President Karzai Lost Me

Last week President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan lost me as a supporter.

What did he do?  He took advantage of Pastor Terry Jones burning a copy of the Koran to call for strangling free speech in the United States.

On the CNN GPS Show hosted by Fareed Zakaria, Mr Zakaria noted

Afghan President Hamid Karzai decided to try to capitalize on the issue and score some political points.

Last Thursday he made a speech loudly condemning the burning and calling for the arrest of Pastor Jones.  But having lived in America, Karzai understands well that people cannot be arrested here for engaging in free speech, which includes burning flags or books.

Karzai's speech opened the door for Imams across the country to use their pulpits on Friday to call for protests and more.

That is when all hell broke loose.

Note the key point that President Karzai has lived in the United States.  He knows about and should understand that we have wide margins on Free Speech.  While he might object to them, he knows they are there and part of our Constitution.

Yes, what Pastor Jones did was stupid and it worked against what we are trying to do throughout the Middle East.  We have this item from Foreign Policy brief:

The commander of the US-led international force in Afghanistan [General David Petraeus] deplored the burning as "hateful, extremely disrespectful and enormously intolerant"

But, since this is the United States of America, perfectly legal.

And, we have this item from "AFPAK":

"Many Afghans did not know about the Quran-burning until Karzai condemned it four days after it happened"

This is the United States, so we all get to make the point that we think Pastor Terry Jones is a jerk, an idiot, someone who needlessly endangers out troops.  Because this is the United States Pastor Jones gets to burn the Koran.

What we need to avoid is the soft prejudice that says that because Muslims don't accept Freedom of Speech as we do that we should curtail our freedoms so as not to offend them.  Notwithstanding Yale University Press wimping out on the Danish Cartoons of Mohammod when they published a study of the controversy, but didn't include the cartoons themselves, we need to strongly support our freedoms.  If we can tolerate artist Andres Serrano's Crucifix submerged in urine we should be able to tolerate, and defend, Pastor Jones.  An idiot, but inside the boundaries of the First Amendment.

But, apparently, people in these United States don't get the First Amendment thing.  Over at Hardball we have substitute host F Chuck Todd interviewing both Mr James Zogby (Arab American Institute) and Editor Bobby Ghosh, of Time Magazine.  Here is Mr Ghosh trying to explain why this is so different, so unique:

The thing to keep in mind, that is very important here, is that the Koran to Muslims is not the same as the Bible to Christians. The Bible is a book written by men. Its acknowledged by Christians that it is written by men. Its the story of Jesus. But, the Koran, if you are a believer, to a Muslim the Koran is directly the word of God. Not written by man. It is transcribed directly the word of God. That makes it sacred in a way that is hard to understand if you are not a Muslim so the act of burning a Koran is much more potentially much more inflammatory.

So, when at a typical Saturday Mass at the Immaculate, when the Reader says, "The Word of the Lord" after a reading, he doesn't really mean, "The Word of the Lord".  That is what Mr Ghosh is saying.  The man is just plain ignorant.  I bet that if instead of me, a reader at the Immaculate Saturday Mass, it was your typical Baptist discussing this he would be even firmer.  "The inspired word of God."  That is the problem with having our news pre-chewed for us by people living in an echo chamber on one of the two coasts or in Chicago's Loop.

Without wishing to associate myself with the doctrine of biblical literalism,♠ I go with the view noted in Wikipedia

"The process of inspiration is a mystery of the providence of God, but the result of this process is a verbal, plenary, inerrant, and authoritative record."

For the official Roman Catholic view we can go to Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum

Those divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in Sacred Scripture have been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For holy mother Church, relying on the belief of the Apostles (see John 20:31; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-20, 3:15-16), holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself.

Will someone please help Mr Ghosh understand?  And Mr F Chuck Todd.

In the mean time, we have to ask ourselves how much we will curtail our own rights to keep happy others; other who have not bought into our form of Government and Society.  Will our (likely) new Supreme Judicial Court Justice, Judge Barbara A. Lenk, be asked to recuse herself if one of the individuals in a case is Muslim, because Justice Lenk is either a woman or a lesbian?  Silly, isn't it?  But, once we give an inch we will be asked to give another inch, all in the name of being reasonable.

Returning to Afghanistan, what was done there, the murder of UN personnel by Afghanis, both Taliban and local residents, was wrong and needs to be condemned by one and by all, both here and abroad, both in Muslim and non-Muslim nations.♥ 

And, I don't mind all of us loudly tell Pastor Jones that he was wrong, wrong, wrong to do what he did.  But let us also explain to everyone that Pastor Jones had the right to do as he did.

We have to hold fast to our Rights as Americans.

"Never Give A Inch"♦

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Nor am I one of those who believes that inerrancy exists in the King James version.
♥  And I would be proud if President Obama sent a special envoy to Afghanistan, to tell the President of that nation that he should condemn the murders in the strongest terms and if he does not, we are leaving.  And our President should do it so quietly that I never find out, unless President Karzai decides that we aren't strong enough to stand up for what we believe.  If that happens, it will be obvious by the troops coming home.  OK, maybe not a loud condemnation, but there should be a sign, a signal, an acknowledgement.  If we don't hold the line then other Muslim states will feel free to slap around the smaller nations, like Denmark.
♦  From the Book (and the Movie) Sometimes a Great Notion.  Remember Paul Newman playing Hank Stamper?