Koran burning: Did Jones cause 24 deaths?

Like “hate-mongers” everywhere, Pastor Terry Jones craves attention, said John Avlon in TheDailyBeast.com. The demented minister had his first taste of international attention last summer, when he pledged to burn a Koran on the ninth anniversary of 9/11. He dropped that threat, but has apparently missed being in the limelight. So on March 20 Jones oversaw a mock trial and torching of the Muslim holy book at his tiny Gainesville, Fla., church. It got no news coverage, but Jones uploaded a video to YouTube, and when Afghan mullahs called for Jones’s arrest, the Koran burning by a Christian minister became big news in the Islamic world. In the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif last week, an angry mob stormed a U.N. compound, killing three European staffers and four Nepalese security guards. At least 17 more people died in violent demonstrations across the country. Jones is fully responsible for the consequences of his “murderous” act, said Joe Klein in Time.com. “If there is a hell, he’s just guaranteed himself an afterlifetime membership.”

Your morality is a bit confused, said Susan Jacoby in The Washington Post. I agree that Jones is “an ignorant religious bigot,” but all he did was burn a book. The real responsibility for this atrocity lies with the mullahs who incited the crowd over “what is a perfectly legal act here.” Would the director of the recent comedy Paul be responsible if Christian fundamentalists mocked in the movie burned down crowded theaters in protest? asked John Hayward in HumanEvents.com. Of course not. So let’s stop accepting the backward standards of radical Islam. America is free, and “freedom is an outrage.”

Afghans might not understand the concept of free speech, said Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com, but you’d think American politicians would. Yet Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have already suggested that Jones be forced to stop his Koran-burning. Said Graham: “Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war.” Now there’s an irony for you. Both Graham and Reid backed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and have fought the closing of the Guantánamo prison. Images of atrocities from these places have generated far more anti-American anger in Arab nations than anything Jones “could dream of spawning.” So if these hypocrites are looking for someone to blame for enraging Muslims, “they should look in the mirror.”

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