Roger Kimball's modest proposal
Roger Kimball seeks to introdue the reality principle to the discussion of the Gonzo Gitmo Charade: "It's always worse than you think, Koran handling Dept." Kimball writes:
By all means, let us treat prisoners with the dignity and respect they lack in their own lives. Let us not besmirch or ridicule the Koran. But let us also preserve some rudimentary contact with reality. These people are terrorists and suspected terrorists. Many--probably most--of them have dedicated their lives to slaughtering innocent Westerners, inspired, note well, by the very document our soldiers are enjoined to handle as a “fragile piece of delicate art” (as distinct, one supposes from a “sturdy piece of delicate art”).Kimball offers a modest proposal for the repeal of "Detention Operations Group Standard Operating Procedures" pertaining to how guards and others are to handle the Koran:
Perambulating in the precincts of real life...we should have the fortitude to acknowledge that the comedy has gone rancid. Those sections of the army’s “Detention Operations Group Standard Operating Procedures” that bear on the Koran should be respectfully excised, using only the right hand. They should then be carefully conveyed in a “clean, dry detainee towel” to the nearest outhouse and...flushed down the toilet.All this, and no registration required.
DEACON adds: Speaking of comedy, would it be too politically incorrect for me to suggest that the rules for handling the Koran at Gitmo have elevated that book to the status of the dictator's nose in Woody Allen's movie "Sleeper"?
