim.

But here’s the cultural street reality -- many in theMuslim world will easily believe the Newsweek report, giventhe history of insensitivities by the Bush Administration,and discard the log entry of a fellow Muslim insulting theholy book. The comeback from the Pentagon to this wholecontroversy and violence has been bumbling and corny. Onehas to wonder about how little they know of the world theyrule. For the record -- Hindus and Muslims keep their holybooks in a specific spot, often in decorative cloth covers,and they don’t move them around like a John Grisham novel.They do not even touch it without being "clean." The Muslimstreet will never believe that a Muslim will willinglydefile the Quran, least of all for reasons cited by Gen.Myers.

The chatter on Christian websites about the Quran incidentis also interesting. It gives an insight into how proneAmericans can be to judging other realities with theircultural coordinates. A running theme in the discussions: "Well, we wouldn’t have felt as insulted as to provokeviolence if the Bible had been desecrated or placed in thebathroom." Yes, I have noticed that some people read theBible in the bathroom, but it doesn’t mean other religionstreat their books the same way. Why is it so difficult toimagine that cultures can be very different and what isacceptable in one may be blasphemous in another? If for noother reason but political correctness -- an American giftto the world?

Besides, there are differences of status of the holy book.The Bible is not believed to be the direct word of God butset down by the saints. But the Quran is believed byMuslims to have been transmitted to Prophet Mohammad fromGod through Gabriel. It is considered a direct edict fromAllah and therefore its importance is of another magnitude.

Demands for an apology not just from Newsweek but fromsenior levels of the Bush Administration are growing, if theplacards carried by protesters are any indication. Theprotests have spread from Afghanistan to Pakistan toPalestine to other parts of the Arab world. Indian Muslimstoo have demonstrated in Mumbai, calling the reporteddesecration a "challenge for Muslims" worldwide. Every timethe Bush Administration presents a positive (an Iraqielection, a detectable movement in the Middle East peaceprocess, a school for Afghan girls) to convince the Muslimworld that its war is not against Islam, its henchmen goand paint the whole picture black.