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First a mosque at 9/11 epicenter, now this ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11209738

Quote:

7 September 2010 Last updated at 10:41 ET

Petraeus: Koran burning plan will endanger US troops

Protesters burned an effigy of Pastor Terry Jones The top US commander in Afghanistan has warned that troops' lives will be in danger if an American church sticks to its plan to burn copies of the Koran.

Gen David Petraeus said the action could cause problems "not just in Kabul, but everywhere in the world".

Pastor Terry Jones, of the Dove World Outreach Center, plans to put copies of the holy book in a bonfire to mark this week's anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

There have already been protests in Afghanistan and Indonesia.

The US embassy in Kabul issued a statement condemning the plans by the non-denominational church in Gainesville, Florida.

"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort," Gen Petraeus said in a statement to US media. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems.

"Not just here, but everywhere in the world, we are engaged with the Islamic community," added Gen Petraeus, who heads a 150,000-strong Nato force against a Taliban-led insurgency.

Meanwhile, Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Tuesday blasted the church's plans, telling reporters that burning Korans violated the Nato alliance's "values".

"There is a risk that it may also have a negative impact on security for our troops," news agency AFP quoted him as saying.

Mr Jones said the church was "very concerned" after hearing Gen Petraeus' warning and was taking his words seriously. He said the church was praying on the matter but he said the group had "firmly made up our minds".

"How long do we back down?" he said on CNN.

In Kabul on Monday, about 500 protesters chanted "long live Islam" and "death to America" as they set fire to an effigy of Mr Jones.

The controversy comes at a time of already heated debate in the US over a proposal to build a mosque and Islamic cultural centre two streets from Ground Zero, site of the 9/11 attacks, in New York.

The planned protest by Mr Jones's previously little-known 50-member Florida church, whose website labels Islam "violent and oppressive", has prompted protests elsewhere, too.

Thousands of mostly Muslim demonstrators rallied around Indonesia last weekend.

Claims that US soldiers have desecrated the Koran in both Afghanistan and Iraq have caused bloodshed in the past.

There were deadly protests in Afghanistan in 2008, when it emerged that a US soldier deployed to Iraq riddled a copy of the holy book with bullets.

And further lives were lost in Afghan riots in 2005 when Newsweek magazine printed a story alleging that US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...ndanger-troops

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Church's plans to burn Qur'an will endanger troops, US commander warns

General David Petraeus says move by US evangelical group to burn Islam's holy book would threaten Americans worldwide

image: General David Petraeus: said he was very concerned by the 'potential repercussions'. Photograph: Saad Shalash/Reuters

The leading US and Nato commander in Afghanistan today said threats by a US church to burn copies of the Qur'an could endanger troops in Afghanistan and Americans worldwide.

General David Petraeus's warning followed a protest by hundreds of Afghans yesterday over plans by the Florida-based Dove World Outreach Centre - an evangelical Christian church espousing anti-Islamic philosophy - to burn copies of the Qur'an on church grounds to mark the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Several hundred Afghans rallied outside a Kabul mosque, burning American flags and an effigy of Dove World's pastor and chanting: "Death to America." Members of the crowd briefly pelted a passing US military convoy with stones, but were ordered to stop by protest organisers.

Two days earlier, thousands of Indonesian Muslims rallied outside the US embassy in Jakarta and in five other cities to protest against the church's plans.

"Images of the burning of a Qur'an would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan, and around the world, to inflame public opinion and incite violence," Petraeus said.

"I am very concerned by the potential repercussions. Even the rumour that it might take place has sparked demonstrations such as the one that took place in Kabul. Were the actual burning to take place, the safety of our soldiers and civilians would be put in jeopardy and accomplishment of the mission would be made more difficult."

Muslims consider the Qur'an to be the word of God and insist it be treated with the utmost respect, along with any printed material containing its verses or the name of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad. Any intentional damage or show of disrespect to the Qur'an is deeply offensive.

In 2005, 15 people died and scores were wounded in riots in Afghanistan sparked by a story in Newsweek magazine which alleged that interrogators at Guantánamo Bay placed copies of the Qur'an in bathrooms and flushed one down a toilet. Newsweek later retracted the story

The US embassy in Kabul issued a statement condemning the church's plans, saying Washington was "deeply concerned about deliberate attempts to offend members of religious or ethnic groups".

