I wrote a letter to the editor at my local paper, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, last week about how I thought they and the rest of the media were handling the Quran “desecration” issue. I was surprised when it didn’t run, but then they whole thing seems to have sunk without a trace from their pages. But since I do have my own virtual printing press, I’m running it here:
The headline read “White House plays down report of Quran desecration by guard” but it should have read, “Media plays up American Quran mishandling”. The media seems to show little interest in informing the public but plenty of interest in settling a score with the White House which called Newsweek out on inaccurate reporting. So we went from a report of a guard flushing a Quran down a toilet to a guard deliberately kicking a Quran and a bare mention that the only Quran in a toilet was placed there by a detainee. Detainees abused Qurans three times as often as guards. Some scandal, especially in light of real, documented abuses of detainees at the hands of US soldiers, and the routine murder of captives at the hands al Qaida.
What puzzles me is the lack of interest in the media that the US government is providing a religious book to prisoners and issuing instructions affirming the holiness of the Quran. I wonder, do they provide Bibles, or Bhagavad-Gitas, or even copies of Dianetics on request? If my local school district or prison started passing out Bibles and issuing guidelines on the proper handling of the Bible based on the idea that it is the one true scripture of God, wouldn’t there be a huge uproar? Hindus would be pleased with the size of the cow that a certain segment of American society would have over that. But the media is focused with laser like intensity (read the transcripts at www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/) on guards mishandling Qurans and the meta-questions that raises. No wonder people no longer trust the media.
