h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What would you categorize it as then?

Probably, according to the Pentagon it's "something almost, but not quite utterly unlike torture..."

People should not belive everything they read in new's papers .

Yes, but there'S a lot of WORSE things people shouldn't be doing...

If people are more likely to riot in some countries than others, it does give some insight into aspects of national culture and character.

If some individuals in a given country are more likely to protest violently than others, it gives some insight into the character of those individuals, or their susceptibility to manipulation.

Some belief systems and people do project 'sacredness' into various objects rather more than others do. Maybe they derive some benefit from that, but the downside is that it is a potential weakness as well.

Politically, abusing the Koran in front of someone would probably be a dumb move for the US government, even if it *did* work in getting people to co-operate, but I'd suggest it's rather dumber to riot to the point of being shot just as a result of hearing about it probably happening in front of someone a continent away.

Clearly, there's an element of politics involverd - a horde of people easily manipulated to rioting can be a useful weapon, but I suppose that's just one of the problems of having religion and politics intertwined.

Abuse?
Depends on motive I suppose. It wasn't done to extract a confession, but was it done for the enjoyment of the prison guards? A fine line in semantics, I don't wish to quibble over it.

That's making it a bit easy on yourself, isn't it? Like the politicians who choose not to comment when the going gets tough... Face it, knowing how best to hurt people and doing so is torture. The "creative" thing here is that their supposed strengths, not their weaknesses are being exploited for this. In a purely patriarchal, extreme society, being helpless while the "weaker sex", now in a position of power, is making advances IS more than abuse. And if you've been brought up seeing your beliefs as being the only true, good ones, seeing the symbol of that belief easily destroyed causes extreme anguish - whether you believe in Islam or the USA!

I'm sure plenty of people from the USA would be upset or angry about their flag being burnt. As a method of information extraction, however, I can't imagine it would be too effective.

just ask the soccer fans in turkey about what happens when one burns a flag ..

Oh, I think conservative americans who grew up on shmaltzy war movies would think the symbolism of protecting the flag at all costs to be a pretty strong motivation. Believe me, I have first-person experiences of that kind aplenty...

We are all vulnerable in some areas, however I would say you would be far more likely to make me angry, I suppose this might cause me to reveal feelings I would rather were not known, but I can't see this as torture.

marking

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/politics/20newsweek.html?

In the interest of an attempt at accuracy this is the more recent statement from the Red Cross in the NYT about the issue of abuse of the Koran.

Can't read that article, not a subscriber...

quote from Whisky's first post
"In which case, would the authorities be right to attempt to influence the press if that influence would lead to the saving of lives?"

Wouldn't the authorities be better served by making sure that there was some kind of discipline among the soldiers who guard prisoners? They seem to have free rein, can do whatever they want, torture, degrade, kill, release photos to the press. Difficult (but evidently not impossible!) to keep on claiming the moral highground when your soldiers behave like animals.

Or it might be even worse, and the soldiers are in fact acting on (inofficial, of course) standing orders...

malabarista - here's a short quote from the NY Times article (think it's OK to use a quote as short as this)

" The International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday that it had given the Pentagon "multiple" reports from detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that American personnel had mishandled the Koran. The committee said the complaints from detainees then ceased.

The Pentagon confirmed that it had received these reports from the committee, but characterized the incidents as minor and rare and said that detainees themselves had also mishandled the Koran."

I love the bit where the Pentagon claims that detainees themselves also mishandled the Koran.

I agree that it's nutty for people to go nuts over a book, but it was also nutty of the soldiers to 'mishandle' the book in question.

Thought this was quite amusing, from another NYT article

"In India, a secular country by law whose people and government are growing increasingly close to the United States, a cartoon appeared in Midday, an afternoon tabloid, on Friday showing a panic-stricken Uncle Sam flushing copies of Newsweek magazine down a toilet."

Oh yes, they "detainees" probably got dirty heathen fingerprints all over it...

Thanks for filling in on the NYT content RunningDog3
I could not get back soon enough to do so.