No sense of perspective

[RichLB]

GB, I agree that would have been more expedient, but to criticize the US for showing no more respect for the Koran than did the Muslim prisoners seems to be bending over backward to bash America. Where is the apology for the killing of innocents and using the disposal of the defaced Koran as an excuse?

[Gaybutton]

to criticize the US for showing no more respect for the Koran than did the Muslim prisoners seems to be bending over backward to bash America.

I agree with that too, but I think it's akin to the "Hey! I can criticize my boyfriend, but you can't!" type of thinking.

[fountainhall]

Most sane people surely realise that however sincere the apologies, whatever the true facts about the reasons behind the defacements and burning of the copies of the Koran, however rational people ought to react, the fact is that this is a no-win situation for anyone other than the terrorists - certainly not for the US and NATO troops on the ground.

There is a vdo on msnbc today which asks questions of Prof. Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics, in particuar about the Republican candidates' reaction to the situation and Obama’s apology. This is part of what he says:

It tells me how much ignorance there is among the top elite of the Republican Party - truly. And the incident itself reflects a great deal of how little we know about Afghanistan after being involved in the country for many, many years. The burning of the Koran is very important. As you know, the Koran has a very special place in Muslims' hearts. The citation of the Koran invokes the spirit of God, the real presence of God. So it's a very, very special holy text for Muslims.

But let me put it this way. I think the burning of the Koran is a spark. It's a spark that triggers the rage and the anger among Afghanis. Many Afghanis are fed up with their way of life. Dismal socio-economic conditions. The security situation is horrible. There's deepening alienation with the American military presence in Afghanistan. This is not just the first incident. Many Afghanis remember just seven days ago, a NATO attack killed seven children. A few days before the killing of children in Afghanistan, you have some American soldiers urinating on the corpses of the dead Taliban. The incidents reflect the perils of foreign intervention, and here you have the loaded polarized contexts in the United States. It tells you how difficult the Afghan mission has been.

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/martin-bashi ... /#46544481

[Captain Kirk]

Most sane people surely realise that however sincere the apologies, whatever the true facts about the reasons behind the defacements and burning of the copies of the Koran, however rational people ought to react, the fact is that this is a no-win situation for anyone other than the terrorists - certainly not for the US and NATO troops on the ground.

There is a vdo on msnbc today which asks questions of Prof. Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics, in particuar about the Republican candidates' reaction to the situation and Obama’s apology. This is part of what he says:

It tells me how much ignorance there is among the top elite of the Republican Party - truly. And the incident itself reflects a great deal of how little we know about Afghanistan after being involved in the country for many, many years. The burning of the Koran is very important. As you know, the Koran has a very special place in Muslims' hearts. The citation of the Koran invokes the spirit of God, the real presence of God. So it's a very, very special holy text for Muslims.

But let me put it this way. I think the burning of the Koran is a spark. It's a spark that triggers the rage and the anger among Afghanis. Many Afghanis are fed up with their way of life. Dismal socio-economic conditions. The security situation is horrible. There's deepening alienation with the American military presence in Afghanistan. This is not just the first incident. Many Afghanis remember just seven days ago, a NATO attack killed seven children. A few days before the killing of children in Afghanistan, you have some American soldiers urinating on the corpses of the dead Taliban. The incidents reflect the perils of foreign intervention, and here you have the loaded polarized contexts in the United States. It tells you how difficult the Afghan mission has been.

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/martin-bashi ... /#46544481

See there's the perspective thing I'm on about. The murders of those children - where is the uproar on that? I can understand the bombing if the taliban or Al Qaeda say "well that's for killing our children". But no, it's for burning...our books.
I have no idea why the West still has troops in there anyway. No matter when they leave there will be bombings and suchlike the day after most likely for many years thereafter as the local tribes and warlords fight for their piece of the pie.

[fountainhall]

See there's the perspective thing I'm on about.

But you are again taking the viewpoint of a westerner – not an Afghani!

Let’s face it; hundreds of civilians are killed in Afghanistan every year – many by NATO, the US and their Afghan allies. It’s such a common occurrence that to western reporters the outrage was just another piece of routine news.

Besides, these killings took place in an extremely remote and desperately poor village where there were no paved roads and almost no services of any kind. According to the New York Times, British, French and American representatives had visited the village to give personal apologies. To us killing children is a far more heinous crime than burning the Koran. Not so to the Afghanis.

