Reportedly as many as 20 U.N. workers were killed today in Afghanistan during a protest turned violent, and at least two of the dead were beheaded. Demonstrators were protesting the March 20 burning of a Koran by controversial Gainesville, Fla., preacher Terry Jones.
Jones had threatened to burn Korans last September 11 to mark the anniversary of the attacks on America by a group of Muslim extremists. He was pressured, talked, or bribed out of doing it, to the great relief of an anxious nation. But apparently he was determined to carry out his threat sooner or later; on March 20 — “International Judge the Koran Day” — he conducted a mock trial of the Muslim holy book. The book was found guilty of causing murder, rape, and terrorism and was burned.
There was no way under American law to stop Jones’ actions last September, and while he was eventually dissuaded, it was not until after he’d been given far more than his 15 minutes of fame by our ogling media. To the media’s credit, they stayed relatively quiet about the recent book burning. Still, word reached Afghanistan, with deadly results.
An Islamophobic Christian preacher, protected by our Constitution, deliberately desecrates the holy book of more than a billion Muslims. Outraged Muslims half a world away in Afghanistan react violently and kill U.N. workers, none of whom were American.
So who’s to blame for this tragedy? Where does the responsibility lie?
Are you sure?
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Update: A later story in the New York Times gives more details of the incident.
If only this was another April fool joke.
Let’s blame ourselves first for always looking for someone or something to blame.
And second place goes to our ogling media as you aptly put it.
As an ordained minister of the Church Of The Apathetic Agnostic, I’m accepting no blame for what religious nuts do. And NUTS is the only way I can describe people who bury their daughters alive or stone them to death for indulging in sex out of wedlock, or people who believe in talking snakes and burn heretics, witches and Korans. And worse… so much worse is the fact that these idiots on both sides think that their despicable actions will reserve them a spot in an imaginary heaven.