As we saw, Friday’s quota of Islamist apologist comment space went to the Muslim Brotherhood, represented by Anas Altikriti.
Monday it was the turn of Tariq Ali, and the great man does not disappoint. Although a secularist, Mr. Ali’s radical leftism makes him a natural ally of the Islamists – but his praise for them is not absolute, as is evidenced in this column. In fact, Mr. Ali rather takes them to task – for not responding strongly enough to slights other than those carried out by Danish cartoonists. Mr. Ali appears to be calling for more angry outbursts, and seems to be attempting to incite them with a specific story of Muslim humiliation:
“What I find interesting is that these demonstrations and embassy-burnings are a response to a tasteless cartoon. Did the Danish imam who travelled round the Muslim world pleading for this show the same anger at Danish troops being sent to Iraq? The occupation of Iraq has costs tens of thousands of Iraqi lives. Where is the response to that or the tortures in Abu Ghraib? Or the rapes of Iraqi women by occupying soldiers? Where is the response to the daily deaths of Palestinians? These are the issues that anger me. Last year Afghans protested after a US marine in Guantánamo had urinated on the Qur’an. It was a vile act and there was an official inquiry. The marine in question explained that he had been urinating on a prisoner and a few drops had fallen accidentally on the Qur’an – as if pissing on a prisoner (an old imperial habit) was somehow more acceptable.”
The urination story, which has the appearance in context of a deliberate attempt to provoke, is deeply suspect. The explanation given by the marine is described here, in the official report on such incidents (PDF):
“On 25 MAR 05, a detainee complained to the guards that urine came through an air vent in Camp 4, and splashed on him and his Koran while laid near the air vent. A guard reported to a Block NCIOC that he was at fault. The guard had left his observation area post and went outside to urinate. He urinated near an air vent and the wind blew his urine through the vent into the block. The Sergeant of the Guard (SOG) responded and immediately relieved the guard [an act which seems to me unnecessary, as the guard had just relieved himself]. The SOG ensured the detainee received a fresh uniform and a new Koran. The Joint Detention Operations Group (JDOG) commander reprimanded the guard and assigned him to gate guard duty where he had no contact with detainees for the remainder of his assignment at JTF-GTMO. This incident was recorded in a series of contemporaneous sworn statements made by Camp 4 guard force members. There is no record that this incident caused any type of disturbance in the block. We consider this a confirmed incident.”
I’d be very interested in seeing Mr. Ali’s evidence regarding the marine’s explanation – I suspect that no such (credible) evidence exists. If my suspicion is correct, Mr. Ali’s attempt to incite is at best reckless, at worst a shamefully dishonest attempt to provoke a reaction which – as we’ve seen all to clearly these last few days – is likely to cost lives.
Fundet på the Daily Ablution: http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/
Leave a Reply