Burn American Flag Day

A radical group called Muslims Against Crusaders is responding to the Quran burning event promoted by media whore Terry Jones.

They're encouraging Muslims to burn the American flag.

That hardly seems necessary. We're always seeing images of American flags being burned by Muslims demonstrating against the United States.

Plenty of non-Muslim Americans enjoy burning the American flag and disrespecting it in other ways, too.



For example, here's a photo that appeared in the New York Times of Obama's friend, unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, showing his disdain for the American flag.

From the New York Times, September 11, 2001, read "No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen."

Here's video of a rambling message announcing the Muslims Against Crusaders group's plans to burn American flags.



Man, this guy is long-winded!

Terry Jones: Inconsequential Loon

Terry Jones has received more than his fifteen minutes of fame.

The guy has managed to get the world hanging on his every word. Even Obama got involved and commented on his stunt.

What is going on here?

From the New York Times:

First, Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who set the world on edge with plans to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11, said Thursday that he had canceled his demonstration because he had won a promise to move the proposed Islamic center near ground zero to a new location.

Then, hours later, after learning that the project’s leaders in New York had said that no such deal existed, Mr. Jones backed away from his promise and said the bonfire of sacred texts was simply “suspended.”

The sudden back and forth suggested that the controversy — the pastor drew pointed criticisms from President Obama and an array of leaders, officials and celebrities in the United States and abroad — was not yet finished even after multiple appearances before the news media on the lawn of his small church.

Mr. Jones seemed to be struggling with how to save face and hold on to the spotlight he has attracted for an act that could make him a widely reviled figure.

But Mr. Jones seemed to have been wrong or misled from the start.

Minutes after he announced the cancellation alongside Imam Muhammad Musri, a well-known Islamic leader in Florida who had been trying to broker a deal, Mr. Musri contradicted Mr. Jones’s account. He said that Muslim leaders of the project in New York had not actually agreed to find a new location. “The imam committed to meet with us but did not commit to moving the mosque yet,” Mr. Musri said.

Even that may not be accurate. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the leader of the New York project, said in a statement that he had not spoken to Mr. Jones or Mr. Musri, who said later that he received the pledge of a meeting from a staff member in Mr. Abdul Rauf’s office.

The saga of Mr. Jones appeared likely to continue — with more pressure likely to come as well. In just the past week, the list of his critics had come to include Mr. Obama, the Vatican, Franklin Graham, Angelina Jolie, Sarah Palin, dozens of members of Congress and Gen. David H. Petraeus, who was among the first to declare that the burning of Korans would put Americans soldiers and civilians in danger.

That risk of violence seemed to be rising, as large protests against Mr. Jones were staged over the past week in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Jakarta, Indonesia. It led the Obama administration to work furiously to end Mr. Jones’s plans.

This is insane.

A pastor with a 50-member church in Florida is attracting worldwide attention.

WHY?

Why not ignore him and dismiss him as the nutcase that he is?

We know that in the Muslim world groups are always gathering to burn American flags and chant "Death to America" and "Death to Christians." It seems to be a favorite pastime over there. Thousands take part, but there's no concern whatsoever about inflaming the Western world. They don't care about offending us.

But here we have the doofus Jones and if he takes a match to a Quran, World War Whatever may break out.

It's crazy.

This is being fed by the media. The New York Times reports on Jones' latest statements and plans while it questions the media's role in the saga.

A renegade pastor and his tiny flock set fire to a Koran on a street corner, and made sure to capture it on film. And they were ignored.

That stunt took place in 2008, involving members of the Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kan., an almost universally condemned group of fundamentalists who also protest at military funerals.

But plans for a similar stunt by another fringe pastor, Terry Jones, have garnered worldwide news media attention this summer, attention that peaked Thursday when he announced he was canceling — and later, that he had only “suspended” — what he had dubbed International Burn a Koran Day. It had been scheduled for Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Unlike the Koran-burning by Westboro Baptist, Mr. Jones’s planned event in Gainesville, Fla., coincided with the controversy over the proposed building of a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan near ground zero and a simmering summerlong debate about the freedoms of speech and religion.

Mr. Jones was able to put himself at the center of those issues by using the news lull of summer and the demands of a 24-hour news cycle to promote his anti-Islam cause. He said he consented to more than 150 interview requests in July and August, each time expressing his extremist views about Islam and Sharia law.

By the middle of this week, the planned Koran burning was the lead story on some network newscasts, and topic No. 1 on cable news — an extraordinary amount of attention for a marginal figure with a very small following. On Thursday, President Obama condemned Mr. Jones’s plan, and his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said that there were “more people at his press conferences than listen to his sermons,” in a bit of media criticism.

...The episode has given rise to at least a little soul-searching within news organizations. Chris Cuomo, an ABC News anchor, wrote Thursday afternoon on Twitter, “I am in the media, but think media gave life to this Florida burning ... and that was reckless.”

Yeah, it was really lame.

I suspect that on a daily basis the Bible is burned in protest in this country and around the world more often than the Quran.

The numbers don't matter. What matters is that the Jones case has been blown out of proportion and nearly into an international crisis.

Thank you, media. Good work!

It's nuts. Who is Terry Jones that he should be receiving this sort of attention?

Obviously, Jones doesn't really care about burning the Quran. He cares about satisfying his ego. Period.

Jones is like Richard Heene, orchestrator of the balloon boy hoax. They're media whores at heart, and the media are drawn to whores like moths to flames.

A protest doesn't have to be a media event, let alone a worldwide media event.

As an American, Jones and his flock can quietly burn Qurans. As long as he doesn't violate any fire codes or other regulations, he's good to go. End of story.

