Juan Cole - May 14, 2005 Part 2

Afghan Newspaper: US Must Apologize for Koran Desecration
More Deaths in Demonstrations on Friday

An Afghan newspaper has said that the US must apologize for the desecration of the Koran alleged to have happened at Guantanamo prison. This is correct. President Bush should just come out and say that this allegation appeared in Newsweek; that the US military cannot yet confirm whether or not it happened; that if it did happen it is unacceptable and the US sincerely apologizes for the excesses of the interrogators, but we hope it never happened. And if Bush just did that (what would it cost him?), the whole thing would go away and the neo-Taliban would lose it as an issue. Bush is unwise to have let this thing feste for so long, and he can't let Condi be the one who speaks on it, because that is not where the buck stops and everyone in the Muslim world knows it.