I'm sure most of you have heard or read about the Koran burning by Florida Pastor Terry "I'm an Idiot Butt Clown" Jones, which is what kicked off the recent rioting in Kabul, but here is the news summary by Patrick Quinn, Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghans rioted for a second day Saturday to protest the burning of a Quran in Florida, killing nine people in Kandahar and injuring more than 80 in a wave of violence that underscored rising anti-foreign sentiment after nearly a decade of war.
The desecration at a small U.S. church has outraged Muslims worldwide, and in Afghanistan it further strained ties with the West. On Friday, 11 people were killed, including seven foreign U.N. employees, in a protest in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The protests come at a critical juncture as the U.S.-led coalition gears up for an insurgent spring offensive and a summer withdrawal of some troops, and with Afghanistan's mercurial president increasingly questioning international motives and NATO's military strategy.
Two suicide attackers disguised as women blew themselves up and a third was gunned down Saturday when they used force to try to enter a NATO base on the outskirts of Kabul, NATO and Afghan police said. Earlier in the week, six U.S. soldiers died during an operation against insurgents in eastern Afghanistan near Pakistan, where the Taliban retain safe havens.
President Hamid Karzai expressed regret for the 20 protest deaths, but he also further stoked possible anti-foreign sentiment by again demanding that the United States and United Nations bring to justice the pastor of the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, where the Quran was burned March 20. Many Afghans did not know about the Quran-burning until Karzai condemned it four days after it happened.
An evangelical pastor whose church burned a Koran last month said he was "devastated" but did not feel responsible for the killings Friday of seven UN workers in a violent protest in Afghanistan.
"We are devastated by that information, that news," Terry Jones, the head of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, told AFP. "We don't feel responsible for that."
The United Nations said four Nepalese guards, three foreign UN workers, and several protesters were killed when a mob enraged by the Koran burning attacked the UN compound in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Jones presided over the burning of the Islamic holy book March 20 at his Florida church, an act he had long threatened despite warnings it would put American troops and others in Afghanistan in danger.
Cowboy's comment:To be sure, the radical, anti-West Islamist are responsible for their murderous actions, however I also hold Terry Jones somewhat responsible. I think Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach Center is an IDIOT for doing just what the radical Muslims have been doing to everyone else. Stooping to their level and burning their Holy Book is NOT an example that true Christians should set and was a STUPID thing to do, endangering our service memebers who have a hard enough job staying alive as it is. This was after DoD officials asked him not to go through with the Koran burning. Terry Jones is certainly the Idiot of the Day,..maybe of the Week for that matter.....that is until Braney "Mumbles" Frank gets in front of another camera.
Alot of my friends may disagree and not hold Jones responsible at all,....that's fine. After all, the radical Muslims cannot justify their actions. BUT the Koran burning will be broadcast all over the world as an example of U.S. intolerance.
And, what the hell kind of a namem for a church is the "World Dove Outreach Center",....burning the Koran is not outreach at all, and the Dove is a nasty bird anyway.