But Jones didn't want it to stop there, and I don't think the media wanted it to stop either until the whole thing started to snowball out of control and they realized how foolish it had all become. Plus, there was that added factor of the possibility of violence and death thanks to Muslim radicals being in the mix. Not good.

Now there's a lot of embarrassment to go around.

I think it's time for Jones to be stripped of his all-powerful monster status and sent back to being just another inconsequential loon.

Note: You can burn whatever book you want and there won't be any problem. Just don't alert the media or hold press conferences or post a recording of the event on the Internet.

Burning Qurans and Building a Mosque

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board opposes the planned protest by Terry Jones and his church, the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida. On the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Jones and his group will burn Qurans.

The Board declares that action to be "un-Christian" and "just plain wrong." But it doesn't stop there. The JS Editorial Board goes on to equate Jones' protest with the many Americans opposed to the Ground Zero mosque.

Jones undeniably has a First Amendment right to burn books, holy or otherwise. But, as the saying goes, just because there is a right doesn't make it right. And it doesn't mean a single news camera has to show up.

This burning would be wrong even if no troops were endangered.

Earlier, there was the deep resistance to an Islamic center near ground zero. Why? Well, because it's insensitive and represents caving in to radical Islam, we're told. How is it insensitive? This remains vague. But polling does show lack of support for the center. Which proves, yes, "the people" can be wrong.

This center is insensitive only if one can blame all Muslims for the fanaticism of some Muslims. But by this measure, Jones' actions would constitute good reason for all of Islam to believe the fiction that all Christians hate them. And that, of course, is nonsense. There is a reason Jones has only 50 followers and why the vast majority of Muslims aren't terrorists. Bankrupt ideas are hard sells.

Clueless.

The Board declares insensitivity about building a mosque at Ground Zero "remains vague."

No, it doesn't. There's nothing vague about it. It's wrong to give radical Islam another victory. Weren't the murders of 3,000 innocents enough? Why be OK with a mosque so very near to the site of the slaughter? Why not care about the feelings of the surviving victims of 9/11, the loved ones of the dead, and their pain?

There's nothing vague about that.

It would be hateful and intolerant and unconstitutional to ban mosques in the U.S. and prevent all Muslims here from practicing their faith because of the actions of the radicals. That's not happening.

Book burning, even holy book burning, isn't close to being the moral equivalent of committing mass murder on an enormous scale.

The JS Editorial Board fails to grasp the difference, preferring instead to take the example of Jones' intolerance to accuse the people opposed to the Ground Zero mosque as being similarly intolerant and recruiters for radical Islam. That's as wrong as it is cruel.

Disgracefully, the Board has the nerve to rule that burning Qurans AND opposing the Ground Zero mosque is "un-Christian." That's a terribly inflammatory and unfair swipe.

Moreover, since when did the Board become concerned with the Christian thing to do?

It has shown such a lack of respect for Christianity, in particular, the Catholic Church, so frequently blaming the Church for the sins/crimes of a very few.

...The pastor, having already confirmed the false suspicions of many Muslims with his intentions, should reconsider. It would be the Christian thing to do.

Why would Jones reconsider when he's being given so much attention? He's feeding off the publicity and enjoying the power the media and government and military officials continue to give to this little man.

I suspect that dramatically more Bibles and American flags are burned in protest in this country and around the world every day than what Jones and his minuscule group of followers intend to set aflame on Saturday.

One more thing--

Isn't it twisted that the JS Editorial Board, defender of free speech, is exhibiting concern regarding Jones' protest endangering our troops when it has its own lengthy record of taking positions that have done exactly that?

The same goes for Obama.

Bottom line: This editorial lacks focus and consistency and sense.

Burn a Quran Protest

Protesters in Kabul, Afghanistan are angry about the plans of a small church in Gainesville, Florida to burn Qurans on September 11, 2010.

Pastor Terry Jones is the leader of Dove World Outreach Center, a 50-member church.

In Afghanistan, the proposed actions of a group of 50 people warrant chants of "Death to America."

To express their outrage, the protesters in Kabul burned an American flag and a cardboard effigy of Jones.

Video.

"Muslims consider the Quran the word of God and demand it be treated with the utmost respect.

"The U.S. embassy in Kabul issued a statement condemning the church's plans, saying Washington was deeply concerned about deliberate attempts to offend religious or ethnic groups."

I would never take part in "Burn a Quran" Day. I find it offensive and disrespectful.

I also find the burning of the American flag offensive and disrespectful. "Death to America" chants certainly are a deliberate attempt to offend Americans.

But we have freedom of speech. Although I don't think Terry Jones is exercising it responsibly, it's his right to burn Qurans.

However, having the right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

For example, millions of Americans find the plans for the Ground Zero mosque to be disturbing, but those plans are being defended by Obama. The president of the United States isn't condemning the insensitivity of the developers and supporters of the mosque. To the contrary, he and those of his ilk are calling people against the Ground Zero mosque Islamophobic and haters.

Can you imagine the U.S. embassy in Kabul issuing a statement condemning the Muslims' protest in Kabul, saying Washington was deeply concerned about deliberate attempts to offend Americans?

I can't.

Respect isn't a one-way street.

I think these protesters in Afghanistan need to reach out to Terry Jones and his church. Perhaps instead of lashing out, they need to examine what makes the Gainesville church members so angry that they plan to burn Qurans. They need to look at what they did to bring about this rage.

The protesters should try to understand Terry Jones and his flock, and apologize for mistakes made by the Muslim nation throughout its history.