Group: Guests
Posted 09 September 2011 - 06:21 AM
During Bill Clinton campaign in 1992 against G.H.W.Bush, the slogan was ‘It’s the economy, stupid’. It seems that the Republicans may use the slogan ‘It’s the jobs, stupid’ in their campaign to defeat Obama in 2012 election. On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the biggest attack on Mainland USA few Americans dare to discuss the motives behind Al-Qaeda attacks or those who have profited* from it, mainly because it may expose security failures or to touch the interests of certain entrenched power centres.
According to Bin Laden, the attacks were in response to the US unlimited support for Israeli atrocities against Arabs and specifically, the Israel massacres of Lebanese following their invasion of the country in 1982. It was also reported that targeting the WTC in NY, the Jewish Financial Mafia HQ, because it raised funds for Israeli development and weapon purchases. Similarly, the Pentagon was targeted because it armed Israel with the latest weapons that killed Arabs with impunity. But the Americans refused to pay attention to the real causes of terror in the world and went to terrorise others with wars; which created more anger and frustrations in Muslim countries from Nigeria to Indonesia. And instead of asking Israel to implement 39 UN Security Council Resolutions they are in breach of and limiting American support for Israeli atrocities, Jewish consultants are allowed to infest the corridor of powers in Washington D.C.and to influence major foreign policy decisions. It was not a mere coincidence that the Americans had marched on Baghdad to Israeli drums in 2003 in order to remove a threat to Israel. Furthermore, American foreign policy has been ignoring US interests in the Far-East or in Latin America and is concentrating on implanting a Jewish agenda in the Middle East; which may end with another costly war on Iran. It is for this reason that the US is at high alert on the eve of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 that is despite all the killings and expenditures in Bush-Obama wars on terror. In conclusion, one must tell the Americans ‘It’s Palestine stupid’
Adnan Darwash, Iraq Occupation Times
*One of the main beneficiaries of the 9/11 attacks was Israel. It used the war on terror to justify its killing and assassination of Palestinians who are resisting the illegal Israeli occupation of their lands. Furthermore, the war on terror enabled Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to challenge and to embarrass President Obama on a number of issues. To add insult to injury, Netanyahu's speech to the joint session of the house and senate was received with standing ovations, despite being a Prime minister of a rogue state in breach of 39 UN Security Council Resolutions and despite being being saved from being denounced as a terrost by US Veto after blowing up 10 civilian Lebanese aircrafts in 1978.
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The heavily-manipulated US political system is neither democratic nor free. US democracy is in fact a government by the Lobbyists, of the Lobbyists for the Lobbyists.
US Freedom: It is unpatriotic to crtiticise the president while the country is at war. But the country has always been at war. Uninfluential people can write or say what they want. Do you remember what has happened to Ambassador Wilson when he said that Iraq didn't attempt to acquire Uranium Ore from Niger? He was castigated an his wife was outed as CIA agent by no other than Dick Cheney. Here is a question for you:
What will happen if a strong Taiwanese lobby made America to launch a war against China? So where is the people's interest in US democratic system. It is rather unfortunate that the same US Jewish lobby started to corrupt European democracies in order to serve Israeli agendas.
Adnan Darwash, Iraq Occupation Times
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'Hold Islam accountable': U.S. pastor defiant after his Koran-burning publicity stunt led to two UN staff being beheaded and five others murdered
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:59 AM on 2nd April 2011
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U.N. sources say final death toll could rise as high as 20
Taliban behind attacks, reports suggest
Demonstrators at the burnings take place across the Middle East
One of the dead is a 53-year-old female Norwegian pilot
Mastermind behind attacks - a known militant - arrested say Afghan police
Afghan authorities suspect insurgents blended into protesters
Norwegian, Romanian, Swedish and Nepalese nationals among those killed Victim: The first named victim is 53-year-old Norwegian pilot Lt. Col Siri Skare who was working as a UN military advisor in the country
Florida pastor Terry Jones has not apologised for a Koran burning stunt last month that led to the murders of up to 20 people in northern Afghanistan yesterday.
Indeed the head of the Dove World Outreach Center, the man whom many hold responsible for instigating the wave of protests, remained defiant over his decision to hold the Koran burning - saying it was time for 'Islam to be held accountable'.
