# Ok, so the Koran wasn't flushed, but... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 4, 2005, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853 "2005-06-04T07:05:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/81 "2005-06-05T02:13:41Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Depends what you mean by “the military.” > > I have a certain amount of antipathy towards the untold sums of money spent on the military. I have some antipathy towards the extent to which the American military gets involved in places where it has no business, often in direct defiance of world opinion and the UN. And i have an antipathy to Commanders in Chief and other high ranking military people who are willing to send soldiers in to be killed, and who are willing to give orders that result in the death of thousands of civilians, on very slim pretexts. > > On the other hand, i have a lot of respect for those who join the military because they believe in serving and defending their people. And i have even more respect for those who do this dangerous job without resorting to the sort of disgraceful tactics that we see in places like Abu Ghraib. And i also have empathy for working class and poor people in America who feel that their only chance to escape their precarious financial situation is to join the military. > > I believe that quite a lot of liberals and leftists feel as i do. It’s very rarely a blanket condemnation of or antipathy for the military in general. > > I hate to inform you, but we don’t _really_ spit on soldiers. Perfection. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/82 "2005-06-05T02:17:25Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > …I hate to inform you, but we don’t _really_ spit on soldiers. Well, I made my cousin eat a bug once, but he wasn’t a Marine yet. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/83 "2005-06-05T02:41:49Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > Alternatively, these events are fully consistent with the principles the US now stands for, and the image created is precisely the one most welcomed in heartland USA. I don’t think that’s it. However, the continuing repetition of incidents where our tactics betray our long term interests makes me wonder whether we _have_ an overall strategy for prosecuting the war against terror. If we do, I’d like to see it. If we don’t, shouldn’t we start working on one? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Svinlesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/84 "2005-06-05T05:49:28Z")
In addition to what’s already been written in response to your question, **Sam** , I’d like to ask what purpose your snarky, hateful comment could possibly have, other than the underhanded implication that people concerned about these issues already hate the military anyway. As usual, you complain loudly about conservatives (such as yourself) being mistreated on these boards, while simultaneously being the first to dish out backhanded insults. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/85 "2005-06-05T07:34:31Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > Please, please, _please_ can we move beyond the tired old canard that liberal/left = soldier-hater? That’d require a subtlety of thought which folks like **Sam Stone** do not possess. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/86 "2005-06-05T07:46:28Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > That’d require a subtlety of thought which folks like **Sam Stone** do not possess. Yeah. I, for one, am sick of having to wade through all the threads about American soldiers’ generosity, courage, and good deeds. Couldn’t they just be combined into one thread? Maybe this one could be the flagship and the rest merged into here. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/87 "2005-06-05T16:02:40Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Yeah. I, for one, am sick of having to wade through all the threads about American soldiers’ generosity, courage, and good deeds. Couldn’t they just be combined into one thread? Maybe this one could be the flagship and the rest merged into here. You know, for someone so deeply imbued with the skills of logic—including a knowledge of its symbols and arcane terminology—you are, at times, surprisingly illogical. We are attempting to refute here the notion that leftists and liberals are soldier-haters, the notion that we have, in **Sam Stone** ’s words, “a general antipathy towards the military.” Refuting such accusations does not require us to demonstrate that we have started threads lauding the American soldier. Furthermore, i believe that i have stated on more than one occasion pretty much the same thing that i stated in my post above—that i have admiration for those who have the courage to join the military and who do that dangerous job well. I’ve seen plenty of other liberals and leftists on these Boards say the same thing. If you’ve missed this stuff, you must have been looking elsewhere at the time. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/88 "2005-06-05T16:37:52Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > You know, for someone so deeply imbued with the skills of logic—including a knowledge of its symbols and arcane terminology—you are, at times, surprisingly illogical. I took Liberal’s comments as a way of pointing out the irony of **rjung** criticizing someone for lacking “subtlety of thought”. Having said that, I do agree that **Sam** ’s statement really has no relavence to the ongoing discussion here. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/89 "2005-06-05T17:26:51Z")
Would that it were so, **Johnny**. But I’ve been watching them pull this crap for nigh on to 40 years now, whenever they want to sell us a turd, they wrap a flag around it and tell us its chocolate. And why do they do it? Because it works. Dr. Johnson was wrong, patriotism isn’t the last refuge of a scoundrel, usually, its the first. Because it works. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/90 "2005-06-05T17:30:05Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > I took Liberal’s comments as a way of pointing out the irony of **rjung** criticizing someone for lacking “subtlety of thought”. You might be right. But if so, his intentions were pretty well disguised by his words. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/91 "2005-06-05T18:29:51Z")
