Show of Farce

Other articles alleging Koran desecration by American interrogators have appeared in the press here and abroad. The March issue of Harper's, for example, carried an account given by a former Afghan detainee to a Daniel Rothenberg, identified as a human rights researcher. The former prisoner recounted many abuses including the following:

" . . . Then they would throw the Holy Koran on the ground or drop it in the latrine. This made us very upset."

In summary, similar allegations, based on prisoner accounts, have been aired by the International Committee of the Red Cross and others. The Pentagon's position is that its rules against mishandling the Koran are stringent and that these prisoners are lying to foment trouble.

The Pentagon has so far declined to make public the Southern Command report. The White House has still never apologized for, or retracted, its false claims about weapons of mass destruction and imminent threat.

Those are the sounds of secrecy. They are not quiet things. They are the wild, unloosed sounds of the inmates in full control of the asylum.