It should probably not need be said, but obviously I find the planned burning of the Holy Q'uran on Saturday by the leadership of Dove Ministries Church in Florida to be not just politically horrible, but unChristian in the extreme.
Far more than the issue of demonstrating small-minded bigotry, however, one has to wonder why so many on the right are currently playing in to the hands of Al Qaeda. All along, they have been saying the, despite our rhetoric of openness and inclusion, the United States is fundamentally hostile to Islam. Of the few things for which I can praise George W. Bush, his insistence (at least in the aftermath of the September 2001 attacks) that our conflict was not with Islam was one that I found to be marvelously on target and consistent. The right, however, has decided that we are, indeed, at war with Islam. Out of ignorance and fear, we label Islam not a religion, but a cult of violence - towards women, towards dissent within its ranks, toward those of other faiths - that needs to be opposed. The right wishes to take a moment on Saturday as we remember the honored dead (including the Muslim dead) to register its visceral hatred of Islam by taking its only truly holy relic, the Holy Q'uran, and burn it. To the Muslim world, where we have tens of thousands of troops still engaged in combat, seeking to win over local populations to our good will in order to work with them to combat the forces of tyranny that seek to trample the good name of Muhammed under the feet of a murderous desire for power and control, this will only prove that ours is a fundamentally hostile country.
While I do not believe Gen. David Petraeus recent comments are kosher - any warning like the one he gave should have come from civilian commanders (up to and including the President) - his reasoning is sound.
Even if our troops were not directly intermingling with Muslim civilians thousands of miles from home, this act of stupid hatred should be condemned. Of course, condemnation is all we can do. Which is even more sad, really. For all that our troops are fighting and have been fighting to protect and even impose (!!) freedom (don't get me started on why our troops are here or there, because that would take too long), that includes, sad to say, the freedom to become propaganda for those who hate the United States and want only death for our troops, our country, and our way of life.
So, alas, we arrive at the moment where rhetoric and reality meet and create not just irony but danger. Those who insist they are burning the Q'uran as an act of defiance against those who seek us harm are only going to be fueling the fires of hatred against us, becoming recruiting poster-boys for suicide bombers and jihadi-fighters all over the Muslim world. The image of the flames engulfing the pages of the Holy book of over one billion people around the world may just spark far more death than any sane act of defiance against the real enemy.
I do hope the folks who do this understand that they will come away from those fires not just smelling of smoke and covered in ash. They will come away stinking of death and covered in the blood of Americans, including American troops.
