He may not have made himself very clear, but it's obvious from context that he was NOT implying some sort of moral equivalence between terrorists and American military & emergency workers. This is a molehill.
To use our heroes as an analogy comparing those murdering islamofascists is disgusting. That he doesn't get it is even worse, but IMO, he certainly does get it.
I agree.
I think that we do our own position a disservice when we make a big deal about this kind of stuff. We need to distinguish between out and out fabrication and sloppy journalism ala Dan Rather.
There are people willing to die for the cause on BOTH sides. That is a statement of fact. The difference is that one side dies to save the innocent, the other side dies to kill them. Thus the moral difference between us and them. Its possible that Williams was simply addressing the fact that dying for a cause is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. It's what cause you are dying for that determines who is moral/immoral.
If we expect our people to be understood in context, we need to do the same for those with whom we disagree.