Koran reality

You'll recall the recent controversy over how our troops in Gitmo handle the Koran, with Newsweek fanning the flames and the MSM in general throwing fuel on the fire. I haven't posted on this previously because I really couldn't think of any way to respond with descending into anger and foul language directed at the media. Roger Kimball at the New Criterion took care of this for me; in a new column he nails it:

Should we laugh or cry at this exhibition of politically correct hyper-sensitivity? By all means, let us treat prisoners with the dignity and respect they lack in their own lives. Let us not besmirch or ridicule the Koran. But let us also preserve some rudimentary contact with reality. These people are terrorists and suspected terrorists. Many--probably most--of them have dedicated their lives to slaughtering innocent Westerners, inspired, note well, by the very document our soldiers are enjoined to handle as a “fragile piece of delicate art” (as distinct, one supposes from a “sturdy piece of delicate art”). Operating in the realm of fiction, Evelyn Waugh might have made an amusing episode out of this absurdity (talk about “Black Mischief”!) Perambulating in the precincts of real life, however, we should have the fortitude to acknowledge that the comedy has gone rancid. Those sections of the army’s “Detention Operations Group Standard Operating Procedures” that bear on the Koran should be respectfully excised, using only the right hand. They should then be carefully conveyed in a “clean, dry detainee towel” to the nearest outhouse and . . . flushed down the toilet.

That's his conclusion, but you won't want to miss the whole thing.