Posted on 04/03/2011 6:05:16 PM PDT by jfd1776
In a small town in Florida on March 20, the pastor of a small church held a public event: burning a koran for his audience and a video camera. His American Christian audience reacted as one would expect from them: they were happy to be a part of this provocative event; they returned to their homes and jobs after the service, and went on with their lives.
The world continued to turn… nobody of substance cared about Pastor Jones’ latest attempt at news coverage… until almost two weeks later, when it made the news half a planet away, in Afghanistan.
The president of Afghanistan denounced the event; imams and mullahs hammered it in their mosques. Their Afghan muslim audience reacted as one would expect from them: they streamed out into the streets, hunting down foreigners, beating hundreds of UN aides, NATO staffers, contractors, travelers, journalists, soldiers… rioting in the streets, burning the shops in their own neighborhoods, destroying property, attacking innocent bystanders. At least a hundred injuries and dozens of killings were confirmed by the second day of the riots.
In a world in which thousands die tragically every day – from starvation to murder, from disease and neglect – these events might not seem particularly newsworthy. When aren’t there riots in that part of the world? When aren’t innocents killed? It happens every day.
Continue reading at http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2011/04/a-chilling-study-in-cause-and-effect.html
(Excerpt) Read more at illinoisreview.typepad.com ...
Our troops are at war with those who could care less if you insult them or not...their only purpose is to incite the masses and that needs no provocation....they have already determined the masses who moved were influenced and driven by outsiders using this Koran Burning to to do. They will move them at will when ever they choose and need nothing to act as they have and will.
You couldn’t find one veteran who would say he was willing to die so some publicity hound could burn a Koran. In fact, almost all would look at you like you were nuts.
Your leap in logic was dazzling completely invalid but dazzling none the less.
Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.
As I said earlier they are terrorized by the militants willing to kill them. Just as in other totalitarian controlled nations the majority is controlled by a violent minority.
Italians were terrorized into silence about the mafia and organized crime in Sicily and the US for decades (over a century in the case of Sicily.) But that did not mean they all supported or agreed with the mafia.
My view of religion is that only a small group really buys into them all the way. Most people are born into a religion and it is just another aspect of their culture. As far as this goes with a Christian the closer he is to the teachings of Jesus the better person he is and the further away from them he gets the worse a person he is. For a Muslim the closer he is to the teachings and behavior of Mohamad the worse a person he is, the further away from them he is the better a person he is.
BTAIM there are millions of Muslims who have supported us and worked closely with us in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I agree with you that discussions with the militants would likely be fruitless but there are Muslims who have converted and who are not dead. Some of these are active Christian ministers and are doing marvelous things educating people about the nature of Islam.
Actually what we have been seeing the last 70-80 years is a reaction to the West having such an impact in the Islamic world. Most of these countries were fairly secular until the rise of the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1920s. Their governments were variously Ba’athist, socialist, Kingdoms all influenced heavily by the West with Islamists taking a back seat way back. Unfortunately, the corruption of those secularists paved the way for the Islamists claiming to be concerned about the People’s rights.
The troops should be taken out. This incident proves the area is beyond hope. Not worth another American life.
Sure they will but that does not mean we should do stupid and/or counterproductive things.
Lies can be mighty things for a short time but eventually run aground against reality. Let the whackjobs use Lies eventually they will be destroyed by them.
Exactly. This whole episode shows that we don’t have the balls to win. Just like in Vietnam.
OK that is an honest statement. I don’t agree with it but I can respect it. We are a nation which is called to an extremely high calling and, as far as I can see, it has to do with making the voice of the people be operative in the affairs of man. I do know that the Founders believed they were founding a great empire whose foundations provided men with the opportunity to experience Freedom.
We are unavoidably called to expand and share that freedom and when we are NOT involved in foreign affairs it is always worse for the world and us. Dealing with the Islamic world is tough because we are involved in a true “clash of civilizations.” These are long-term conflicts and ten and twenty year periods are truly short from a historical perspective.
When we initially went into Afghanistan and Iraq to me the dirty little secret was that it would be for fifty years. I mean we still have forces in Germany and Japan 75 years after World War II ended and the Islamic world is much more difficult to bend to our ways.
American outposts there would be beacons of civilizations there around which modern forces and ideas would coalesce. This is not a short term thing. But at a minimum what must come out of it is the conviction by the world that terrorist bases will not be allowed to establish themselves with the idea of attacking the United States or its allies.
This incident in the grand scheme of things is relatively insignificant.
