Thou Shalt Not Flush

Here we go again, another declaration of shananigans.

A group of Afghan Muslim clerics have threatened to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it hands over military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Quran.

The warning on Sunday came after 16 Afghans were killed and more than 100 hurt last week in the worst anti-U.S. protests across the country since U.S. forces invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.

The clerics in the northeastern province of Badakhshan said they wanted U.S. President George W. Bush to handle the matter honestly "and hand the culprits over to an Islamic country for punishment."

"If that does not happen within three days, we will launch a jihad against America," said a statement issued by about 300 clerics.

The really fun part about all this, of course, is that Newsweek's anonymous source may have been remembering a report that a Muslim detainee tore pages out of a Qur'an and flushed them, to clog the toilet in protest.

The other fun part is that Gitmo policy since 2003 has permitted only chaplains to touch copies of the Qur'an, and even then they must do so only while wearing rubber gloves. Heather MacDonald chronicles just what cream-puffs we've become.

UPDATE: Krap King introduces the Islamoflusher, large and square enough for all your holy book flushing needs. Heh.