We have to remember that not only is Afghanistan one of the most impoverished nations on the planet, its history has been one of almost perpetual war. As one website states:

It is one of the most war-torn, most ravaged, and most beleaguered of nations. It is a nation that has been beset by invasion, external pressure and internal upheaval since before the time of Alexander the Great. Its people are a people who have endured more than most of us can ever imagine. In fact, for many Afghanis, all that has changed in the last one thousand years are the weapons which have been used against so many of them.

http://www.afghangovernment.com/briefhistory.htm

When all you have known is death and destruction, when your country has almost always been a battlefield, when nations have invaded you for centuries - the death of a few children is not news - to Afghanis! It is something that only affects their families and their village. Burn the Koran and you insult the entire country. Western logic and western perspectives mean zilch - sadly.

[fountainhall]

Just to wrap up the discussion - or my part in it, there is an interesting piece in the New York Times in which an official investigating the 'burning' issue said -

. . . that the destruction could have been headed off at several points along a chain of mishaps, poor judgments and ignored procedures . . . an American official close to a joint Afghan-American investigation into the episode noted that the final report would call for disciplinary review for at least six people involved in the Koran burning, including American military “leaders” and an American interpreter. Afghans familiar with the case described the interpreter as an Afghan-American . . .

Some officials found the current case particularly troubling because it followed more than 10 years at war in the Muslim world, in which outrage over even the rumor of American defacement of Korans has caused previous crises in Afghanistan and Iraq . . . At the very least, the accounts of the Americans and the Afghans involved in the investigation offer a parable of the dire consequences of carelessness about Afghan values, despite the cultural training required for most American service members serving in Afghanistan.

(An) American military official did not go into details, but said only that “we overly rely around here on linguists,” the military term for interpreters and translators. “None of the U.S. soldiers can read this (the handwritten notes in the margins).” But the linguists were responsible only for the sorting of the books, not for the decision to burn them. It was in asking why the books were not simply stored that one of several faulty decisions became apparent, the official said.

“You have separated a huge number of books — it will come out 1,652,” he said, “and those that are in charge say, ‘We don’t have the storage capacity; this is sensitive material.’ So the decision is ‘We are going to burn these books,’ ” he continued. “It is part of their procedures to do that, but there’s a process in place that that is the last thing. Things should be retained for a while, but in this case they don’t.”

Sometime on Monday, Feb. 20, the books were transported by a work detail of several soldiers to the truck that would ultimately take them to the incinerator. That posed another missed opportunity.

As the books lay in boxes waiting to be piled in the truck, some Afghan Army soldiers saw them and recognized them as religious books, and they became worried, Maulavi Dad said. They asked where the books were being taken and were told by soldiers that the books were destined for storage. Worried that Korans might be among the books and that something wrong might happen to them, the Afghan soldiers reported to their commanding officer, Lt. Col. Safiullah, who, like many Afghans, uses only one name.

The American military official corroborated that account and said the problem was that by the time the Afghan officer relayed the concerns to his American counterpart, who came to check the truck, the vehicle and its cargo were already on the way to the incinerator.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/world ... l?_r=1&hpw

I recall at least one official inquiry after 9/11 and prior to the Iraq War lamenting that the State Department did not have more than a small number of fluent Arabic speakers. It would seem that that lesson had not been learned more than 10 years later.

It also seems that something happened between the work detail in the truck saying the books were destined for "storage" and yet only a short time later they were being incinerated.

However, what is done is done. I'm sure all parties wish it had not been done.

[crabby]

Why does the USA continue to put up with this BS? With 4 correctly placed high yield hydrogen bombs, the middle east would never again be a problem. Exxon Mobile could take over and oil could return to $10 per barrel. The as*holes in Afghanistan would all be fried as well as Iran, Syria, Saudi, etc. Kill 'um all let Mohamed sort 'um out!

[lvdkeyes]

A bit hawkish, are we?

[Alex]

I wouldn't call that hawkish anymore, that easily qualifies as mass-murderish.

[windwalker]

I've been told the the appropriate procedure for disposing of a defaced Koran is through burning. done.

Newspaper accounts claim the proper disposal of a Koran is by burial in the earth or in the water.