I think the facts are the pages of the Koran were put down a toilet in an effort to cause it to back up and create a "flood."
The person who tore the pages out and deposited them in the toilet was a prisoner, not a guard. The original story didn't attribute the action to anybody. Newsweek jumped to the conclusion and published that it was a guard action
Newsweek should be hauled into court for this stunt. Their stupidity and bias has caused loss of human life. Treasonous action
I read it here, and don't recall the original source that the post cited.
Reading around a little bit, I find that the Islamic tendency to resort to violence was incited by an amplification of Newsweek's paragraph.
Although the original report in Newsweek was small, it was re-broadcast by television networks such as al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya and in Pakistan it was quoted by Imran Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician, at a press conference. He said it would strengthen the impression that America's War on Terror was against Muslims.Ahhh - here is a source for the "prisoner did it" version. It was Gen. Myers, citing Gen. Craddock and a written log entry. I'm sure many Muslims would NEVER believe a story that a true Muslim would desecrate the Koran. A report of that would also be taken as an excuse to riot, as the infidels were printing lies.Newsweek sparks global riots with one paragraph on Koran - By Catherine Philp - May 14, 2005
Gen. Myers told reporters in Washington that Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, the head of U.S. Southern Command, has "been in Guantanamo for the last couple of days digging into this issue to see if there was a time when the Koran was not respected."ANd finally, here is an opinion piece that blames the Muslims for rioting, and belittles the State Department for appeasement."They have looked through the logs, the interrogation logs, and they cannot confirm yet that there was ever the case of the toilet incident," Gen. Myers said.
He did note "a log entry, which they still have to confirm, where a detainee was reported by a guard to be ripping pages out of a Koran and putting them in a toilet to stop it up as a protest," he said. "But not where the U.S. did it."
Koran flushing not confirmed - Guy Taylor - Wash. Times - May 13, 2005
MIM: As was to be expected, an investigation proved that no incidents of Korans being put on or into toilets had ever taken place at Gitmo. The last two days are a case study in conspiracy and mass hysteria in the Muslim world, and illustrate the profound gap between the Muslim world and the West. As of today the death tolls stand at 7 people who were killed in riots after the story was circulated that American guards at Guatanamo Bay had 'desecrated' the Koran by flushing it into a toilet.The absurdity of the charge, which would have resulted in plumbing problems, and been technically impossible, was never raised. Instead, US officials showed abject dhimmitude and squirmed while decrying the (unproven) mistreatment of what they called "The Holy Koran". Now that the truth, has emerged, namely that a Muslim prisoner is reported to have put pages of the Koran in a toilet to clog it , the state department and military have been more worried about appeasing Muslim rage instead of agressively asserting the facts. As a result of this dhimmitude protests have spread to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Gaza.Indeed, it looks like the beginning of a world wide Jihad - sparked by a Muslim who put the pages of his Koran in an American surpervised toilet at Gitmo in what can only be termed - the filth and the fury.