Is that what happened? I have tried to figure out what exactly the details were of this for days. None of the news reports have given any details whatsoever. The way they were carrying on, you’d have thought the military was engaged in Nazi style book burnings.

The more I know about Islam, especially as it is actually lived out, the less I respect it.  There are many decent Muslims, but most of them seem to be in areas where they have a lot of contact with non-Muslims.

While I agree with pretty much all of this article, I wonder if it will be classified as hate speech in either the U.K., Canada, or some states in the U.S.?  How differently would it be viewed if everyplace the words Muslim or Koran appear they were replaced with Christian/Jew and Holy Bible?  From a more pacifist perspective, is there enough non-Muslim blood to satiate the Islamists and still leave any Jews or Christians left?  I don’t like going through what increasingly seems like the runup to Armageddon.

Let us not overlook the fact that nearly 90 percent of Afghans cannot even read the Koran. Doesn’t matter if it’s in Arabic, Pashto, or Dari. It is merely a magic talisman, rather than a source of wisdom.

The literacy rate in the Afghan Army and Police is at best 25 percent. Compare that to Uganda, where you have to be a high school graduate even to join the army.

We need to maintain a powerful base of operations there, however, because Iran and Pakistan are even worse “dung-pits”—I’m sure the elves would not allow the preferred equivalent—and part of the way you deal with a Bad Neighborhood is to build a police station right in the middle of it.

But that doesn’t mean Afghanistan can be fixed, or even if it can (which I doubt) whether we should be the ones to do it. Our base in Cuba has not been tasked with fixing Cuba. It also has not been attacked, because Cubans know what would happen if they tried. We should do something similar with Bagram.

At some point, the civilized western world, founded as it is on Jueaeo-Christian foundation, is going to have to recognize the “radical Islam” is like a “round circle.”  There just isn’t any other kind.

Why is Kendall posting this?  Is there some benefit to his readership?  Does the story help us to understand Islam, or does it help us to understand Afghanistan?  Does it help us be compassionate by providing insight into our “enemy”?  Does it help us to love?  Where’s the distinction, if any, made by McCarthy?  I don’t get it.

Bart Hall, post 4, Thanks for pointing this out”
“The literacy rate in the Afghan Army and Police is at best 25 percent. Compare that to Uganda, where you have to be a high school graduate even to join the army.”
I wish our army would realize how powerful a weapon language can be. It seems to me that our soldiers lack of training in the Afghan language may be handicapping our mission in Afghanistan more severely than anyone realizes and our countries lack of a program to teach Afghans to read and write the English language may doom Afghans to become the pawns of anyone who wants to take advantage of their illiteracy.