Little known pastor wannabe Terry Jones plans to misuse his free speech rights to outrage 1 billion people throughout the Muslim world. We can call this treason, given how it will give aid and comfort to Islamic extremists to kill U.S. troops!
Right now thousands of U.S. troops are still in harm's way as they occupy two volatile Muslim nations (Afghanistan and Iraq) and await the official word they can finally leave behind doing an endless, thankless task of nation -building. No matter how one feels about either of these deficit -exploding military occupations (and I'm foursquare opposed to each!), the last thing one wants to see is more of 0ur troops being slain for nothing. In other words, the ultimate reward for all and sundry will be getting them all home in one piece!
Not making their safety any more secure is a certain nutball Florida pastor (yeah, they grow like mold down there) who plans to hold a mass Qu'ran burning on the 9th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. This despite the fact that Islamic sources- itching to stir up their faithful - have already posted videos of his announced intentions, setting off riots in Kabul and elsewhere. If this whacko carries out his moronic intentions, then you can be sure not only will mass riots occur throughout the Muslim world, but that many U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan may be in jeopardy. A number may well lose their lives because of this creep.
Tuesday, no less than Gen. David Petraeus- who has the responsibility for the mission in Afghanistan and his troops safety - basically pleaded with Jones to find some other way to express his discontents, rather than risking troop welfare. Jones, wedded to his enormous ego (which never should have received the attention it did from the media in the first place) has rebuffed the General and vowed to go ahead.
The biggest danger? Muslims overseas will interpret the extremist actions of those like Jones (and the other idiots protesting the construction of the Cordoba Civic Center - though that is less inflammatory) as reflecting mainstream American attitudes, as opposed to the insane beliefs of a few nut balls in need of electro-convulsive therapy and thorazine.
More specifically, Gen. Petraeus' concerns are focused on how Jones' desecration of one of the world's main holy books will outrage ordinary Afghans his troops are trying to pacify in order to get the nation to at least a stage of semi-stability. Afghans are already distrustful of the Americans and their mission, having seen numerous instances of their families indiscriminately killed by drone attacks. The Jones' caper to burn the Muslim holy book in a vast pyre will only add fuel to the fire and who knows where it'll end?
Jones and his moronic, bigoted supporters don't appear to consider this, OR to consider how the first match set to the Islamic holy books will be on 'Youtube' and then copied and circulated by extremists to be seen throughout the world! The objective: to inflame public opinion, and especially as a recruitment tool for perhaps thousands more terrorists.
In other words, Jones - by his actions- will have actually given aid and comfort to the extant and putative enemy and made it more difficult to stop their future attacks. This is, to put it bluntly, treason. Treason is not "free speech" and never can be. Free speech would be Jones making a declaration or a speech - on whatever soapbox he chooses- to denounce the sections of the Qu'ran he finds objectionable and give reasons for doing so. It is not free speech to burn thousands of these books when you know the whole world is watching, and especially militants who don't require that much added incentive to go kill your troops with IEDs or sniper fire. In other words, it is not free speech to yell 'FIRE!' in a crowded theater, which is very close to what Jones intends.
In this guise, we as Americans must bear in mind that to over 1 billion people in the world (a world which we must share) the Qu'ran is sacred and the word of Allah. It is treated with deep respect and any defiling of it considered a grave offense. The "Christians" (and I deliberately use scare quotes here) who see nothing wrong in Jones treasonous antics, need to consider how they'd feel if some Imam collected a heap of three thousand King James Bibles and turned them into a pyre.
Let's also bear in mind, that - in terms of featuring the rapes, slaughter, and genocide of innocents (including tiny infants), the King James Bible is unparalleled. The Old Testament 'Book of Joshua' alone contains an account of the Jewish conquest of Canaan ca. 1200 B.C.E. According to this "war document", the jealous and imperious Jewish God ordered the mass extermination of the Canaanites - including all infants put to the sword. Can it be that "Christians" who accept the KJV and the Book of Joshua accept genocide?
Well, we may infer that most right thinking real Christians do not, because: a) they don't take every word in their book literally, and b) they are enjoined to leave the 'old law' and its assumed ways (under Yahweh) behind and replace it with the new law, which is "to love their God with all their heart, mind and soul" and "to love each other". Jesus' words, not mine. In other words, they are enjoined to leave behind the autocratic dictator who slaughtered millions to appease theocratic Jewish blood rites, and customs.
If a certain sect of crazy "Christians" existed who justified the genocide of the Canaanites(or anyone else flouting their presumed edicts) , we could certainly understand Muslims, atheists, agnostics and others getting together to burn their good Book in a massive pyre. It would represent a rejection of a barbaric mode of thought, and would likely inflame only a few thousand crazies, if that.
Jones' proposed treasonous antics, meanwhile, threaten to inflame nearly a billion people - despite the fact he's one screw loose nutball in one pea-sized Florida swamp village. But in the age of the internet and Youtube, all actions (even of nuts that demand their fifteen minutes of "fame") are exaggerated and magnified. In this case to parlous and perilous dimensions.
A pity that if he carries through with getting his fifteen minutes, he'll likely leave Afghanistan a ruined wreck for more than fifteen years, and hundreds of thousands of innocent people to pay for his craziness in the aftermath. All because he insisted on yelling "Fire!" in a world with 24/7 global monitoring by billions and living on a knife-edge between stability and chaos.
1 comment:
I see that even the Right's darling, Sarah Palin, has called Jones and begged him to "stand down". Also, evangelicals Pat Robertson and Rev. Franklin Graham (Billy's son) have begged him to stand down and don't risk the lives of truths over something "stupid" (Robertson's own words))
And this is exactly what it is: STUPIDIITY not "allowing terrorists to use our freedoms against us" as that idiot brother of your insists. But then he's another 'nutball' anyway.
Anybody who defends what this turd plans to do has no conception of freedom because as you said, never mind the books are his own property and he's doing it on private property the fact remains the whole world will be watching. Therefore, it will be a public desecration that will outrage hundreds of millions.
A pity that those like "Pastor Mike" can't or won't see that, instead comparing it to letting atheists get away with "blasphemy" by using "Jeebus". What an IDIIOT!
The deliberate use of the pseudo word 'jeebus' has nothing to do with 'Jesus' and even if it did, the use of it *rather than 'Jesus'* would indicate precisely the opposite of blasphemy!
Question: How did you and that moron get born into the same family? Doesn't make any sense, none at all.
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