See my earlier article on the Newseek Koran in the Toilet story being confirmed. The prisoner told the story to an FBI investigator.

Well, now that the FBI report appeared to confirm the Newsweek story, the prisoner suddenly has recanted his allegation that the Koran was thrown in the toilet. Surprise Surprise!

When a person is in the custody of the US Military (during a crazy period when the military does NOT follow the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners), the person had better do whatever he is told. I expect he was told to recant, or else. Or at least I fear that he was told to recant or else.

You see, we now expect our military to use torture, just as we expected the Viet Cong to do, and therefore we discount the credibility of any prisoner statements because we assume the statements were tortured out of them. Recall the newsreels from the Vietnam War in which American POWs would appear to make damning confessions in front of the camera - under torture you’ll do anything. Senator McCain has talked of this at times.

Do we believe the prisoner is being truthful when he recants? I’m sorry, but I don’t trust the military on prisoner issues. They will torture a prisoner to get him to recant something. I am ashamed that our American military has fallen so far down on the moral and ethical ladder, that the world reasonably expects our armed forces to employ torture in the ordinary course of business.

The prisoner told an FBI investigator years ago that the Koran desecreation had occurred. And now, perhaps to get in the good graces of the military prison officials and the Bush administration, the prisoner is recanting his accusations.

I’d say anything, too, to try to get out of the custody of the US military, these days anyway.

Study the end of World War II sometime, the period when the German Army was disintegrating. The Germans were being squeezed from the West by the American-led Allied forces, and from the East by Soviet forces. The units of the German army were sandwiched between those two forces. The German units would try very hard to make their way West in order to surrender to the American troops, rather than be captured by the Soviet troops. Why? — Because the Americans were humane and ethical in their treatment of prisoners.

But now the American military has lost the moral high ground on the issue of treatment of prisoners. One of the selling points for the modern pluralistic and capitalistic way of life was its ethicism and humanity, when compared to competing social systems such as fascism and communism.

As America moves toward a deficit-financed authoritarian and militaristic big brother society, it is undermining its reputation as the social system of choice in the world.

Daily Kos :: Prisoner Recants Quran-Desecration Claims
Thu May 26th, 2005 at 13:09:37 PDT

A prisoner at Guantanamo Bay who complained that a military guard threw a Quran holy book in the toilet has since recanted the story, senior Pentagon officials said Thursday.

Diaries :: DuctapeFatwa’s diary :: :: Trackback ::

The prisoner, who made his complaint in an FBI interrogation in July 2002, is one of several quoted in newly released documents as saying that U.S. military personnel desecrated the Qurans of Muslim detainees at the prison.

Lawrence Di Rita, spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, told reporters that U.S. investigators had re-interviewed the unidentified prisoner on May 14.

“He has said it didn’t happen,” Di Rita said.

Another spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said the detainee “indicated, when asked about the desecration, that he was not knowledgeable of anything.” link

If I remember correctly, victims released from the Abu Ghraib facility in the wake of the unauthorized photography incidents were required to sign a statement saying they had been treated humanely and would not discuss the matter further subsequent to their release.

I don’t know what the Guantanamo victims were required to sign, but it would appear that Washington is taking a tough stance on violators, and we can expect more chatty victims to respond to re-interrogation as promptly and definitively as this one has.