Flushing Credibility Down The Toilet

Over at Running Scared today I had a post on Andrew Sullivan's post on the Koran flushing incident. Sully rightly said that the Pentagon and the Bush administration have zero credibility and there is no reason to believe them when they deny something. Over at LewRockwell.com James Glaser addresses the issue in: We Will Rape Your Women, Heck We Will Rape
Our Women, But We Would Never
Flush the Koran

Washington is sounding indignant about a report in Newsweek that American Prison Guards desecrated the Muslim Holy Book, the Koran, by flushing it down a toilet. In Kabul, Afghanistan, US military spokesman Colonel Jim Yonts is reported to have said, "Any disrespect to the Koran and any other religion is not tolerated by our culture and values." That sounds good, but Muslims and most of the world are not going to buy it.

The reputation of our country hinges on our credibility and that credibility is at an all time low right about now. The Muslim world is upset about reports that our prison interrogators will desecrate the Koran, the Muslim Holy Book, their bible if you will, to intimidate prisoners into talking. In some Muslim countries, desecrating the Koran is punishable by death and several reports say American Prison Guards, have shown disrespect toward the Koran and have even flushed it down the toilet.

A few decades ago no one would believe a report like that, but today nothing is unbelievable when it comes to what our country will stoop to.

He then goes on to discuss the atmosphere in Iraq.

It is widely reported that many American military women serving in Iraq, need guards in order to take a shower because of fear of sexual assaults by their fellow soldiers. Washington wants the world to believe that some of these same troops would never flush a Koran.

American Soldiers have been indicted for raping Iraqi women, but we have no numbers and because we keep no numbers on the number of Iraqi women and children killed in this war, it should be no surprise that we keep no count of Iraqi women reporting that they have been raped by Americans.

The whole world has seen the photos of American troops sexually humiliating and torturing Iraqi terror suspects. We have all read reports of prisoners being beat to death in American run prisons in Afghanistan, but we want the world to know we would never flush the Koran down a toilet.

And he concludes:

Washington and even George Bush himself will try and spin this latest charge against our country, but today the United States has too much baggage from what we have already done, for anyone to take Bush's denials seriously.

And in a surprisingly sensible commentary today even David Brooks is shocked by the administration's response. While I don't agree with everything the column it is fairly balanced for a Brooks commentary and worth a read.