At least seven United Nations staff were murdered - two by beheading - after extremists stormed their compound in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The mob beheaded two U.N. guards, seized their weapons and began shooting those inside the compound after a demonstration against Koran burnings in the U.S. turned violent.
Mr Jones, who ignored international warnings that his actions would undoubtedly lead to violent reprisals, said the blame laid at the feet of the attackers.
He said:
'We must hold these countries and people accountable for what they have done as well as for any excuses they may use to promote their terrorist activities. The time has come to hold Islam accountable.
'Our United States government and our President must take a close, realistic look at the radical element Islam. Islam is not a religion of peace.
'We demand action from the United Nations. Muslim dominated countries can no longer be allowed to spread their hate against Christians and minorities.'
Mr Jones, a former furniture salesman, was quick to respond to accusations that blood was on his hands over the killings.
he said: 'They must alter the laws that govern their countries to allow for individual freedoms and rights, such as the right to worship, free speech, and to move freely without fear of being attacked or killed.'
The Taliban has reportedly claimed responsibility for the killings, saying they were part of a campaign of violence in the run up to presidential elections.
Enlarge Protest: Thousands of protectors flooded the streets of Mazar-i-Sharif chanting anti-American slogans before the violence broke out
Attack: Smoke billows from the UN headquarters after protesters attacked the compound in Mazar-i-Sharif
The bloodshed is the worst attack on the U.N. in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.
At least four Afghan workers were also killed and officials fear the total death toll could rise to 20.
The rampage began when more than 1,000 protesters flooded into the streets after Friday prayers, where they heard reports about the Koran burnings in America last month.
After slaying the guards, the armed mob scaled the compound's blast walls before setting fire to a guard tower and several other buildings.
An Afghan police source, who asked not to be named, said the chief of the mission in the city was wounded but survived.
Firebrand: Pastor Terry Jones threatened to burn a koran last year and carried the threat out last month
Among those murdered were Norwegian, Romanian, Swedish and Nepalese nationals. Two were decapitated, it is understood.
The Afghan protests were in direct response to to Mr Jones's ceremonial burning of a copy of the Koran at a church in Florida on March 20.
The controversial pastor triggered international outrage last year when he urged Americans to burn the Koran on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
He relented following an intervention by President Obama but on March 20 he and pastor Wayne Sapp finally carried out their threat.
After Sapp set fire to the text, he let it burn for ten minutes.
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Mohammad Azim, a businessman in Mazer-i-Sharif, said that before the violence, clerics with loudspeakers had driven around the city in two cars to invite residents to the protest.
As the violent mobs dissipated this evening, reports of the UN dead began to trickle in.
The Norwegian Defence Ministry said one of the victims was Lt. Col Siri Skare, a 53-year-old female pilot.
Fight: It appears guards at the U.N. compound fought back injuring Afghan's who attacked the base
Suspects: Afghan officials suspect those who attacked the base were insurgents who had blended into the angry crowd before carrying out the violence
Hysteria: Preachers rode around after Friday prayers encouraging the population to join protests directed against foreign forces in the country
A Swede and four U.N, guards from Nepal were also killed. The nationality of the seventh victim has not been released.
According to Afghan officials it looks increasingly likely that the attacks were carried out by insurgents who had blended into the angry crowds.
Last night Afghan police said they had arrested the suspected mastermind behind the attack.
BLOODY DAY FOR UN AS 10 DIE
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan was established on 28 March, 2002 and is headed by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura.
The mission has 23 field offices throughout Afghanistan - split into eight regional offices and 15 provincial offices.
Of the 1,500 staff attached to the mission, around 80 per cent are Afghan nationals.
There are two key elements to the UN mission, the Political element, which among other duties oversees elections in the country and the Relief, Recovery and Reconstruction element which looks after re-building the country's infrastructure.
Rawof Taj, deputy police chief in Balkh province, said this evening he was one of more than 20 people arrested after the violence.
Taj said the suspected mastermind was from Kapisa province, a hotbed of the insurgency about 250 miles south east of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Staffan De Mistura, the top UN representative in Afghanistan, was heading to Mazar-i-Sharif to handle the matter personally.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in Nairobi that the attack was 'outrageous and cowardly'.
The worst previous attack was in 2009 in an insurgent assault on a guesthouse where UN staff were staying. Five UN staffers were killed and nine others wounded.
In October 2010, several militants were killed when they attempted to ambush the UN compound in Herat dressed in burkas worn by women.
