Your response is EXACTLY why the Freedom of Speech is appropriate to the INDIVIDUAL and not the collective.
Clearly this other person disagrees and should act as HE sees fit and reap the consequences. You should not - nor should I or 0bama or Petraeus - have the ability to shut down this INDIVIDUAL’s right to Free Speech because none of us can predict the future and we, as a collective, have no business trying to take away this person’s INDIVIDUAL protected rights.
You do not have a “right” if other people can take it away with peer pressure.
We have as much of a right to denounce this “pastor” as he has the right to burn a Koran.
Freedom of speech works both ways.
I disagree. Peer pressure is a valid exercise of the rights of individuals as well. Your right to say what you want doesn't preclude my right to make you look like an idiot for saying or doing stupid things.
My objection is to an agent of the government, a high-ranking military official particularly, threatening a citizen's exercise of their freedom of speech by blaming them ahead of time for the deaths of soldiers.
It may not have been quite as eggregious if he had simply noted that attacks on the Muslim faith do stir up opposition to our efforts to placate the local population, without singling out the guy and suggesting that dead soldier's families should blame the guy for their deaths.
No government official should have ANY comment about a specific individual's exercise of their freedoms, because it serves a chilling effect. Comment on the message, not on whether or not the person should be making the message.
But other private citizens have every right to attack the guy for his actions, to call him a fool, and to make public pleas for him to change his course of action.