Riverbend

via Kevin Drum, an Iraqi woman's take on the whole Newsweek "scandal":

We've been watching the protests about the Newsweek article with interest. I'm not surprised at the turnout at these protests- the thousands of Muslims angry at the desecration of the Quran. What did surprise me was the collective shock that seems to have struck the Islamic world like a slap in the face. How is this shocking? It's terrible and disturbing in the extreme- but how is it shocking? After what happened in Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons how is this astonishing? American jailers in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown little respect for human life and dignity- why should they be expected to respect a holy book?...

Detainees coming back after weeks or months in prison talk of being forced to eat pork, not being allowed to pray, being exposed to dogs, having Islam insulted and generally being treated like animals trapped in a small cage. At the end of the day, it's not about words or holy books or pork or dogs or any of that. It's about what these things symbolize on a personal level. It is infuriating to see objects that we hold sacred degraded and debased by foreigners who felt the need to travel thousands of kilometers to do this. That's not to say that all troops disrespect Islam- some of them seem to genuinely want to understand our beliefs. It does seem like the people in charge have decided to make degradation and humiliation a policy.

By doing such things, this war is taken to another level- it is no longer a war against terror or terrorists- it is, quite simply, a war against Islam and even secular Muslims are being forced to take sides.

There's a long precedent of policies of humiliation and degradation - both domestically within the US (segregation) and throughout history in imperialist powers. It's also not surprising that US policy - dictated by so many prominent evangelical christians - would take on the flavour of a crusade. You know, people criticized Ann Coulter when she said Muslims should be forcible converted - maybe she just got the Pentagon memo earlier than most.

By the way - between Muslims and China the US has pissed off 2 billion people. Does anyone else think that maybe, if the US tried really hard, they could throw India in to the Yank-hating column and make it more than half of the world?