People, I truly don't get it. You surely have read about the pastor running this small church in Gainesville, FL. He planned to burn a couple of Koran books to commemorate September 11. This guy is clearly a nutcase. He was for a couple of years in Germany. He gained a reputation for being xenophobic and militantly anti-Turkish. His daughter, who still lives in Germany, thinks he's a nutcase. He eventually had to flee the country because he misappropriated money from his congregation. So, a typical sect leader that man is (I won't mention his name or link to his outfit to reduce any publicity for him and his cause).
Now, we all know that many Muslims get quite worked up when their religious symbols are being mocked. They tend to burn US flags and more often than not kill each other - bit Homer Simpsonesque - in their anger. All quite amusing when watched from far afield. Presumably then they'd be really unhappy if someone burned their book of stories. To be fair, Christians would probably be pretty annoyed if someone burned their book of stories, and so it goes. People got quickly concerned that in enlightened places like Pakistan, and Afghanistan there might be attacks by forces of the Islamic enlightenment against Westerners hanging about there to support the existence of the corrupt regimes running those countries. You know, the people that pour billions of our tax $$ into Afghanistan so that Mr Karzai can dump that money into their national bank that has been stripped naked by its senior management (conveniently including Karzai's brother).
Anyhow, so this nuttish thieving pastor in the USA threatens to burn a few Koran books on the lawn of his sect headquarters. Nobody would have taken any notice of this in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan and whatnot, IF Western media hadn't made such a big issue about it. Ever since our nuttish thieving pastor has held the US government hostage (imagine that government folks appealed to him personally to not burn those Koran books). I mean, really??? You just encourage copycats. I'm tempted to threaten burning the Koran books to get ... umm, let's see, what could I want? Serious nonsense. I do not understand why the world media have given this nutcase the oxygen to make this an international media event! Utterly irresponsible and unprofessional.
There is something else I must say though: If I purchase or obtain by other legal means a pile of books (any books), I should be perfectly entitled to burn them! Big deal. They're mine. If you can't handle that, make sure I can't get hold of your holy book, whatever it might be.
