Time To Blame The Islamist Fanatics And Not Their Victims

11 people lost their lives so Terry Jones could burn a Koran and feed the 24/7 news monster http://abcn.ws/gzoJhH
Luke Russert, ABC News, on Twitter

I didn't even know that Jones had gone ahead and burned a copy of the Quran--when I read about it, I thought it was a reference to his stunt last year.

But it wasn't. After promising not to do it, Terry Jones went ahead anyway and publicly burned a copy of the Quran in front of 30 people, with none of the media attention that he got out of this last time.


But there were still consequences. A protest in Afghanistan against Jones burning a Quran turned violent and 11 people were killed:

At least eleven people were killed, including some United Nations officials, today in Afghanistan, apparently in response to Florida pastor Terry Jones burning the Koran last month, Afghan police and U.N. officials said.

...Police told ABC News the protest started peacefully but took a violent turn after a radical leader told those gathered that multiple Korans had been burned. In a fury, the people marched on the nearby U.N. compound despite police firing AK-47s into the air in hopes of subduing them.

And Luke Russert's response was that 11 people lost their lives so Terry Jones could burn a Koran...

Alana Goodman explains what is wrong with Russert's response:

The problem is where that line of thinking leads. If Jones is responsible for these murders, then Jyllands-Posten is responsible for the deadly Mohammad cartoon protests back in 2006. And Salman Rushdie is to blame for the rioting and fatalities that greeted the release of his Satanic Verses in 1989.

No, 11 people didn’t lose their lives so that Jones could burn a Koran. They lost their lives because some religious fanatics – driven by a twisted, feverish ideology – decided to murder them. And by failing to hold the true culprits responsible, we invite attacks on our freedom of expression – not just the freedom to burn a Koran, but to write, say, or do anything that offends their fragile sensibilities in the future.

Unfortunately, this line of thinking seems to be the standard approach to violence in the Middle East. There appears to be an automatic reflex to absolve Muslims of any responsibility for acts of violence. Instead, the focus of attention--if not condemnation--is on the target of that violence, regardless of the circumstances.

This is the kind of mentality that not only encourages us to limit ourselves from saying anything that might offend the "fragile sensibilities" of the fanatics--it has also paralyzed the West from addressing the regular bombing of Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists and from publicly and consistently protesting Gilad Shalit's being held hostage without access to the Red Cross, in contradiction of international law.

Technorati Tag: Terry Jones and Koran Buring.