OT-On Handling Koran

On Handling the Koran
Andrew L. Jaffee, May 30, 2005
Concerns over the sensitivities of Muslims have once again taken
members of
the American media - even its government - over the top. Some in the
media
have decided that Islam should be treated differently from other world
religions, and some in American government are spending too much time
worrying about Muslim sensitivities, as opposed to concentrating on
crushing
the Islamist enemy.

An article published in the Washington Post on Tuesday, May 17
highlights
examples of the mistakes being made by the media as well as in
government.

Robin Wright, author of the Post's article, "U.S. Long Had Memo on
Handling
of Koran," refers to the Koran no less than three times as a "holy
book."
The Washington Post is supposedly one of the pillars of American
journalism.

Ask any of its writers, and I am sure they would tell you that the Post
is
objective and fair, and is steeped in the rules and science of
journalism.
But if this were so, would its writers confer special properties on the
religion of Islam? Calling the Koran a "holy book" inside the pages of
the
Post is not responsible journalism. This term is de facto recognition
that
Islam and the Koran are intrinsically sacred or inspired by the divine.
This
is quite a leap of faith for an "objective" newspaper.

I am not questioning whether people of faith hold the Koran as "holy,"
but
has the Washington Post decided that all its readers should consider it
so?
Is this official policy at the newspaper? What happened to objectivity?
A
full text search of the Post's archives for the terms "Bible" AND "holy
book" returns, "Your Search for bible "holy book" returned 0 results."

The Associated Press' "Stylebook and Libel Manual" and The University
of
Chicago's "Manual of Style," two books which professional journalists
are
taught to adhere to when writing, make no mention of a requirement to
refer
to the Koran as a "holy book." There is no mention of a requirement
that
writers assume that Islam was inspired by the divine. The two
stylebooks
certainly do not require that Hinduism, Christianity, or Judaism be
imbued
with spiritual properties, nor is there any mention of calling the
Bhagavad
Gita, the Bible, or the Torah "holy books."

In a profession in which concerns over diversity and political
correctness
are out of control, it seems that some journalists have decided that
one
religion is more important than others. What about concern for the
sensitivities of Jews and Christians? Would these same "concerned"
journalists encode value judgments regarding a subject's wealth or
physical
attributes? I doubt it.

Ms. Wright's editorializing about which religion is truly "holy" tells
us
about her fears and those of her politically correct, compatriot
journalists. Explicitly, these news writers would tell you that their
motivations lie in cultural sensitivity. Implicitly, the truth of the
matter
is that these people are afraid, very afraid, of being blown up by
crazed
Muslim suicide bombers, and they hope to maintain their cushy
lifestyles in
the land of the free, home of the brave by placating the enemy.

But the Washington Post article goes farther than just revealing the
bias of
its author. It also shows to what lengths our government and military
have
been willing to go to placate the angry, Muslim hoards:

More than two years ago, the Pentagon issued detailed rules for
handling
the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, requiring U.S. personnel to ensure
that
the holy book is not placed in "offensive areas such as the floor, near
the
toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet areas."

The three-page memorandum, dated Jan. 19, 2003, says that only Muslim
chaplains and Muslim interpreters can handle the holy book, and only
after
putting on clean gloves in full view of detainees.

The detailed rules require U.S. Muslim personnel to use both hands
when
touching the Koran to signal "respect and reverence," and specify that
the
right hand be the primary one used to manipulate any part of the book
"due
to cultural associations with the left hand." The Koran should be
treated
like a "fragile piece of delicate art," it says.
In the Muslim and Arab world; where violence has become so endemic;
where
strength is measured by the size of a gun and the number of civilians
one is
willing to slaughter; these moves on the part of the U.S. military will
be
surely seen by Arabs/Muslims as weakness -- e.g., "Look at how we've
got the
Americans jumping through hoops."

Weakness is not a luxury we can afford. Strength is the image we must
cultivate and prove. Of course we should never intentionally defile
anyone's
religious text - this is just common sense and common decency. But
putting
on gloves to handle a book?

Need it be said that many in our media have been advertising the
weakness of
their "liberal" belief system? A bevy on opinion polls show it obvious
that
the American media is disconnected from the American public - just look
at
the CBS' Dan Rather and his "memo-gate" fiasco or Newsweek's false and
retracted story about flushing a Koran down the toilet.

Time for a reality check: Placating a vicious enemy is always
counter-productive. The war against Islamist terrorists will not be won
based on our handling of books, but on searching out and killing all
the
members of the terrorist organizations, as well as their supporters -
just
as we defeated the Germans and Japanese in WWII.

http://netwmd.com/articles/article1022.html

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