Pissing in the Wind

Now we've learned that the Koran was not thrown into the toilet, but was instead urinated on, along with its owner.

This news, released (surprise!) late on Friday night elicits a nauseating array of rationalizations from the wingnutosphere.  Powerline helpfully notes that pissing on the Koran is "unfortunate but, in the scheme of things, fairly trivial even, one hopes, in the context of our culture of victimization."

Austin Bay reverts to that tried and true wingnut fave: pointing out that we aren't as bad as the Taliban:

I would like to know something about the men who had these Korans. I’d like to know their prison record– are they rude? Do they spew anti-American, anti-Semitic, and/or anti-Christian epithets? What were these men doing when they were captured? Did they beat women in Afghanistan who failed to meet the Taliban dress code? Did they break the heads of men whose beards were too short? (That was another Taliban abuse that Newsweek seemed to have forgotten.) Were any of these characters involved in the destruction of the Buddas of Bamiyan? Did they steal food from World Food Program aid convoys? And if they did, how many times did they commit these crimes against the Afghan people? Yes, call Amnesty International. The investigation seems to be glaringly incomplete.

Added bonus for mentioning Newsweek!  I for one expect Powerline to call forth some urination-near-ventilation-ducts experts to assess the angle of trajectory, wind currents in Cuba, and the pH of the average US soldier's pee who will discover that in fact, there was in fact a Second Urinator, and he was a Democrat.

I also feel obliged to point out that for people in or near power, focusing too much on these types of abuses at Gitmo is rather dangerous.  If there were to be another terrorist attack, it would look particularly foolish to have been too concerned about who was urinating on whom, when.

Comments

[Monica]

The report states that the guard pee'd on the Koran accidentally. He went outside to pee and the wind caused the urine to go thru the air vent and it in turn got on the Koran.

You didn't represent that fact in your post and it causes me to question your intent.

[Justin]

One hates to get too graphic about these things, but let's just say it's pretty ridiculous to assert that urine accidentally got blown into an air vent and landed on somebody. I consider myself an expert in the subject of urinating while standing, and it's pretty extraordinary to imagine that something like this could have just happened. The report also says that the guard "admitted he was at fault."

That urine got through an air vent and onto a prisoner and his Koran in enough quantity for the US to acknowledge that it was, in fact, urine, because it was blown inadvertently into a duct is pretty tough to accept. In fact, I'd say it would be impossible unless the man was urinating INTO the ventilation duct.

Which could have happened, I suppose, not knowing that there was a "detainee" below. I know lots of people who think to themselves "Hey, why pee on the ground? There's a ventilation duct!"

As someone who considers himself an expert in the subject, I'm calling BS on this one.

[Monica]

Feel free to call BS - but at least offer the entire story. That's all I ask.