Update. ABC continues coverage of the fight in Kunar Province
The 101st Airborne Takes On the Taliban in Afghanistan
by Mike Boettcher and Maggy Patrick
Update Two. ABC concludes coverage of the fight in Kunar Province
Afghanistan: Gen. David Petraeus Honors Fallen Heroes in Kunar Battle
by Mike Boettcher and Kristina Wong
Comments
Victor,
Their ignorant hate doesn't justify your fascist hate. The US shouldn't be getting overly bent about the ignorant violence half a world away that was spawned by a hater zealot in the US.
There's no basis in morality or law for somehow prohibiting immigration and travel to the US based on declarations of religion. There is no logical or moral basis to somehow subjecting the citizenry to some tiered level of rights based on religion either. I'd like to point out that the majority of terroristic violence in the past 20 years has been carried out by the religious and political extreme right. The only serious attempts to insert any sort of religious law into the US legal system have come from the religious right as well with attempts to put the biblical 10 commandments inside courts, government buildings, and public schools. Those activities are as repulsive as any other religion would be to attempt the same, it's just for their fanatical believers, they're the poison of choice.
Governmental fiscal problems generated by an unwillingness of large corporations & the hyper-wealthy to pay their fair share have nothing to do with, nor do they in any way justify your extremist polemic.
Your comment was no end of badly thought out logic, but it's certainly proof that the separation of church and state is a wonderful part of the US Constitution. Personally I'm a lot more worried about the extreme & radical right, fascism is the same threat it was back when the greatest generation spent most of their time shooting Nazis. It's sad to see people like you embracing their ideals while rejecting core American values and laws.
A young woman in Colorado named Ann Barnhardt watched Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) holding forth on television yesterday about the necessity for rolling back the First Amendment in order not to anger Muslims. This did not sit well with her, and she made a two-part video for YouTube expressing her outrage, and vigorously affirming her right to patriotic dissent.
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2011/04/manifesto-of-evil-totalitaria…
All I said was that hate speech is not protected by the first amendment. It is an assessment by the Supreme Court as to what is hate speech. We look at holy books through a western lens, so are unlikely to find this as a form of unprotected hate speech. A court with a greater appreciation for the true nature and magnitude of this act would find that it is not protected.
Arrest the guy and let him argue it in court. I believe that the prosecutors could get a finding of probable cause to support the arrest.
I can't imagine that Muslims have a higher view of the Koran than Catholics (and Orthodox) have of the Blessed Sacrament; yet desecrating the Blessed Sacrament is not a crime in the United States, and small minded people who do so sometimes post videos of it on the Internet. So far, I haven't seen Catholics picking out random non-Catholics for mistreatment on the basis that these things have been done.
That said, most Muslims didn't do anything in response to this clown, either. It was a very small number in a couple of discreet parts of Afghanistan who did so. These violent "responses" were nothing of the sort; they were instances of people with an interest in destabilising Afghanistan using a pathetic stunt half a world away to justify actions which they knew to be wrong.
To suggest that this is somehow a typical Muslim response is to badly mis-read the situation - and it is to suggest (however unintentionally) that Muslims do not have the same moral agency as the rest of the world. That's not very generous, to say the least.
"Petraeus is not pandering, and we would not be outside the realm of the reasonable to arrest the good Reverend on charges of treason.
("Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.")"
Reasonable? I don't think so. Not in a million years. Not in the United States of America. All the more reason why it's past time to call it a day on this misguided social experiment. East is east and west is west. Never the twain shall meet.
Let 'em stew in their own juices. Let 'em live their own lives. Just put them on warning about export of their violence or their principles
Bob-
If you believe that one emerged from the other, then that line of reasoning really is disengenuous, isn't it? So, for instance, our Bill of Rights, etc., wouldn't have found any traction had we been a Moslem nation.
Metin Turcan's article on a Nirvana Fallacy to me speaks volumes about why that would emerge from one and not the other- one side believes in social justice, a rosy-colored past, religion/tradition/collective culture over individual rights- and the other side holds individual rights above most all else, equality of opportunity over social justice (for the most part), a focus on the future instead of the past, and systems that weaken religious/tradition/cultural ties.
This, in my opinion, explains the nuances of the Koran burning episode on both sides (both the rioting and the official NATO reaction). I have to believe most Americans wouldn't care about a book (perceived to be Holy or not) burning if the Afghans didn't riot and we didn't have soldiers there.
Bob's comment made me realize something: anyone else see the irony that lawmakers are clamoring for Julian Assange to be tried for endangering the lives of Coalition Forces(a charge that is as of yet unsubstantiated), yet Terry Jones who was directly involved in actions that cost real lives, not just political capital, is only exercising his First Amendment rights?
Actually, for what it is worth, given the Muslem belief that the Quran is a physical representation of God, I suspect that if the U.S. were a Muslim nation our Supreme Court would have held long ago that such actions as defacing or burning a Quran are unprotected by the Constitution as a form of hate speech.
We, of course, are not a Muslim nation, so we apply our Christian perspective to such holy books and see them as inanimate and not any different than any other book, but that they hold content "inspired by God."
Petraeus is not pandering, and we would not be outside the realm of the reasonable to arrest the good Reverend on charges of treason.
("Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.")
Perhaps he did not give them "Aid and Comfort" but he sure as hell gave them plenty of reason reavow their dedication to their cause and to increase their efforts against the US and our allies.
