Monday, May 16, 2005
TOILET TEST
About this Newsweek claim that a Koran was flushed at Guantanamo Bay; why didn’t anybody first check if such a feat was possible? Books generally don’t flush too well, as anybody who’s received a copy of Attack Poodles will be aware. Seeking empirical data, Frank Salvato conducted a field test:
For the purposes of my experiment I chose a Newsweek magazine. I then tried to flush the Newsweek magazine down my American-made toilet. That was a mistake!
Let me suggest to you that the biggest object you can get down the toilet before it clogs is considerably less than something the size of a Quran.
Seems obvious, when you think about it. Imran Khan didn’t, as Newsweek reports:
The spark was apparently lit at a press conference held on Friday, May 6, by Imran Khan, a Pakistani cricket legend and strident critic of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Brandishing a copy of that week’s NEWSWEEK (dated May 9), Khan read a report that U.S. interrogators at Guantánamo prison had placed the Qur’an on toilet seats and even flushed one. “This is what the U.S. is doing,” exclaimed Khan, “desecrating the Qur’an.” His remarks, as well as the outraged comments of Muslim clerics and Pakistani government officials, were picked up on local radio and played throughout neighboring Afghanistan. Radical Islamic foes of the U.S.-friendly regime of Hamid Karzai quickly exploited local discontent with a poor economy and the continued presence of U.S. forces, and riots began breaking out last week.
Hmm. Imran (an eternally political opportunistic prick, incidentally, even as a cricketer) seemed only to be paraphrasing Newsweek. All factors cited—crazy clerics, nutso Islamic foes, “the continued presence of US forces” etc—were already in place when the magazine was published; being aware of that, Newsweek’s story didn’t so much cause the riots as provide an excuse for those lusting for riots on the slightest Koran-flushing premise. Give these lunatics an inch and they’ll take a life. Or 15, as it happens.