General Daud Daud, commander of Afghan National Police in several northern provinces, said those killed included five Nepalese guards who were working for the UN and two other foreigners employed at the complex.A UN spokesman confirmed that workers had been killed at the mission, but he said the situation on the ground was still confusing and it was difficult to 'ascertain facts'.
Wounded: Afghans carry a man wounded by security guards when protesters attacked the UN headquarters in Mazar-i-Sharif
Outrage: Pakistani women shout slogans during a protest against the controversial US Pastor Terry Jones, in Karachi, Pakistan today
The deaths are a major setback for the U.N. and international forces who want the Afghan government to take control of its own security by 2014.
Only last week President Hamid Karzai said the city of Mazar-i-Sharif would be one of the first areas handed over to Afghan control this year.
Simmering anger at the burnings finally erupted across the Middle East today.
Enlarge Thousands of demonstrators marched through the western Afghan city of Herat.
There, protesters burned a U.S. flag at a sports stadium and chanted 'Death to the US' and 'They broke the heart of Islam'.
Around 200 also protested near the U.S. embassy in Kabul. Both protests remained relatively peaceful.
Demonstrations against the Koran burning also took place in Pakistan today.
Women representing the Working Women Welfare Trust marched through the streets of Karachi voicing their anger against Pastor Jones.
Last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a statement calling the burning a 'crime against a religion'.
He denounced it as a 'disrespectful and abhorrent act' and called on the U.S. and the UN to bring to justice those who burned the holy book and issue a response to Muslims around the world.
He also said Mazar-i-Sharif would be one of the first parts of the war-torn country that Afghan security would take from Nato forces.
The man behind Burn a Koran Day: Pastor Terry Jones
The shocking killings in Afghanistan were triggered by anger at the burning of a copy of the Koran at a church in Florida.
The controversial ceremony was carried out by pastor Wayne Sapp and preacher Terry Jones.
Mr Jones first came to worldwide attention when he started a Facebook campaign calling for people around the world to set fire to copies of the Koran on last year's ninth anniversary of 9/11.
He dubbed it International Burn a Koran Day.
Controversy: U.S. Pastor Terry Jones, pictured last September, gained worldwide attention after he planned to burn a Koran
It was only after the intervention of President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates that he went back on his vow to burn the Koran.
He said later that he planned to burn 'a few hundred Korans' in a bonfire on church property and that he was expecting a crowd of 'several hundred' but believed others would burn the books on their own.
On March 20 this year, he finally carried out his threat. A copy of the Koran was burned in front of a crowd of 30 people outside his church. Beforehand, he held a bizarre mock trial and execution of the Holy Book before fellow pastor Wayne Sapp doused it in gasoline and set fire to it.
He claimed he went back on his word because he has been trying to give the 'Muslim world an opportunity to defend their book' but received no response from them.
A former hotel manager, Jones worked as a missionary in Europe for 30 years before he took over as head of the Dove World Outreach Center, a fundamentalist Christian church in Gainesville, Florida.
He and his wife Sylvia were asked to leave Germany, where they had set up a 100-strong congregation in Cologne.
One of his three children accused them of 'financial and labour abuses' and said that 'the workforce was comprised of the Jones' disciples, who work for no wages and live cost-free in tatty properties owned by the couple'.
His daughter Emma still lives in Germany and has no contact with her father but it was reported she emailed him at the time of the Koran burning threats to ask him to stop.
A protestant church official in Cologne said he had a 'delusional personality'.
He also runs an antique and used furniture store on the grounds of the church.
A former employee who was sacked and expelled from the church later revealed that punishments for disobedience in the church included carrying a life-size wooden cross or writing out all of Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible as well as cleaning the barnacles off his boat in Tampa.
He penned the book Islam Is The Devil and the phrase is frequently used on billboards around the church's property.
In August 2009, two children, a ten-year-old and a 15-year-old, who belong to Jones' church, were sent to school wearing T-shirts that read 'Islam Is of the Devil'. They were sent home for dress code violations.
Jones believes Islam promotes violence and that Muslims want to impose Sharia law in the United States.
He and his wife allegedly learned what they know about Sharia law by watching videos on YouTube and he admitted in the past he had never actually spoken to a Muslim person before.
He calls himself a doctor and claims he was awarded an honorary doctorate of theology degree from the California Graduate School of Theology in Rosemead in 1983 but the university has never confirmed this.
