The recent Newsweek story about a U.S. Army interrogator flushing a Koran may be false, but sadly has instant credibility to it, given the reports of prisoner abuse that the American armed forces have been found guilty of lately. I am disturbed that official reaction to the inaccurate news implies that even if the flushing took place, it should not have been revealed in the press, that such revelation further tarnishes the American reputation and puts American lives in danger.

We Americans are hurt by any infraction we have collective responsibility for, and that includes a lack of transparency, proper repentance and restitution. We must finally ask, is a covert life worth living?

Such treatment of the Koran is vile, but so is the confiscation and trashing of Bibles in many Islamic and communist countries, with their owners suffering oppression, imprisonment and, too often, death at the hands of fellow citizens.

Americans may not erupt in violent demonstrations against such behavior and neither should they, but there is an eerie, apathetic silence in the land of the free, and sense of moral confusion about freedom and its requirements, here or abroad.

Greg Boardman, Auburn