I've seen and heard quite a bit of people remarking on the savagery of the Afghani people for killing over a silly thing like the poor treatment of a book. Many seem to think that such crazy behavior is a purely Islamic response. Tom Regan rebuts this assumption quite well:
"Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don't lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don't call for holy war and riot in the streets. It would be unthinkable for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain."
The above paragraph makes an interesting point. There's only one problem with it - it's wrong.
[ Christian Science Monitor Blog | My American Experience Archive May, 2005 ]
In my opinion it shouldn't even be that surprising. Why aren't we asking who died? Or why did they die? One story offers clues, but most shy away from reporting the actual news and instead focus on the news that triggered the news:
Protesters threw rocks and police shot back Friday as violent anti-U.S. protests spread to more Afghan cities, leaving at least eight people dead and threatening a security crisis for the government.
[ ABC News ]
So it would seem likely that the deaths were not the Afghani's flying to Guantanamo and killing the soldiers that they believed were responsible for the act. There are accidentally deaths related to crowd control. Why can't they do a better job at crowd control? Perhaps you didn't realize that the US has yet to complete the rebuilding of Afghanistan, and that much of their infrastructure still remains to be repaired. Why should the US even be involved? Besides the fact that we invaded to oust the Taliban who protected the criminals responsible for the 9/11 attacks, we also embroiled the country in years of war as our pawn during our cold war with Russia. After training and arming their resistance against the Soviets, we beat feet when it was clear that the USSR wouldn't take Afghanistan. That's right, we trained and armed them and then left them to their own devices.
What kind of ally have we truly been to the Afghanis? Perhaps we are trying to make up now for how we've treated them in the past, but the first step to improving that relationship is taking hundreds of their countrymen, flying them to Cuba, torturing them or close to it, and finally hearing that the Qu'ran was placed in a receptacle meant for waste, you would expect the Afghani people to ask questions and show their displeasure. So, naturally, you'd expect the Afghani's to log on to AOL and type a heated message to their congressman, right? I think we all know that Afghanistan is not America.
Oh, and one more thing, where is the example of the riot that happened with no destruction or casualties? Or if that's in the nature of riots, where is the plan to eradicate the entire world of riots for all time?
Lets instead look to cooler heads on all sides. Lets find out if the Qu'ran was used in a less than respectful manner during interrogations, and make policy that no religion should be disrespected in such a manner. Lets not stop there and get to the bottom of the entire situation in Cuba and the prisons of Iraq. Lets continue to assist the Afghani people to build their fledgling nation into something they can be proud of. Lets continue to resist the forces of darkness that may have prompted the people of Afghanistan to go too far. And last, but not least, lets all redouble our efforts to better understand each other, since we'll have to share the Earth for many years to come.