The following is a statement released by General David Petraeus and and NATO Ambassador Mark Sedwill:
KABUL, Afghanistan (April 3, 2011) – In view of the events of recent days, we feel it is important on behalf of ISAF [i.e., the International Security Assistance Force] and NATO members in Afghanistan to reiterate our condemnation of any disrespect to the Holy Qur’an and the Muslim faith. We condemn, in particular, the action of an individual in the United States who recently burned the Holy Qur’an.
We also offer condolences to the families of all those injured and killed in violence which occurred in the wake of the burning of the Holy Qur’an.
We further hope the Afghan people understand that the actions of a small number of individuals, who have been extremely disrespectful to the Holy Qur’an, are not representative of any of the countries of the international community who are in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people.
Notice the servile tone of this missive, written by the man who is our wartime commander of the most powerful military on the planet and the ambassador of the wealthiest, most powerful collection of nations in the world.
There’s no condemnation at all of the hideous barbarians who stormed a UN compound and slaughtered men and women in the name of Allah who were there on what they thought was a humanitarian mission on behalf of the very people who cheerfully murdered them.
No, no condemnation, because they were doing it on behalf of the Holy Qu’ran…which tells these people it’s a holy deed to to terrorize unbelievers. The mullahs who incited the mob at Mazar-e-Sharif used that very same Holy Qu’ran as the marching orders for murder in the name of Islam.
And make no mistake…this was about Islam. The Nepalese guards who were under orders not to use their weapons to defend themselves, the Norwegian female aid workers, the Swedish and Romanian administrators who were dragged away and decapitated, all were non-Muslims. In fact, Pavel Ershov, a Russian diplomat who was captured by the mob managed to save his own life by convincing them he was a Muslim.
Instead, all of the general and the ambassador’s condemnation and vitriol is devoted towards the preacher who burned a Qu’ran, in accordance with his First Amendment rights under our Constitution, something General Petraeus swore an oath to defend and protect. There’s not even a call for justice to be executed on the murderers, or on the imams who incited them.
In subsequent statements. General Petraeus even doubled down, referring to the Qu’ran burning as “hateful, extremely disrespectful and enormously intolerant,” and the mob as being in the grip of “perhaps understandable passions.”
‘Understandable passions?’ Is this what it has come to? Have we lost all sense of ourselves and whom we are, that we now feel the need to bow down before the values of a bunch of savages living mentally in the 7th century?
In General Petraeus’ defense, it must be remembered whom his commander-in-chief is, and that President Obama likely demanded something like this from him. But I think Patton, MacArthur and even Eisenhower would likely have resigned if FDR had ever demanded this sort of kowtowing from them.
The key phrase, of course occurs in the last part of this disgraceful missive, where General Petraeus and Ambassador Sedwill announce that our mission in Afghanistan is ‘to help the Afghan people.’
Not to win a war, not to destroy our enemies, not even the amorphous goal of ‘fighting terrorism’, but to ‘help the Afghan people’. That’s why they say we’re there. In that short phrase can be read the entire failure thus far of the war we’ve been involved in since 9/11.
It would never occur to them that the people they’re talking about regard themselves as members of their local tribe or clan first, Muslims second, Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras third and Afghans as a very distant fourth, or that their idea of the sort of help might be very different from ours. Like wanting us gone, so they can resume their accustomed ways without interference.
Even more troubling than General Petraeus and Ambassador Sedwill are the pronouncements of certain US Senators, who appear to be leading the charge towards dhimmitude in American life.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid now claims he’s going to have the Qu’ran burning ‘looked into’, whatever that means. And GOP Senator Lindsay Graham likewise is sounding the charge for legislation that ” limit some forms of freedom of speech. Because we’re in a war.”
The stupidity of this, the inherent cultural cringe is a powerful reason why we’re still losing this war a decade after it started. The same people who claim this is a war of ideas and values seem to be the first ones willing to disparage and disrespect our own. What happens, Senator, when something else happens that Muslims don’t like and use as an excuse for murder in the name of Islam?
To paraphrase the old game show question, how low will you go? How far will you bend over?
Let me get one thing straight. There’s only one reason, and only one for not burning a Qu’ran..and that’s because it’s rude and somewhat unkind. But there’s no reason to elevate it to afford the Qu’ran, mosques or imams any more respect and tolerance than Muslims give churches, synagogues, Buddhist and Hindu Temples, the American flag, the Bible, the Torah, Priests, nuns, Rabbis or indeed just about any non-Muslim.
Here’s a revolutionary concept to apply to the Muslim world – if you want our money, our trade, our military defending your regimes, access to Western technology and luxuries and visas to study and work in our countries, we demand respect for our customs and beliefs as the price of admission.
You want to send imams to America and fund mosques here? Fine, in exact relatio to the West’s being able to send Christian missionaries and build churches in Dar Islam. You want Islam and its adherents free to worship and respected in our countries? Certainly…to the exact degree you respect Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims in yours. No more, no less.
To demand anything less is be as inherently racist as Senators Reid, Graham and the rest of the politically correct mob rushing towards dhimmitude and abasement are by assuming that Muslims by their very nature are incapable of acting like civilized human beings and exhibiting rational behavior.
If Senator Graham and Reid are correct, then perhaps we’re better off in the long run taking Ann Coulter’s advice the day after 9/11, invading the Muslim world and converting the inhabitants to Christianity.
However, if Graham and Reid and their ilk are wrong, we had better make some significant changes in how we deal with Islam, the Muslim world and the honor/shame culture that pervades them before all we’re left with is Ann Coulter’s alternative…or abject surrender.
Rob Miller blogs at Joshuapundit