Dove World Outreach Centre, which made headlines last year after distributing T-shirts that said "Islam is of the Devil" has been denied a permit to set a bonfire but has vowed to proceed with the burning.

How could a US general be so stupid as to imagine that something like good behavior on the part of the US will be rewarded by Muslim terrorists? In light of the political stunts that got him where is now in NATO, he really is pushing his luck.

It's not about good or bad behavior by the US that is in question.

It's about tit for tat stuff that is the greater part of the capitalization of ignorance by extremists, whether or not the extremists are foreign or domestic, mainstream or moonbeam.

Hitler needed Jews, brown extremists need white bigotry. Some religious factions need "infidels" and "emissaries of Satan" - regardless of their religious persuasion or national origin.

The best thing concerning the Mosque at ground zero is that those who want to build it show the same cultural sensitivity they demand by building it elsewhere and not sticking a finger in my eye by doing so at ground zero. The best thing the future Koran burners can do is understand that 9-11 was the work of extremists, forget about the bonfire and embark on another sort of campaign to discourage what I view as a provocation concerning 9-11.

Burning Korans isn't going to do anything to stop the mosque but it is perfect fodder for international exploitation of religious emotion.

I'm sick and tired of this kind of crap.

If he wanted to burn an American flag instead of a Koran, every liberal civil rights group in the country would be braying about his "free speech" rights.

We can't even say Merry Christmas in public any more in this country and General Patraeus has no problem with that. Screw him! Screw them all. I hope they go ahead and burn the damned Koran.

Merry Christmas hallelujah to you, Don, and everyone here, the American public at large, Glenn Beck and Obama both, the Koran burners, the Ground Zero mosque builders, the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Taliban too.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I believe at this time Patraius has a lot more on his mind other than whether or not I just said all that.

And no one is going to haul me off, sue me, or cap me from behind for doing so.

There's a cure for ignorance, but there's not one for stupidity. And whether burning Korans as a matter of free speech is ignorant or stupid or merely a type of religious masturbation masquerading as patriotism isn't so important as to whether or not it is pragmatic to the desired result. A lot more gas than Korans is going to be tossed on that fire.

Our troops have been in harms way ever since mr. O came into office. He's bowed before these terrorists, put handcuffs on our soldiers, he's the one responsible. Don, I'm sick of it also!
Merry Christmas to you all, it's time to go read my bible and make sure that my American flag is flying freely in my yard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Our troops have been in harms way ever since mr. O came into office. He's bowed before these terrorists, put handcuffs on our soldiers, he's the one responsible.

MOM, lets be real. Our troups have been in harms way ever since we invaded Iraq and how many billions of dollars and lives has it cost us? That is not including Iraqi and others lives. Mr O, President Obama, was not in office when we invaded. Wish he had brought the troops home but everyone would have said we were quiters. Personally wish we had never gone there.

I believe the reason we are in Iraq is because Saddam, in retaliation for Bush senior kicking him out of Kuwait, was behind an assassination attempt on "King George's" father in an Arabian Gulf country.

Then "King George" Jr., lacking his fathers extensive governmental experience, including serving as head of the CIA, initiated hostilities on pretensions and attempted to run a war on the cheap like a CEO slashing all the wrong costs while cutting his business cronies in on the deal as well as the personal satisfaction of seeing Saddam swing at the end of a rope.

I believe if Bush had let the professional warriors run the show, there would have been no insurgency, it would have been a done deal and many of the troops home long ago.

I freely admit I have no real experience to realistically judge the situation as to how it unfolded and exactly why we are still with it today, but that's how I see it.

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Originally Posted by Rim05 (Post 11921)

I agree. We never should have invaded Iraq. Even so, the invasion didn't go as badly it might have. But the motivation for invading was completely derelict and without consideration for the consequences. And opposition was pretty derelict as well.

They talk as if troops have left, but they haven't. Just combat operations have ceased. Finally. Meanwhile Iraq is still occupied with US troops and I haven't heard anything about when we can expect them to come home.

