If You Have To Shoot A Koran, Here’s How To Deal With It
A U.S. soldier in Iraq used a Koran for target practice. What can you really say but . Well, I guess what you can say is that Gen. Petraeus knows better than to spend a couple days obfuscating about what happened before issuing a half-hearted condemnation/statement of “regret” and all of a sudden Iraq is in flames and all bad things are now worse. The New York Times:
“„Responding to an episode ripe with the potential to stoke unrest, the commander, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, held a meeting Saturday with Iraqi leaders.
“„“I come before you here seeking your forgiveness,” General Hammond said at the meeting, in remarks carried by CNN. “In the most humble manner, I look in your eyes today and I say, please forgive me and my soldiers.”
“„General Hammond also read a letter of apology from the soldier, who was not identified. “I sincerely hope that my actions have not diminished the partnership that our two nations have developed together,” the general read from the letter.
“„Another American officer kissed a Koran and gave it to the tribal leaders, according to news agency reports.
That’s practically abject. Good! Abjectness is called for in a situation like this. What would Gen. Jerry “My God Is Bigger” Boykin do if an Iranian soldier wiped his behind with the King James Bible?
Abu Muqawama comments:
“„We’re a long way from 2004, when we bombed a wedding party, killing over a dozen people, and our resident genius public affairs officer shrugged it off: “Hey, bad people can have parties too.” (That man is now a senior official in the Defense Department.) Abu Muqawama wonders, though, if junior soldiers understand this is the kind of shit that will lose a war — and not just failing to kill bad guys.
Not to be more Catholic than the Iraq-and-Afghanistan-vet Pope, but, dude, it just one soldier. But I wonder if some troglodyte right-wing Senator will give Petraeus grief about this on Thursday, when the general’s nomination to Central Command goes before the Armed Services Committee.
