In the wake of the Koran-burning by troops at the United States\u2019 Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, protests continue to escalate, and the death toll mounts. In the process, three US blind spots have become obvious.<\/p>\n
One is that of the US media, whose coverage simply underscores \u2013 and amplifies \u2013 the stunning cluelessness that triggered the protests in the first place. Professional journalists are obliged to answer five questions: who, what, where, why, and how. But, reading reports from The Associated Press<\/a><\/em>, The New York Times<\/a><\/em>, and The Washington Post<\/a><\/em>, among others, I searched exhaustively before I could form any picture of what had actually been done to the Korans in question. Not only did accounts conflict; none offered a clear notion of who had allegedly done what, let alone why or how.<\/p>\n Were Korans burned, as one US report had it, under the oversight of US military officials? Or were they brought by soldiers for incineration, as another version<\/a> maintained, as part of a haul of \u201cextremist literature\u201d and prisoners\u2019 personal communications, with Afghan workers alerting others at the base to the nature of the material?<\/p>\n These murky accounts \u2013 with no clear subjects or actions (The New York Times<\/em>, incredibly, managed not to describe the burning at all) \u2013 reflect what happens when major news outlets appear simply to take dictation from the Pentagon.<\/p>\n The second US blind spot is the politicization of this terrible affront. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has called Obama\u2019s apology a \u201csurrender,\u201d while another Republican contender, Rick Santorum, is offended that anyone is suggesting that the US should bear any \u201cblame.\u201d<\/p>\n This absence of perspective reveals the cultural ignorance that has turned recent US foreign interventions into political catastrophes. I, too, come from an Abrahamic religion, Judaism, which shares strong roots with Islam. In both faiths, sacred texts are treated as if they are, in a sense, living beings. Jews, too, give them \u201cburials\u2019 when they are too old to use, and treat them ritualistically while they are \u201calive,\u201d using silver pointers to avoid profaning them with human hands, dressing them in velvet jackets, and kissing them when they fall to the ground.<\/p>\n Burning a conquered people\u2019s sacred texts sends an unmistakable message: you can do anything to these people. As Heinrich Heine put it, referring to the Spanish Inquisition<\/a>‘s burning of the Koran, \u201cWhere they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings.\u201d Jews understand that very well: from the Inquisition to Cossack massacres to Kristallnacht<\/em>, the aggressors destroyed Torahs as a logical and well-understood precursor to destroying Jews.<\/p>\n The third blind spot is almost too painful to bear having to address \u2013 which, on a charitable interpretation, might explain why not one mainstream US media report has done so: the burnings were not carried out on some street in Kabul, but at Bagram. That is, Korans were burned at a US facility that meets the dictionary definition of a concentration camp.<\/p>\n In 2009, Spiegel Online<\/em> ran a portrait gallery about Bagram titled \u201cAmerica\u2019s Torture Chamber.\u201d In \u201cThe Forgotten Guant\u00e1namo<\/a>,\u201d it reported that 600 people were being held at Bagram without charge. All were termed \u201cunlawful enemy combatants,\u201d allowing the US to claim that they have no right to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. A military prosecutor said that, compared to Bagram, Guant\u00e1namo Bay was \u201ca nice hotel.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, invariably described in the US as \u201cthe self-proclaimed chief architect of 9\/11,\u201d told the Red Cross that at Bagram he had been suspended by shackles and sexually assaulted: \u201cI was made to lie on the floor. A tube was inserted into my anus and water poured inside.\u201d Another prisoner, Raymond Azar, testified that ten FBI agents had abducted him, shown him photos of his family, and told him that if he didn’t \u201ccooperate,\u201d he would never see them again.<\/p>\n The BBC collated testimony in 2010 from nine prisoners confirming that human-rights abuses continued at Bagram. The prisoners independently described \u201ca secret prison\u201d inside the prison, called \u201cthe black hole.\u201d Prisoners were still being subjected at the time to freezing temperatures, sleep deprivation, and \u201cother abuses.\u201d One testified that a US soldier had used a rifle to knock out a row of his teeth, and that he was forced to dance to music whenever he needed to use the bathroom.<\/p>\n Another investigation<\/a> confirmed similar allegations in 2010, and last month the BBC reported<\/a> that Bagram\u2019s prison population had reached 3,000,<\/em> while an Afghan-led investigation found still more allegations of ongoing torture, including freezing temperatures and sexual humiliations.<\/p>\n Of course, since the US military can detain anyone in Afghanistan, and hold him or her without charge in these conditions forever, the entire country lives under the shadow of torture at Bagram. The Koran burnings are a potent symbol of that systemic threat.<\/p>\n So, while Obama should continue to apologize for the Koran burnings, we must understand that Afghans\u2019 rage is a response to an even deeper, rawer wound. Obama should also apologize for kidnapping Afghans; for holding them at Bagram without due process of law; for forcing them into cages, each reportedly holding up to 30 prisoners; for denying them Red Cross\/Red Crescent visits; for illegally confiscating family letters; for torturing and sexually abusing them; and for casting a pall of fear over the country.<\/p>\n The Koran forbids that kind of injustice and cruelty. So does the Bible.<\/p>\n _______________________<\/p>\n