Our founders wanted to extend freedom to people who were willing to fight for it. Who wanted it. Not have somebody else shed blood for it and hand it to them as an unappreciated gift.
People who are mentally stuck in the 15th century don't deserve our young American lives.
It is my understanding that the Romans also consider Islam to be a heretical branch of Christianity. But I do not claim any expertise in this line of analysis. To me the Koran is a confused mess concocted out of dabs of this and bits of that. And I would venture to say that you won't find any Muslims who believe that Islam is a heretical variant of Christianity.
Whenever there have been book burnings by religious authorities they were not done for self-aggrandizement of an individual priest but as official acts. Those who, like Savonarola, burned books were generally renegades.
Sure that and Preacher Phony. I am sure I can come up with several more if you like. Yeah, I am not up to the standards of the guy who called one group “a generation of vipers” but I try when appropriate.
Most people I disagree with I try to be polite.
Your frustration is understandable but I can’t see any way that our becoming less involved will help us in any way. If we abandon this area to the Taliban how long do you think it will be before Pakistan falls to the hands of Islamists?
And you know they have nukes. And, I, and probably you would guess that India will not stand idly by and get nuked. So the prospect of nuclear war becomes far greater and that will involve us big time whether we like it or not.
It seems to me that we are at a period in history similar to pre-WWI Europe and the diplomats are feeling their way around in the dark. That turned out to be a disaster this could make then look like kindergarten.
We don’t have any real good options here only less destructive ones.
The fact that the Christian minister's unchristian publicity stunt had the result it did proves he was right to begin with, does it not?
It tells us all we need to know all we need to know about Islam (even those of you in Rio Linda).
It is no mystery that Islam is a violence prone religion.
What will he prove next, that water is wet? Maybe he will stick his head in a tub of it and stay there for a hour thereby proving that it cannot be breathed, too.
You're the one with blood on your hands. You are personally responsible for the Muslims murdering all those people. You. Personally.
Why? Because in the rest of the ENTIRE world, this behavior is seen as indefensible murder. But people like you give a pass to mass murdering maniacs merely because they say they are doing it for religious reasons. And because people like you excuse their behavior, they continue to commit murder.
How does it feel to be an actual, genuine monster? How does it feel to look in the mirror and be able to say that you have actually, directly help slaughter human beings?
You are the monster.
You.
Does this offend you?
Should you be able to legally slaughter me and my family because I offended you?
Should I be able to legally slaughter you and your family because you offended me?
What if we back it with claims to religion?
No?
Then you are a hypocrite.
And a murderer.
You.
No, every drop of blood is on the hands of the trash who killed those people.
How can you say it's his fault??
I'll be the first to admit that when things like this are done, the risk level increases for those of us in the Middle East.
I was here when the Abu Ghraib story broke and hell yeah, there was a significant uptick in mortars and rockets coming in on our bases.
But the response to this sort of thing should NOT be any form of appeasement EVER.
OK, somebody burned a Koran. We have the freedom of expression, so the guy didn't violate any laws by burning that Koran.
Our response to the resultant murders of innocents should be to BOMB THE HELL out of the mosque these savages spilled from and then find as many of the perps as possible and EXECUTE THEM swiftly. Do like we did to Zarqawi in '06.
All this wimpy talk from idiots like Reid, Kerry and Graham is just worsening the situation.
And don't EVEN get me started on the idiocy of asking our women soldiers to wear the hijab...
However, they should fear and respect us, and if they don't, then kill them.
Further, I seriously doubt this made the troops jobs harder. As long as they are in these hell-holes, the Muslims will want to kill them. They are our enemies, and like the Nazis SHOULD be insulted at every opportunity.
As far as the peaceful Muslims that are said to exist, well they are not being very effective at controlling their own extremists, are they? Besides, the peaceful Muslims, such as they are, are having to deliberately ignore the commands of their “prophet”, which tell them to go out and convert, subjugate, or kill the “infidel”
That's you and me, Buddy.
All of which ignores the point that the Rev Jones right to burn any number of Korans, or use them as toilet paper, is more important than any other consideration of hurt feelings or increased difficulty. Remember, the slaughtered in these riots were not American military personnel, but unarmed foreigners. Even the soldiers had been ordered not to fire on the rioting “civilians”
Sheer cowardice and stupidity.
We’re not seriously involved right now.
We are baby sitters who leave our soldiers out to dry.
We back a corrupt leader who ignited this latest mess by broadcasting to his fellow citizens about the Koran burning incident.
But for him, they wouldn’t even know about it.
If we can’t get serious, get out now.
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