I think the words were clear. Using sarcasm as a device, they ridicule the notion that liberals are patriotic. Why even bother to make such a claim, as ETF has done? Be honest, as Luc has been. Call patriotism what it is — a political tactic for hypnotizing the masses and inducing sabre rattling. The idea is to attach emotionally to a reified entity, pledge life and limb to a rah-rah rag, and beat people about the heads and shoulders until they submit to a brain bath of serotonin. It dehumanizes those whom it declares to be enemies, and anthropomorphizes the State into a father figure. Isn’t it time for liberals to be proud of what we stand for? Individual liberty and personal responsibility? You cannot out-Republican the Republicans. And frankly, you should stop out-Democrating the Democrats. They left liberalism in the dust long ago. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/92 "2005-06-05T18:53:06Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > the notion that liberals are patriotic. Why even bother to make such a claim, as ETF has done? Whre? Where did I make such a claim? Let’s look at what I said: > [@](#): > > Please, please, please can we move beyond the tired old canard that liberal/left = soldier-hater? It’s as stupid and counterproductive as insisting that conservative/right = warmonging robber baron. The extremes of both wings in American political thought do not define where most of us sit along that spectrum. Trying to cram the entirety of your opposition into such a narrow caricature pretty much guarantees you can’t reach a compromise that respects the intelligence and good will of people you have to work with whether or not you agree with them. And these words are a stirring call to blind patriotic flag-waving fervor how? ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/93 "2005-06-05T19:04:48Z")
What has happened to the commanders of Abu Gharib, Gitmo and the various other prisons where abuse has occuted? As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing. If this administration were serious about stopping these abuses wouldn’t you think they would have punished those responsible? ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/94 "2005-06-05T19:22:53Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I think the words were clear. Using sarcasm as a device, they ridicule the notion that liberals are patriotic. Except that the debate wasn’t about patriotism. It was about whether or not liberals are hostile to the military. Not the same thing. I agree that patriotism is “a political tactic for hypnotizing the masses and inducing sabre rattling.” But this doesn’t mean that i’m hostile to the men and women who serve in the armed forces, which was **Sam Stone** ’s original accusation, and the one that i was seeking to refute. You have a curious knack for making the debate about what _you_ feel like holding forth about, rather than engaging the actual topic at hand. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/95 "2005-06-05T20:50:17Z")
The biggest thing wrong with having the best hammer in the world is the tendency to see all problems as nails. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/96 "2005-06-05T21:03:16Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > That’d require a subtlety of thought which folks like **Sam Stone** do not possess. Canadians? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/97 "2005-06-05T21:54:36Z")
> [@treis](#): > > What has happened to the commanders of Abu Gharib, Gitmo and the various other prisons where abuse has occuted? > > As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing. > > If this administration were serious about stopping these abuses wouldn’t you think they would have punished those responsible? Not “nothing”, but no prison, at least not yet. [Army demotes a one-star general accused of dereliction in prisoner abuse scandal](http://nctimes.com/articles/2005/05/06/military/13_54_135_5_05.txt). > [@](#): > > The Army said Thursday that only one senior officer will be disciplined for failed leadership in connection with the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and that more than a dozen lower-ranking officers will face a variety of punishments. > > The Army said it demoted Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, whose Army Reserve unit was in charge of the prison compound when Iraqi detainees were physically abused and sexually humiliated by military police and intelligence soldiers in the fall of 2003. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/98 "2005-06-05T22:18:46Z")
Of Karpinski’s crimes: > [@](#): > > Only the shoplifting and dereliction of duty allegations were substantiated. What’s remarkable to me is that Sanchez got off so quickly. ISTR that after his testimony to congress about not authorizing dogs, a memo surfuced in which Sanchez _had_ authorized the use of dogs at Abu Ghraib. Maybe congress doesn’t care? ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/99 "2005-06-05T22:42:53Z")
\*\* John Mace\*\*- That is a start but lets look at what other people recieved: > [@](#): > > More than a dozen other lower-ranking officers, whose names were not released, also received various punishments. > > # Three majors were given letters of reprimand and one of the three also was given an unspecified administrative punishment. > > # Three captains are to be court-martialed, one captain is to be given an other-than-honorable discharge from the Army, five captains received letters of reprimand, and one was given an unspecified administrative punishment. > > # Two first lieutenants will be court-martialed, another got a letter of reprimand and one was given administrative punishment. > > # One second lieutenant was given an other-than-honorable discharge and another was given a letter of reprimand. > > # Two chief warrant officers are to be court-martialed. Letters of f’in reprimand and some court-martials for torture endemic to the system? Heads ought to be rollin for this and there ought to be jail time for any officer in the chain of command aware of the torture. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853/100 "2005-06-05T23:04:46Z")
> [@treis](#): > > \*\* John Mace\*\*- That is a start but lets look at what other people recieved: Hey, I was just responding to the person who said “nothing” had been done. That was incorrect. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-the-koran-wasnt-flushed-but/306853.md?page=6)