Could you imagine GEN Petraeus attempting to say the uncomfortable whole truth in a press statement?
"I personally condemn the actions of the preacher in Florida, but also freely admit that I have taken an oath- all U.S. soldiers have- to defend his right to do so."
I'd think if we did that it would "confirm" most(?) Afghans' (and others in the Moslem world?) hard-wired perception of us: that our way of life is in direct conflict with theirs.
I think this is just a symptom of a greater disconnect between the reasons we are there and our actions. We are there to keep AQ out, but we think establishing a Western nation-state and Western political infrastructure will get us there- when instead it is more likely to contribute to instability.
Chris:
Are you talking about "Muslims" as in Turkish troops helping us in Afghanistan, Malaysian hotel front desk clerks and the Syrian immigrant lady whom I just bought some olives from; or are you talking about the people who killed the UN workers who may have been Muslim? Are you advocating group responsibility for the illegal actions of some? If you are, some people overseas might find it perfectly acceptable to cut the throats of your relatives for what those young savages recently profiled in Rolling Stone did.
Also I think if Karzai were capable of getting all the Afghans in check he wouldn't need GEN Petreus nor would he care what he thought.
Muslims need to be held responsible for their violent behavior.
We are not doing them any favors by allowing this violent, childish behavior to continue. Granted, this pastor has stirred the bucket, but he didn't kill anyone, injure anyone, nor did he do anything illegal. However, the Muslim response was both wounding and fatal. Who is going to speak out against that??
I respect GEN P but when is he going to pull Karzai aside and tell him to get his people in check?
I would like to draw attention to the repugnant statement issued by General David Petraeus and NATO Ambassador Mark Sedwill:
KABUL, Afghanistan (April 3, 2011) - In view of the events of recent days, we feel it is important on behalf of ISAF [i.e., the International Security Assistance Force] and NATO members in Afghanistan to reiterate our condemnation of any disrespect to the Holy Quran and the Muslim faith. We condemn, in particular, the action of an individual in the United States who recently burned the Holy Quran.ââ¬Â¨Ã¢â¬Â¨
We also offer condolences to the families of all those injured and killed in violence which occurred in the wake of the burning of the Holy Quran.ââ¬Â¨Ã¢â¬Â¨
We further hope the Afghan people understand that the actions of a small number of individuals, who have been extremely disrespectful to the Holy Quran, are not representative of any of the countries of the international community who are in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people.
Notice he condemns the moron who torched the Koran -- um, Im sorry, the Holy Quran (including all its holy verses that command Muslims to strike terror into the hearts of unbelievers) -- but not a word of condemnation for the sadistic jihadist killers who struck terror into the hearts of the unbelievers. Rather, there is just an expression of sympathy for the families of those who were slain. And, of course, there is not a word of condemnation for our great ally, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the jihadi-pandering sleaze who did more to incite murder than the nutty Florida pastor did.
The warped moral universe weve turned into policy has become a national embarrassment. Leave aside the mind-bending idiocy of the Graham theory, under which it would have been condemnable to torch Das Capital during the Cold War. Our Middle East policymakers can no longer distinguish between evil and stupidity. They go out of their way to genuflect to the scriptures that catalyze our enemies while willfully ignoring bible burning, church burning and infidel burning, which are everyday events in Islamic countries. Their strategy prizes the lives of people who despise our country over the security of our troops. After a decade of our sacrifice, they have managed to birth states in which Americans are hated, religious minorities are persecuted, and people who attempt to convert from Islam face prosecution and -- unless they get whisked out of the country -- the death penalty. And now, theyve decide the big problem is not their skewed value-system but our First Amendment.
Enough. Petraeus says, "we are in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people." Is that why you thought we sent troops to Afghanistan? Is that what you think we should be doing in Afghanistan now? I am pretty confident that most Americans couldnt care less about the Afghan people, and I know the Afghan people couldnt care less about us -- except to the extent they trouble themselves to dislike us.
We got in this to defeat our enemies, and were ending up defeating ourselves and the principles for which we once stood. We never had any strategic vision of the global war, we had no stomach to follow through on the Bush Doctrine commitment to eradicate the rogue regimes that were behind the terror networks, and we decided we could outreach and democratize them into submission. Now we are predictably hoisted on our own petard as Islamists exploit our rhetoric to make themselves the champions of "democracy" -- meaning of elections that are bringing to power those who hate our country and whose ambition is to destroy Israel and the West. Obviously, no one in government is willing to change this policy, so lets end it.
What should our new policy be? We should have as little to do with Muslim countries as possible. At home, we should focus on the political and legal terrain with an eye toward:
(a) distinguishing between our allies in the American Muslim community (i.e., those who do not want to impose sharia on public life) and those who seek to undermine our constitutional system, so we can marginalize the latter;
(b) excluding from the United States aliens who would support supplanting the U.S. Constitution with a sharia system (i.e., revisiting the hash Congress and the courts have made regarding the reliance on anti-American ideology -- not just ties to violence -- as a basis for keeping non-Americans out of our country); and
(c) cutting off immigration from, and sharply reducing contacts with, Muslim countries until they take it on themselves to reform -- on separation of mosque and state, freedom of conscience, equality, interfaith tolerance, individual liberty, and unambiguous rejection of terrorism.
Not only is that a policy that can work, it is one an insolvent country can actually afford.