One of my sons has spent 5 tours over there in that God forsaken area. He said we needed to do that. We are spending more on illegals then this war. If we brought home all of our troops maybe they could all move in with the illegals 10 families to a household. Yes, they should be home already, but they are not. I was one of the lucky mothers. But how many have come home on leave only to be shot, run over or what ever, by illegals. Our country has some serious problems.

Not only will this event further endanger American soldiers, this event will endanger Christians that are living in countries controlled by the followers of the ancient Arabic moon god, allah (CNSNews).

Quote:

Some of that predicted violence could well target Dove World’s co-religionists in the Islamic world, according to organizations working in countries where Christians are a vulnerable, sometimes persecuted minority.

“Already Muslim militants in Indonesia have promised to kill Indonesian Christians if Qurans are burned in Florida, and the history of anti-Christian violence in the country suggests that this is not an idle threat,” Patrick Sookhdeo, international director of the Barnabas Fund, said Tuesday.

“Barnabas partners in Iraq have expressed concern at the probable Muslim backlash against an already beleaguered Iraqi Church. And Christians in numerous other places who live in daily fear of potentially deadly attacks will at once be placed in much greater danger,” he said. “It cannot be right to exercise our freedom to protest in a way that puts at risk the lives of our brothers and sisters, for whom Christ died.”

Sookhdeo, an expert on radical Islam, urged Dove World not to carry out its protest.

“Barnabas Fund is fully committed to making known the aspects of Islam that result in injustice and oppression of non-Muslims, not least the persecution of Christians,” he said.

“But we believe that the biblical and Christ-like way to do this is by speaking the truth in the power of God’s love, and by extending that love to Muslim people even when they are hostile to us. In that context it can never be justified to destroy a book that Muslims regard as sacred, however firmly and profoundly we may disagree with its contents.”

Pakistan Christian Congress president Nazir Bhatti also appealed to Jones not to go ahead with an event which he said would provide radical Islamists with another excuse to attack already at-risk Christians in Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere.

Emphasis mine.

Bend over America! Do what other countries want us to do. I'm sick of the threats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Most of what is being told to us, has been said already. Way before the Quran situation! I will not apologize for being an American or a Christian. If everyone is so concerned then black the news out! Don't talk about it or print it!
I'm not saying that I agree with what this church is doing, but what about what some of this terrorists are doing? Planning to do, or stopped before they did do it.
God Bless America!

Burning Korans in some small church is not going to make any difference anywhere and anyone who tells the public that it will make a difference is lying or worse.

There is nothing to be gained in good behavior to Muslims. All they do is see it as a sign of weakness. The Koran is the problem, the Koran is the source of Islamic "radical" ideology. The "moderate" Muslims are the ones who disagree with or don't care about their own scripture.

As a general principle, I don't hold with the burning of any books, whether they be by Voltaire or they be "the Protocols of the Elders of Zion". But the Koran is the source of the global terrorist front that the world is suffering from.

It's about time somebody threw the gauntlet down.

We can look at it another way.

Say there will be no international consequences perpetrated by ignorant third worlders goaded by religious extremists in exchange for an old fashioned, guantlet throwing, book burning bonfire in Florida.

Who is the winner and who is the loser?

The winner is going to be the publisher of those Korans. And who publishes Korans?

The losers are going to be anyone who puts out money to buy bonfire bound Korans. Ever set a hundred dollar bill on fire while financially awarding your avowed enemy?

The latest reports are that the burning is "on hold". We will see tomorrow. I hope they do it, it needs to be done.

But why should it all be on this one little community? It's a heavy burden for one little church to bear all by itself. If I could get my hands on a Koran, I'd burn one myself. It is an evil book that promotes evil beliefs and the world is suffering at the hands of those who promote it the most passionately.

They are rioting already at the mere threat of burning a Koran, but of course these are the same murderers who riot over political cartoons about Islam too. Nothing unusual happening there.

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Originally Posted by Twoller (Post 11982)

Korans are on the shelf down at the bookstore, tightwad.

Or you can order online.

