Harper's Story Reveals Koran Flushing Incident

Posted on May 18, 2005

It looks like the allegations of Koran-flushing are nothing new. Harper's Magazine has posted on its website a transcript from the March, 2005 issue in which an Afghan detainee talks about his experience with interrogators who shoved his Koran in a toilet.

This entire debacle points out -- among other things -- the need for an overhaul of how the U.S. gathers intelligence from prisoners. Perhaps tearing up a Koran in front of a Muslim is likely to make him reveal important information, but it seems unlikely.

Torture doesn't work. It's too low-tech, and people will simply lie to make the pain stop. A reading of any of the memoirs by ex-CIA agents will reveal that there are modern drugs which can make enemy combatants talk with one injection, that causes no damage to the subject. The legal argument for the very existence of Guantonamo Bay is that the prisoners there are enemy combatants captured during hostilities, and that they have information that could stop another terrorist attack. Yet we don't seem to have gathered any usable intel from these interrogations. Why is that? Did we capture the wrong guys? Are our interrogation methods ineffective?

Desecrating a Koran in front of a Muslim is only going to lead to a public relations nightmare. Building naked prisoner pyramids only makes the U.S. look really sick. These kinds of behavior don't advance any logical goal of the U.S., and should not be tolerated by the Pentagon. We agree to The Geneva Conventions to protect our soldiers when they are captured. This isn't helping.