Blazing Qur'ans and the Deception of Muslim Contrived Indignation

In February of this year, American troops burned copies of the Qur'an at an army base in Afghanistan. Western media were immediately abuzz with the Muslim response: massive riots causing the deaths of dozens of local Afghans, a Taliban revenge suicide attack on US troops, car bombs, an Afghan policeman enraged by Qur'an burnings murders two US officers, Afghan soldiers turn on US troops and shoot two, Taliban suspends talks with the USA, and in an incendiary anti-American speech Afghan president Karzai calls America "a demon" comparable to the Taliban. At least 40 die and hundreds are injured.

The event spawned three (count'em, three!) parallel and separate legal inquiries. The soldiers may be disciplined; but according to Congressman Allan West's interpretation of the events, prisoners were writing extremist messages to one another in the pages of the Qur’ans, thus effectively desecrating them according to Muslim practice. And the incident provides support for Obama's call for a pre-election pull-out from Afghanistan.

Last year's Qur’an burning incident in Florida had similar effects. A publicity hungry pastor threatens to burn Qur’ans and riots break out across the Middle East; followed by murder and mayhem and destruction and endless anti-American propaganda. But we respond with cringing misplaced deference, as General Petraeus ignores the murderous Muslim mobs and instead condemns the Florida preacher.

Similarly, in 2005 massive riots and destruction of property erupted in much of the Arab world when the provocation was the mere accusation, unsupported by objective evidence, of desecration of a Quran by American personnel at Guantanamo.

The explosion of the "Arab Street" when a Quran somewhere in the world may have been desecrated is not a new phenomenon. It recurs with suspicious frequency and nearly cookie-cutter responses. This phenomenon raises three questions:

Is it effective for our Commander-in-Chief to burst into paeans of groveling apology, hand wringing, and self-deprecating mea culpas, and press for changes in American military strategy and foreign policy?

Why is there not a word from anyone in the west about the galactic hypocrisy of Muslim furor for an inadvertent error, when 1,400 years of Muslim history are characterized by Muslim assaults on Christians and the Christian Scriptures, not to mention desecrations of Jewish sacred sites and scriptures and the mass murder of Jews?

Why does no one raise the issue of the mass hypocrisy of Muslims world-wide who are silent as adherents desecrate Islam with the endless reciprocal violence of Sunni and Shiite, Iranian and Azeri, Alawite and Syrian, blowing up entire mosques, killing thousands of innocent Muslims, and burning thousands of copies of the Qur’an — not to mention killings at weddings, funerals, and other religious events.

The Danish "Cartoon Intifada" of 2005-6 may provide answers to these questions.

Cartoons using Muslim imagery were published first by Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper in September, 2005.[1] A few Muslim Imams in Denmark were upset. Then the cartoons were republished on October 17 on the front page of El-Farg, a major Egyptian newspaper, with provocative headlines about the west deprecating the Prophet Mohammed; but still no outrage. Only after a summit meeting in Mecca in December did the Muslim world go ballistic about the cartoons. What happened at that meeting? (...)