Chris Battle

Koran Burning Hands Terrorists a Potent Propaganda Tool

September 9, 2010 RSS Feed Print

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When I’m listening to two guys with guns--one a four-star general leading our troops in Afghanistan and the other a holster-packing freak who thinks he’s Abraham ready to sacrifice his own--I think I’ll go with the general.

Look, I’m from Florida. I’ve spent many a day in Gainesville. Insanity runs rampant there. It’s the heat and the college hormones and the ready availability of low-grade booze--a dangerous mix. Whenever I stumbled from a bar in that college town, I knew things would probably get ugly and it would be best to lock me up in a cage guarded by some guy with a big belly and stripes down his pants. So I’m not entirely surprised that this idea of burning Korans has emerged from that gaseous swamp.

I’m a little surprised it has gained the traction and notoriety it has, though. Pastor Terry Jones has been pulling these anti-Muslim stunts for some time now. And to his dismay, he’s been ignored. This guy is a drama queen. He would burn his grandmother’s underwear if he thought it would get him some attention.

So who thought it would be a good idea to give this lunatic a platform? Why not continue to let him squawk in anonymity? Why has the media given this man so much attention? There are a lot of people in this world who are certain that the CIA is monitoring them through their dental crowns. Should we give them open microphones too?

Mr. Jones says he has received so many death threats that he has taken to strapping a gun to his hip. I suspect he’d really need that firearm if he were to encounter a group of U.S. rangers on leave from the deserts of Afghanistan. They’re continuously being shot at by hordes of low-rent dictator wannabes who think stoning women is good sport.

Just because the Taliban, al Qaeda, and other radicals are perverting Islam to justify murder and terrorism doesn’t remotely translate that all Muslims feel the same way. Just having to deny such idiocy gives me the creeps. It’d be like burning Bibles every time some grand witch in the Ku Klux Klan lit up a cross in the name of white Christian America.

Does this guy think burning the Koran sends a message to terrorists? All he has done is give those demented nuts a propaganda bonanza. Isn’t it enough that the Department of Justice wanted to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the grandest stage of his life by offering him a criminal trial in New York City?

I think Gen. David Petraeus knows a little more about fighting extremists and terrorists than Terry Jones of Gainesville. He knows the value of propaganda. He’s seeing it play out every day on the field of battle.

And he’s asking: Just shut the hell up, would you? If not for common decency, then do it for the troops on the ground in Afghanistan.

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Corrected on 9/10/10: An earlier version of this blog post mischaracterized the episode of the burning bush in the Hebrew Bible. The reference to Abraham was made in regard to his willingness to sacrifice his son.

Tags:: Christianity,; national security terrorism and the military,; Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,; Florida,; David Petraeus,; Taliban,; Islam,; al Qaeda,; War in Afghanistan (2001-),; Afghanistan,; terrorism

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You're missing Mr. Battle's point. We know how intolerant Islam is of other religions, particularly Judism. We know muslim women are just below dead camels in the social hierarchy.
Burning the Koran is going to prove what point? That fire is hot? If this act puts our soldiers at risk, which it will, then I'm in favor of turning the dear Reverand over to the taliban in Afghanistan if he burns the Koran. He can sort it out with the Muslims.

Zebra of IL 4:03AM October 06, 2010

The advantage of commenting this far down the line is that I get to synthesize and remark on what has been said.
1. I want to ask what would have been communicated if a Koran had been burned.
2. And secondly, what has been communicated now that it wasn’t burned by Pastor?
It would have shown that Pastor and his congregation had a power over and a contempt for the Koran and the Muslim people. In some circles this is called a “power encounter.” In his mind this would have demonstrated the ascendancy of Christianity and the U.S. bill of rights and the inferiority of Sharia Law and Islam.
The answer to the second question should now be evident. Sharia Law and Islam have won the encounter and Christianity along with the bill of rights has been shown to be weak and morally inferior.
From the Western prospective this might not be obvious. But Islam defined the confrontation in such a way that with either outcome they had a “recruiting tool.”
If the Koran was burned it would be a tool to show that the “infidels” were waging war on Islam.
When it wasn’t burned, it proved the divine favor of Allah and validated the call to “jihad.”
I am not able to comment on the mental acuity of Pastor, but I’m sure he had no idea that this would garner such attention. I do think that he was used as a dupe. My proof? This past week in East Lansing, Michigan a Koran was burnt and thrown into the yard of an Islamic center. Where is the worldwide Muslim outrage? It doesn’t suit their purposes. For the moment they have gained what they want. They caused the “Great Satan” to back down. This coup will be exploited, have no doubt.
In my years of living in a predominantly Islamic country in West Africa, I have seen that a “radical Islamist” is easily created from “nominal Muslims” through intimidation. Even the most casual practitioner becomes violent when threatened in some way by the a radical Muslim extremists promising to harm them or their families.
However, take a Christian acting radically and the casual practitioner of Christianity will turn on him and eat him for lunch.

Joe Eger of MI 11:13AM September 18, 2010

In 2001 Muslims dynamited the 2000 year old Buddha statues of Bamiyan in Afghanistan and destroyed almost everything in the National Museum in Kabul that stemmed from the country's Buddhist days because the Koran said it was non-Islamic. For this act alone, their stupid book should be burned.

Mary of DC 6:20AM September 10, 2010

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