Broken Hallelujah

Sez Molly: On Jan. 9, 2005, Andrew Sullivan, writing in The Sunday Times of London, said: “We now know a great deal about what has gone on in U.S. detention facilities under the Bush administration. Several government and Red Cross reports detail the way many detainees have been treated. We know for certain that the United States has tortured five inmates to death. We know that 23 others have died in U.S. custody under suspicious circumstances. We know that torture has been practiced by almost every branch of the U.S. military in sites all over the world — from Abu Ghraib to Tikrit, Mosul, Basra, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

“Some Muslims had pork or alcohol forced down their throats; they had tape placed over their mouths for reciting the Quran; many Muslims were forced to be naked in front of each other, members of the opposite sex and sometimes their own families. It was routine for the abuses to be photographed in order to threaten the showing of the humiliating footage to family members.”

So where does all this leave us? With a story that is not only true, but previously reported numerous times. So let’s drop the “Lynch Newsweek” bull. Seventeen people have died in these riots. They didn’t die because of anything Newsweek did — the riots were caused by what our government has done. via

The Newsweek report is nothing new. Sadly, Quran abuse didn't seem to matter to anybody until rioting and killing led to public scorn. And it's obscene the way the administration is feigning shock about one Quran incident as if this is the first abusive act they're aware of.

Quote of The Week
“I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas.” --George Galloway