I'm going to read the full Senate report this weekend but I am struck by one footnote a reader directed me to. It's a memo related to the torture of Qahtani in Gitmo, written January 17, 2003, and documented that he had been "forced to pray to an idol shrine." One recalls similar abuse of religious freedom at Abu Ghraib, which the Senate report unequivocally blames on official policy at the highest levels:
One Muslim inmate was allegedly forced to eat pork, had liquor forced down his throat and told to thank Jesus that he was alive. He recounted in broken English: ''They stripped me naked, they asked me, 'Do you pray to Allah?' I said, 'Yes.' They said 'F - - - you' and 'F - - - him.' '' Later, this inmate recounts: ''Someone else asked me, 'Do you believe in anything?' I said to him, 'I believe in Allah.' So he said, 'But I believe in torture and I will torture you.'
This from an administration more deeply committed to public Christianity than any other in recent times; and from a military one of whose commanders had publicly pronounced:
"We're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan."