We Aim To Please

The "wind blew it?"

The Dodger remembers seeing written on a urinal, perhaps by the janitorial staff:

We aim to please
You aim too please.

Unless March is a new hurricane season, the wind ranks with the dog vomiting on OSHA records as the lamest excuse we've heard in a while.

Let the Dodger get this straight, there's nothing wrong with being arrested without charge, denied any outside contact for years, even with lawyers, locked in a concentration camp, questioned without counsel present, stressed by all kinds of conditions?

The most recent, and perhaps strangest, case of mishandling was documented on March 25, 2005, when a detainee complained to the guards that urine came through an air vent in his cell and "splashed on him and his Koran while he laid near the air vent." According to Hood's investigation, the guard who was responsible reported himself to his superiors and was reassigned to gate duty. The detainee was given a new uniform and Koran.

"The guard had left his observation area post and went outside to urinate," according to a summary of the incident. "He urinated near an air vent and the wind blew his urine through the vent into the block."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/03/AR2005060301654.html

Pentagon Details Abuse Of Koran
Detainees' Holy Books Were Kicked, Got Wet

By Josh White and Dan EggenWashington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, June 4, 2005; Page A01

The U.S. military released new details yesterday about five confirmed cases of U.S. personnel mishandling the Koran at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, acknowledging that soldiers and interrogators kicked the Muslim holy book, got copies wet, stood on a Koran during an interrogation and inadvertently sprayed urine on another copy.
...
Officials said they have issued more than 1,600 Korans at the facility.
...
"It's sort of amazing today that we define truth as only when the government confirms something happened," Wilner said. "I think there is no question that, especially in the early days of Guantanamo, there was a persistent pattern of physical abuse and religious discrimination, including desecration of the Koran. . . . But it hasn't been fully looked at."
...
But the investigation's results also are contrary to a recent claim by a top Pentagon spokesman that there were no credible accounts of Korans being mishandled -- though he added that officials would nevertheless conduct an investigation.

The first case, in February 2002, arose when a detainee complained that guards at Camp X-Ray kicked the Koran of a detainee in a neighboring cell. Though interrogators and guards noted the incident at the time, there was no further investigation.

In another case, in August 2003, two detainees complained to their guards that a number of Korans were wet "because the night shift guards had thrown water balloons on the block." No further details of the incident were provided, but Hood's team determined the complaints to be credible and found "no evidence that the incident, although clearly inappropriate, caused any type of disturbance on the block."

Other confirmed reports included a two-word obscenity being written in the inside cover of a Koran, though investigators were unable to determine who wrote the phrase and concluded it was possible that the complaining detainee -- who was conversant in English -- may have defaced his own book.

Another report, in July 2003, detailed an incident in which a contract interrogator stood on a detainee's Koran during an interrogation. The interrogator was fired for a "pattern of unacceptable behavior, an inability to follow direct guidance and poor leadership," according to the news release yesterday.

The most recent, and perhaps strangest, case of mishandling was documented on March 25, 2005, when a detainee complained to the guards that urine came through an air vent in his cell and "splashed on him and his Koran while he laid near the air vent." According to Hood's investigation, the guard who was responsible reported himself to his superiors and was reassigned to gate duty. The detainee was given a new uniform and Koran.

"The guard had left his observation area post and went outside to urinate," according to a summary of the incident. "He urinated near an air vent and the wind blew his urine through the vent into the block."
...
Three of the detainee cases involved spitting or throwing urine on Korans, and in one case, on Jan. 19, 2005, a detainee allegedly "tore up his Koran and tried to flush it down the toilet," according to the report. Four days later, a detainee ripped pages from the book and tried to flush them down the toilet as a protest, because he wanted to be moved to another part of the camp.