According to ABC, he is often seen on the church's 20-acre compound with a pistol strapped to his hip.
Explore more:Places: Germany, Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, America, Europe, Middle East
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1372442/Two-UN-staff-beheaded-murdered-protest-U-S-pastor-burnt-Koran.html#ixzz1IMz3npzG
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Afghans angry at Quran burning kill 7 at UN office
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Deb Riechmann, Associated Press – 2 hrs 22 mins ago
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghans angry over the burning of a Quran at a small Florida church stormed a U.N. compound in northern Afghanistan on Friday, killing seven foreigners, including four Nepalese guards.
Afghan authorities suspect insurgents melded into the mob and they announced the arrest of more than 20 people, including a militant they suspect was the ringleader of the assault in Mazar-i-Sharif, the provincial capital of Balkh province. The suspect was an insurgent from Kapisa province, a hotbed of militancy about 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of the city, said Rawof Taj, deputy provincial police chief.
The topic of Quran burning stirred outrage among millions of Muslims and others worldwide after the Rev. Terry Jones' small church, Dove Outreach Center, threatened to destroy a copy of the holy book last year. The pastor backed down but the church in Gainesville, Florida, went through with the burning last month.
Four protesters also died in the violence in Mazar-i-Sharif, which is on a list of the first seven areas of the country where Afghan security forces are slated to take over from the U.S.-led coalition starting in July. Other demonstrations, which were peaceful, were held in Kabul and Herat in western Afghanistan, fueling resentment against the West at a critical moment in the Afghan war.
Protesters burned a U.S. flag at a sports stadium in Herat and chanted "Death to the U.S." and "They broke the heart of Islam." About 100 people gathered at a traffic circle near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. One protester carried a sign that said: "We want these bloody bastard Americans with all their forces to leave Afghanistan."
U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain LeRoy said the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, Staffan De Mistura, who is in Mazar-i-Sharif, believes "the U.N. was not the target."
"They wanted to find an international target and the U.N. was the one there in Mazar-i-Sharif," LeRoy told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.
Initially, Afghan police reported that eight foreigners had been killed in Mazar-i-Sharif.
Late on Friday, Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan in Kabul, revised the death toll to seven — four foreign security guards and three other foreigners.
The guards were from Nepal, according to Gen. Daud Daud, commander of Afghan National Police in several northern provinces.
Sweden Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said Joakim Dungel, a 33-year-old Swede who worked at the U.N. office, was among those killed.
Norwegian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Maj. Heidi Langvik-Hansen said Lt. Col. Siri Skare, a 53-year-old female pilot working for the U.N., died in the attack.
LeRoy said the other victim was a citizen of Romania and that a number of U.N. personnel were injured and were being evacuated.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the head of the mission in Mazar-i-Sharif, a Russian citizen, was injured in the attack, but not seriously.
Police who went to investigate, said the U.N. compound was littered with broken glass and bullet casings.
Abdul Karim, a police officer in the city, said he saw the bullet-riddled bodies of three Nepalese guards lying in the yard and a fourth on the first floor.
He said another victim with a serious head wound died on a stairway to the basement of the compound. A man who was killed inside a room had severe wounds to his face and body, Karim said.
Munir Ahmad Farhad, a spokesman in Balkh province, said the protest began peacefully when several hundred demonstrators gathered outside the U.N. mission's compound, choosing an obvious symbol of the international community's involvement in Afghanistan to denounce the Quran's desecration. It turned violent when some protesters seized the guards' weapons and started shooting, then the crowds stormed the building and set fires that sent plumes of black smoke into the air, he said.
One protester, Ahmad Gul, a 32-year-old teacher in the city, gave a different account. He said the protesters disarmed three guards to prevent any violence from breaking out. Associated Press video showed protesters banging AK-47 rifles on the curb, breaking them into pieces. He said the protesters were killed and wounded by Afghan security forces.
"I disarmed three guards myself and we took out the bullets," Gul said, sternly shaking his finger as he shouted. "With my eyes, I saw them (Afghan security forces) kill two and wound 10." As he talked, he became increasingly indignant and he started shouting: "Death to America!" "We are going to fight."
LeRoy, the U.N. peacekeeping chief, said the security guards, all Gurkhas, "tried their best" but were unable to prevent the large number of demonstrators, some armed, from storming the U.N. compound.
