Abuse Claims All The Rage

Thanks to a certain Senator with whom I have profound disagreements, claims of abuse and desecration of the Qur'an by former detainees at Guantanamo Bay now seem to be all the rage. Even worse is the media still appears to be buying, despite the fact that the vast majority of claims have been debunked and the claims get more outrageous with time.

The AP publishes the following claims from Pakistani ex-detainees, with nary a note of skepticism:

During interrogation, whenever I would make a reference to the Quran they would hit me in the face with a copy. They would tear it into pieces. They would tell me that Quran teaches us terrorism...They would throw Quran in a bucket of urine. They would tear the Quran and throw it at our faces...inmates staged a hunger strike in protest, and were then tortured with electric shocks...Girls would interrogate us. They would take off their clothes in front of us. They would make different poses in front of us and they would sit on our chests.

Then, in another report from Russia, where the detainee called a press conference for the fawning media, come these claims:

In Cuba, they used to throw the Quran in the toilet bowl. This happened regularly and was intended to provoke us...in Kandahar, they tore up copies of the Quran and even put it in a bucket of feces

Both stories end with the equivalent of a footnote of truth by regurgitating a boilerplate - and true - comment from the Pentagon that al-Qaida training manuals instruct prisoners to make such false charges.

Obviously the enemy has figured out how to push the buttons of the international community, mainstream media and Muslim radicals all at once. The question is, when if ever will the media realize they're being manipulated?