Sacredness of Flags

I am trying to contextualize the accusation, one of many brought by FBI members against Gitmo interrogators, that they tortured their prisoners by means such as wrapping them in the Israeli flag.

I hope to do this by emphasizing the potential "sacredness" of flags in general and those containing religious symbolism in particular by reference to the Saudi flag -- "sacredness" as I understand it implying the capacity to trigger deep numinous / archetypal experience in those for whom its sacredness is operative: the inverse of which, disrespect for the sacred, is desecration, or as Juan Cole puts it, blasphemy.

I suspect also that Professor Cole has the matter to rights in observing that the "torture" in the case of the Israeli flag very likely involved the taking of photographs:

The Guardian notes that the American Civil Liberties Union acquired documents about the treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners that suggest that torture was used, and that it was actually authorized by President Bush. The documents also reveal that one torture technique was to wrap a prisoner in an Israeli flag. I'm puzzled by that one ... My guess is that the prisoners' pictures were taken while wrapped in the Israeli flag, as a way of humiliating and possibly blackmailing them. You just have to scratch your head and wonder if the Bush administration is determined gradually to give supporting evidence for every single one of the anti-American stereotypes current in the Muslim world.

I suppose it doesn't occur to the US interrogators that the Israeli flag has the Star of David on it, which is a religious symbol, and that they were desecrating the Jewish faith by this technique. If I were the Israelis, I'd complain loudly about this blasphemy.

Juan Cole, Informed Comment, 22 December 2004