The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting late Friday and condemned the attack "in the strongest terms."
The U.N.'s most powerful body also condemned "all incitement to and acts of violence" and called on the Afghan government to bring those responsible to justice and take steps to protect U.N. personnel and premises.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is in Nairobi, said it was "an outrageous and cowardly attack against U.N. staff, which cannot be justified under any circumstances and I condemn in the strongest possible terms."
He instructed De Mistura to assess the situation and take any "necessary measures to ensure the safety of all U.N. staff."
LeRoy said U.N. officials would be reviewing security for U.N. personnel in Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama condemned the attack and underscored the importance of the U.N.'s work in Afghanistan.
"We stress the importance of calm and urge all parties to reject violence and resolve differences through dialogue," Obama said.
At the U.S. State Department, spokesman Mark Toner said the burning of a Quran in Florida was contrary to Americans' respect for Islam and religious tolerance. "This is an isolated act done by a small group of people and ... does not reflect the respect the people of the United States have toward Islam," he said.
The church's website stated that after a five-hour trial on March 20, the Quran "was found guilty and a copy was burned inside the building." A picture on the website shows a book in flames in a small portable fire pit. The church on Friday confirmed that the Quran had been burned.
In a statement, Jones did not comment on whether the church's act had led to the deaths. Instead he said it was time to "hold Islam accountable" and called on the United States and the U.N. to hold "these countries and people accountable for what they have done as well as for any excuses they may use to promote their terrorist activities."
Last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a statement calling the burning a "crime against a religion." He denounced the U.N. attack as a "disrespectful and abhorrent act" and called on the U.S. and the United Nations to bring to justice those who burned the holy book. Karzai issued a statement late Friday calling the killings an "inhumane act" that was "against the values of Islam and Afghans." He said he planned to call officials at U.N. headquarters to express his regret and condolences from the people of Afghanistan.
The U.N. has been the target of previous attacks.
In October 2010, a suicide car bomber and three armed militants wearing explosives vests and dressed as women attacked a U.N. compound in Herat in western Afghanistan. Afghan security forces killed the attackers and no U.N. employees were harmed. In October 2009, Taliban militants attacked a guesthouse used by United Nations workers in central Kabul. Eight people were killed, including five foreigners working for the U.N.
Separately, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that six U.S. Army soldiers were killed in separate incidents in fighting against insurgents during an operation in eastern Kunar province, which neighbors Pakistan's lawless tribal areas. Insurgents have slowly been filtering back into Afghanistan from safe havens in Pakistan as the spring fighting season gets under way.
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Associated Press writers Amir Shah in Kabul, Edith M. Lederer at the U.N. and Mitch Stacy in Tampa, Florida, contributed to this report.
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By Reuters
Published: April 2, 2011
Afghans chant anti-American slogans during a demonstration in Mazar-i-Sharif. PHOTO: REUTERS
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, AFGHANISTAN:
Afghan protesters angered by the burning of a copy of the Holy Quran by an obscure US pastor killed up to 20 people including seven UN staff members and security guards, beheading two foreigners, when they overran a compound in a normally peaceful northern city on Friday in the worst ever attack on the UN in Afghanistan.
At least eight foreigners were among the dead after attackers took out security guards, burned parts of the compound and climbed up blast walls to topple a guard tower, said Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, a police spokesman for the northern region. Five protesters were also killed and around 20 wounded.
The governor of Balkh province said insurgents had used the march as cover to attack the compound, in a battle that raged for several hours and raises serious questions about plans to make the city a pilot for security transfer to national forces.
“The insurgents have taken advantage of the situation to attack the UN compound,” said Governor Ata Mohammad Noor. He told a news conference that many in the crowd of protesters had been carrying guns. Some 27 people have already been detained over the attack, he added.
Afghan police and army, who the United Nations rely on for their first line of defence, were apparently unable to control the crowd. German troops are also stationed in Balkh, and the Nato-led coalition said they had received a request for help.
“Eight foreigners were killed, and two were beheaded,” said Ahmadzai.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in Nairobi that the attack was “outrageous and cowardly.”
A United Nations spokesman confirmed employees had been killed but declined to comment on numbers of dead or their nationalities. He said the attack would not push the United Nations out of Afghanistan.
