Petraeus Condemns Church's Plan to Burn Quarans

[Pappa]

Sounds like a facebook campaign to me. Burn Fake Holy Book Day. Who could possibly be offended?

That sounds like a plan.

[Robert_S]

Sounds like a facebook campaign to me. Burn Fake Holy Book Day. Who could possibly be offended?

That sounds like a plan.

We could cover both angles: the fake book burning campaign and the signs and buttons protesting it.

[Coito ergo sum]

I don't like book burnings. The call to mind things like this:




[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF5kMVIo ... re=related[/youtube]

Against literary betrayal of the soldiers of the First World War, for the education of the people in the spirit of truthfulness,

I commit to the flames the works of Erich Maria Remarque.

[Pappa]

Sounds like a facebook campaign to me. Burn Fake Holy Book Day. Who could possibly be offended?

That sounds like a plan.

We could cover both angles: the fake book burning campaign and the signs and buttons protesting it.

Jesus yes!!!

[ScholasticSpastic]

I once saw a pigeon that had no head, it's neck terminated in a smooth, rounded stump. It seemed ok though.

They often tuck their heads under their wing.

This was some kind of de-cephalised mutant.

Cool, a monster!

These posts remind me of a time I was walking to work on a particularly windy day. I noticed a pigeon flying oddly and stopped to watch. Then I realized what was wrong: It had no head... or guts. I chased the thing until it landed, prepared to do whatever was necessary to stop this apparent zombie-pigeon plague before it could burn through the world as apocalypse. Fortunately, upon closer inspection, I surmised that the bird must have been killed at some earlier time, eaten until light enough to take flight (possibly by cats or rats or some other rhyming animal or person) and then picked up by the wind. Still, the uncanny resemblance between a live, gliding pigeon and this stiff, dead thing had been something to behold.

If only I had been walking home rather than to work I might have picked it up. It could have been prosected and fashioned into a lovely string bikini to wear to the Great Salt Lake.

[Robert_S]

So, the little church caved to pressure.

I find the caving in, the fact that they accepted that there would be a worldwide violent backlash to be dehumanizing to Muslims. It's a fucking church with 50 people in bumfuck USA. If someone cannot help but cause harm to someone else half a world away over it, then that someone has no personhood in my eyes. They are a mindless machine if they cannot do any better than that.

[Warren Dew]

It's a fucking church with 50 people in bumfuck USA.

Indeed. Once things like that get picked up by the national and international news, they're really blown out of proportion.

[Coito ergo sum]

So, the little church caved to pressure.

I find the caving in, the fact that they accepted that there would be a worldwide violent backlash to be dehumanizing to Muslims. It's a fucking church with 50 people in bumfuck USA. If someone cannot help but cause harm to someone else half a world away over it, then that someone has no personhood in my eyes. They are a mindless machine if they cannot do any better than that.

He said he caved in because the NYC mosque agreed to move the location elsewhere.

[klr]

So, the little church caved to pressure.

I find the caving in, the fact that they accepted that there would be a worldwide violent backlash to be dehumanizing to Muslims. It's a fucking church with 50 people in bumfuck USA. If someone cannot help but cause harm to someone else half a world away over it, then that someone has no personhood in my eyes. They are a mindless machine if they cannot do any better than that.

He said he caved in because the NYC mosque agreed to move the location elsewhere.

... or apparently they didn't, so "watch this space".

One way of looking at it is that he's already made his point. If there had been no strident/violent reaction to the mere prospect of a Quran being torched, then his bluff would have been well and truly called. But all it takes for a minority response - and it seems to be very easy indeed to foment these with a bit of effort, just as with the Danish cartoons - and he can say "see, it is violent".

[Warren Dew]

He said he caved in because the NYC mosque agreed to move the location elsewhere.

Here's a link to a story:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 91158.html

My guess is that the Florida Imam agreed to try to get the New York mosque moved. I doubt they'll do it, though.

[Coito ergo sum]

So, the little church caved to pressure.

I find the caving in, the fact that they accepted that there would be a worldwide violent backlash to be dehumanizing to Muslims. It's a fucking church with 50 people in bumfuck USA. If someone cannot help but cause harm to someone else half a world away over it, then that someone has no personhood in my eyes. They are a mindless machine if they cannot do any better than that.

He said he caved in because the NYC mosque agreed to move the location elsewhere.

... or apparently they didn't, so "watch this space".

One way of looking at it is that he's already made his point. If there had been no strident/violent reaction to the mere prospect of a Quran being torched, then his bluff would have been well and truly called. But all it takes for a minority response - and it seems to be very easy indeed to foment these with a bit of effort, just as with the Danish cartoons - and he can say "see, it is violent".

Well, it IS violent.

[klr]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11258739

Protests against US Koran-burning sweep Afghanistan

Demonstrators in Jalalabad burned a US flag and chanted "Death to Obama"

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across Afghanistan over plans, now on hold, by a small Florida church to burn copies of the Koran.

