Where the World's Views of America Come into Focus
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Where the World's Views of America Come into Focus
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By Ghazi Al Dada
May 17, 2005
Translation
provided by 
First, let us first agree that the criminal desecration of the Holy Koran crime by American investigators at the Guantanamo detention camp actually happened. The hollowness of [Newsweek’s] denial was exposed by U.S. lawyer Christine Haski, who confirmed that the practice had been reported by a number of detainees, and had been taking place for over a year.
Three former British prisoners revealed that the Camp’s guards walked on the Holy Koran and flushed pages from it down toilets. Even the Pentagon has confirmed that there is evidence of this type of desecration.
And so we ask: Why didn’t the American administration act sooner to put a stop to these shameful and dangerous insults to the Holy Koran and of more than 1 billion Muslims ranging the four corners of the earth? Why did it require angry demonstrations throughout the Muslim world to move Washington to open an investigation into these stories?!
At a press conference, Condoleezza Rice said that the administration had “moved quickly when our ambassadors informed us that the matter had become dangerous.”
But what is intended by the phrase, “dangerous matter?” Certainly, it is not the desecration of the Holy Koran, but the protests that have so tarnished the image of the United States in the eyes of the Islamic world.
Could it be that Rice and her conservative administration didn’t realize the seriousness of the crime – of the desecration of the Holy Koran that occurred at that great palace of democracy in Guantanamo? Could she have been so clueless as she arrived in Iraq, a day after American soldiers set out to desecrate two mosques in Al Anbar Governorate, and after they drew black crosses on the walls and tore apart a number of Koran’s as they desecrated these mosques?
These questions look simple compared to the most bitter question: How can it be that an American administration that rants around the world about democracy, human rights, freedom of expression and opinion and the freedom to worship – could accept or allow its investigators in Guantanamo to desecrate and insult the religious beliefs of detainees to extract information from them?
All should know that Islam requires strict respect for all religions and heavenly books. I had wanted to present another question, but I have abstained for fear of being accused of anti-Semitism, which might require me to wear on orange garment in Guantanamo, and I do not want that!