“We need to secure our colleagues in Mazar-i-Sharif. It’s not a question of us pulling out. The UN is here to stay,” said spokesman Kieran Dwyer. Staffan De Mistura, the top UN diplomat in Afghanistan, has flown to Mazar-i-Sharif to handle the situation personally.
The Russian chief of the mission in the city, Pavel Yershov, was injured in the attack but is now in hospital, Russian state television said, quoting an embassy spokesman.
Russia called on the Afghan government and international forces to “take all necessary measures” to protect UN workers in a statement issued by the foreign ministry after the attack.
Romania’s foreign ministry said preliminary information suggested a Romanian citizen was among the dead, and condemned the attack. US President Barack Obama and Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also condemned the attack.
If the death toll is correct, it would make it the deadliest attack on the United Nations in Afghanistan, and one of the worst on the organisation in years.
Thousands of demonstrators marched through Herat and Kabul to protest against the incident.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 02nd, 2011.
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Quran burning and US inconsistency
Why does the US government think burning Qurans is less civilised than drone attacks on civilian populations?
The plan to burn Qurans has served to confirm perceptions that US wars are driven by hostility towards Muslims [EPA]Barack Obama, the US president, has warned that threats to burn the Quran are a sure and effective way to swell the ranks of al-Qaeda. This may be true, but largely because such symbolic acts of 'Islamophobia' are widely viewed as verifying the perception that the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with its backing of Israel, are motivated by its hostility towards Muslims.
The previously unheard of pastor of a small Florida church may have scrapped his plan to publicly burn hundreds of Qurans on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but the threat alone has done untold damage to the already troubled relationship between the Muslim world and the West.
The US government's reaction to the plan will not have gone unnoticed. But no matter how strong the words of condemnation, those on the receiving end of US occupation or air raids will be struck by the apparent inconsistency.
General David Petraeus, the US commander in Afghanistan, warned that burning the Quran could endanger the lives of US troops who might become the target of retribution. But why do Obama and Petraeus think that burning the Quran is any less civilised or more dangerous than their use of unmanned drones to target suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters and the subsequent civilian casualties these attacks often entail?
Terry Jones, the pastor behind the planned Quran bonfire, may be insane, as some, including his own daughter, have suggested. But what excuse do sane and sophisticated people like Obama, Petraeus, and Robert Gates, the US secretary of defence, have?
Dehumanisation
In his Cairo speech, Obama attributed the blame for some of the misunderstanding between the West and the Muslim world to the acts of terrorism carried out by a minority of Muslims. "The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights," he said. But he totally glossed over the fact that before - just as after - 9/11, the US engaged in unjust wars against mainly Muslim countries - a threat that is more potent than any plan to burn Qurans.
If it were not for these wars and a history of US support for the Israeli occupation and dictators in the region, the threat to burn Qurans - as ugly and offensive as it clearly is - would not have been anything more than the act of a small-time minister searching for attention and obsessed with his own prejudices.
But in an atmosphere of 'Islamophobia' - fed by a mistrust and ignorance of Islam - and US wars against Muslim countries, the suggestion of a Quran-burning day becomes something much more significant.
It also reflects the general dehumanisation of Muslims and Arabs - particularly those who have been the victims of American and Israeli bombings - that has taken root, allowing some of the US public to become immune to the crimes committed by their own government or with their government's backing.
Today, as Americans grieve the victims of the 9/11 attacks, it is important to recognise that sorrow is a shared universal sentiment that does not exclude religions or races.
In the weeks following 9/11, the American press devoted pages and air time to giving a human face to the victims of the attacks. It is not realistic or even right to expect the American media to give the exact same treatment to the victims of US wars. But, until very recently, the US media rarely even questioned the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and when it did, the questions asked rarely centred on the civilian deaths, which were at best seen as inevitable incidents of war and, at worst, as necessary collateral damage.
Such a mentality is more damaging in the long run than any individual threatening to burn the Quran, because it plants the seeds of dehumanisation.
In the words of Kathy Kelly, an American peace activist who is currently facing trial for 'trespassing' in a drone-manufacturing plant during an anti-war protest, the mainstream media "does little to help ordinary [Americans] ... understand that the drones which hover over potential targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen create small "ground zeroes" in multiple locales on an everyday basis".
Lamis Andoni is an analyst and commentator on Middle Eastern and Palestinian affairs.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Source: Al Jazeera
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