Three people were shot when a protest near a Nato base in the north-east of the country turned violent.

President Hamid Karzai said the stunt had been an insult to Islam, while Indonesia's president said it threatened world peace.

Terry Jones told US breakfast TV he currently had no plans to carry it out.

President Barack Obama had warned it would be an al-Qaeda "recruitment bonanza", while Defence Secretary Robert Gates asked the pastor to cancel the protest.

Many of Friday's protests in Afghanistan were held after worshippers emerged from mosques, following Eid prayers marking the end of Ramadan.

Some demonstrators burned a US flag and chanted "Death to Christians".

In Badakhshan's provincial capital Faizabad, 1,500 people took to the streets, the police chief told the BBC.

About 150 people took part in another protest in the city, throwing rocks and attempting to climb the walls of a Nato facility where German soldiers are based.

Private security guards opened fire, wounding three people, said the police chief.

There have also been major rallies in Kabul over the past week and rallies were also held in several of Afghanistan's 34 provinces on Friday:

* in Nimruz's provincial capital Zaranj
* in the Khas Kunar district of Kunar
* in Khewa district, Nangarhar province
* in the Tagab district of Parwan province, just north of Kabul
* in the northern Baghlan, Kunduz and Balkh provinces
* in western Farah province.

Witnesses said the protesters voiced anger that the US government had not banned the Koran bonfire.

The BBC's Ian Pannell in Kabul says many people may not have known the burning had been put on hold, but that even if they did, the are incensed by the very idea.

In an Eid message, President Karzai said: "We have heard that in the US, a pastor has decided to insult Korans. Now although we have heard that they are not doing this, we tell them they should not even think of it.

"By burning the Koran, they cannot harm it. The Koran is in the hearts and minds of one-and-a-half billion people. Insulting the Koran is an insult to nations."

Further demonstrations are planned for Saturday, leading to fears of more violence.

International protest

There has been an angry reaction to Mr Jones's plans in many Muslim countries.
At least 200 people protested in the central Pakistan city of Multan, where one imam told the crowds that postponing the burning was not enough.

"We will continue to raise our voice, so that it never happens again," the AFP news agency quoted Mufti Hidayatullah Pasroori as saying.

A small rally was also reported in southern Karachi, Pakistan's largest city.

The president of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, warned in a nationally televised address on Friday that Mr Jones's plan threatened world peace.

n a speech marking the end of Ramadan, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said: "I'm of course aware of the reported cancellation of the deplorable act by Terry Jones. However, none of us can be complacent until such a despicable idea is totally extinguished."

Iran's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said Mr Jones' threat was an "expression of hatred of Islam" but called for restraint.

"This disgraceful act contradicts the very duties of religious and spiritual leadership to enhance the value of peaceful coexistence and safeguard the rights and mutual respect among religions," he said.

In Gaza, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Mr Jones was a "crazy priest who reflects a crazy Western attitude toward Islam and the Muslim nation".

'Clearly lied'

Mr Jones, pastor of the tiny and previously little-known Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, announced on Thursday that he was putting on hold his plan for an "International Burn a Koran Day".

He told reporters he had spent days waiting for a sign from God to cancel the event.

This had come, he said, in the form of a deal with Imam Muhammad Musri, from the Islamic Society of Central Florida, to relocate a controversial Islamic cultural centre due to be built near Ground Zero in New York.

But those behind the cultural centre immediately denied that they had ever spoken to the Orlando-based imam or Mr Jones, while Mr Musri said Mr Jones had "stretched and exaggerated" his statements.

He said he had only ever agreed to fly to New York with Mr Jones on Saturday and speak with the leaders of the Islamic centre project.

Mr Jones, who had been visited by the FBI earlier on Thursday, said Mr Musri had "clearly lied", but he told ABC's Good Morning America he believed Mr Musri would travel with him to New York.

The imam of the centre, Feisal Abdul Rauf, told ABC News he remained opposed to relocating it, in case it boosted extremism by giving the impression that Islam was "under attack in America".

In a statement, he said: "We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter. We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony."

The top US general in Afghanistan, Gen David Petraeus, warned earlier this week that the lives of Americans serving abroad would be endangered if the Koran burning went ahead.

[kiki5711]

In a statement, he said: "We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter. We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony."

Peace and Harmony indeed. "Islam": "We're going to make peace with you even if we have to kill you"

[mistermack]

I once saw a pigeon that had no head, it's neck terminated in a smooth, rounded stump. It seemed ok though.

How did it eat? It must be getting a bit peckish by now.

As far as burning the Koran goes, why don't we get lots of atheists to go there and piss on them to put the fire out?

I should have been a diplomat.
.

[sandinista]

I once saw a pigeon that had no head, it's neck terminated in a smooth, rounded stump. It seemed ok though.

How did it eat? It must be getting a bit peckish by now.

As far as burning the Koran goes, why don't we get lots of atheists to go there and piss on them to put the fire out?

I should have been a diplomat.
.

good idea, could throw some bibles on the pile as well.