As mercenary as some are concerning the dollar, I'm surprised that someone hasn't exchanged that goofy white Pakistani Muslim hat for a fedora and a Marx brothers "disguise" and called the church's bluff by driving a truckload of marked up Korans down to that church to sell for the bonfire.

And if anyone wants torch those Korans while they are still in the truck or jack up the driver/seller, it becomes a "hate crime".

So the pastor pulled out. He got a plane ticket to New York instead.

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Further protests over Koran burning

Paul J. Richards/AFP

image: Pastor Terry Jones speaks outside the Dove World Outreach Center on September 10, 2010 in Gainesville, Florida.

KABUL —Afghans protested violently for the third day on Sunday despite a U.S. pastor giving up plans to burn copies of the Koran, with three other cases of desecration of the Muslim holy book likely to stoke their anger further.

Two protesters were shot and killed in eastern Logar province, a district official said, taking to three the death toll in protests staged since Friday.

The furore over pastor Terry Jones’s plans to burn copies of the Koran, a grave insult to Muslims who believe it to be the literal word of God, overshadowed the lead-up to commemorations for the Sept. 11 hijacked airliner attacks on the United States.

Ceremonies in the United States on Saturday marked the ninth anniversary of the attacks by al-Qaeda, which led to the toppling of the Taliban by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001 because the hardline Islamists had harboured Osama bin Laden’s group.

Mr. Jones’s plan and proposals to build an Islamic cultural centre and mosque near the site of the toppled World Trade Center in New York highlighted a growing debate in the United States about religious tolerance.

Hundreds of people favouring and opposing the cultural centre and mosque gathered in New York for peaceful rallies hours after ceremonies in the city — and in Washington and Pennsylvania — to mark the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Word of the intention to burn the Koran had already triggered outrage in Afghanistan and across the Muslim world.

President Barack Obama warned it could hurt the United States deeply abroad, endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and risk attacks in U.S. and European cities.

In Afghanistan, angry protesters chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Christians” before clashing with security forces in Logar, south of the capital.

Seven demonstrators were wounded, one seriously, when Afghan security forces opened fire to disperse hundreds of protesters marching to Pul-e-Alam, the capital of Logar, officials said.

Mohammad Rahim Amin, chief of Baraki Barak district just west of Pul-e-Alam, said two of the wounded died later in hospital.

The protesters threatened to attack foreign military bases. There are almost 150,000 foreign troops fighting a growing Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, where violence is at its worst since the hardline Islamists were ousted.

“The governor must give us an assurance that the church is not going to burn the Koran, otherwise we will attack foreign troop bases in our thousands,” protester Mohammad Yahya said.

Major Patrick Seiber, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan’s east, said ISAF was aware of more protests in Logar on Sunday, but put the crowd at about 100, some wielding sticks and throwing stones.

Four demonstrators were wounded in Logar on Saturday, a day after a protester was shot dead when an angry crowd attacked a German-run ISAF base in Faizabad in northeastern Badakhshan province, one of many protests across the country.

Protests had eased later on Sunday, but could spark up again as news filters through of reported desecrations of the Koran in the United States.

While Mr. Jones abandoned his plan, there were at least two incidents of abuse of the Koran in Lower Manhattan in New York on Saturday. Two evangelical preachers not affiliated with any mainstream church burned two copies of the Koran in Tennessee.

Protests over perceived desecration of Muslim symbols have led to dozens of deaths in Afghanistan in recent years, including after a Danish newspaper published a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad in 2005.

On Thursday, the United Nations’ top diplomat in Afghanistan said the protests risked delaying Afghanistan’s Sept. 18 parliamentary election.

The election is seen as a key test of stability in Afghanistan before Mr. Obama conducts a strategy review of the increasingly unpopular war in December.

Mr. Obama, who has sought to improve ties with the Muslim world frayed by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since the Sept. 11 attacks, stressed religious tolerance in remarks at a memorial service in Washington on Saturday.

© Thomson Reuters 2010

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Originally Posted by Twoller (Post 12046)

So the pastor pulled out. He got a plane ticket to New York instead.

Which is what he should have done to begin with instead of setting himself up to be a loser. Whether or not he burned any Korans or merely meant it as a publicity stunt, he's a loser either way.