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The U.S. should never be burning books (Hurl warning)
CNN World ^ | February 26, 2012 | Professor Allison Stanger, Special to CNN

Posted on 02/26/2012 2:17:38 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

President Obama’s apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the U.S. military burning Qurans at Bagram Air Field, the largest NATO base in Afghanistan, has prompted a fierce reaction. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich called the apology “an outrage.”

Our Commander in Chief was courageous to apologize in an election year for an outrageous violation of American values that happened on his watch. But the debate that focuses only on whether it is right or wrong to burn Qurans or whether the Afghan people are justified in responding with rioting misses the larger question: What were American forces doing burning books of any kind in Afghanistan, let alone Islam’s most sacred text? Book burning is not something typically associated with freedom-of-speech-loving America. When books are burned in a country desperately in need of more books, where only 43% of men and 12% of women are literate, it should prompt questions.

NATO officials and President Obama the act unintentional. U.S. service members were following orders to burn the Qurans and other reading materials that may or may not have been used by Afghan inmates to pass encoded messages between themselves at Parwan Detention Facility, which adjoins the base. The incinerated materials were taken from a library at Parwan Detention Facility. The burning took place in view of local Afghan staff who felt compelled to get word of the action out to the population at large....

(Excerpt) Read more at globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Military/Veterans; Politics; Religion
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; islam; military; obama; waronterror
So academia is on the side of our enemies?

Editor's Note: Allison Stanger is Russell Leng ’60 Professor of International Politics and Economics and Chair of the Political Science Department at Middlebury College (Vermont). She is the author of One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy.

e-mail stanger@middlebury.edu phone: 802.443.5023

1 posted on 02/26/2012 2:17:47 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Except for Bibles sent to our troops in Afghanistan by their families.


2 posted on 02/26/2012 2:18:44 PM PST by SkyDancer ("No Matter How The People Vote There Will Always Be A Federal Judge To Over Turn It")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Honestly this is horrendous.


3 posted on 02/26/2012 2:24:39 PM PST by ColdOne (I miss my poochie... Tasha 2000~3/14/11)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Yeah!

Don’t they know religious items should ONLY be dunked in urine or covered with elephant feces and displayes as ‘art’?


4 posted on 02/26/2012 2:26:46 PM PST by Mr. K (Were the Soviet-Era propogandists as gleefully willing as our Lame-stream Media?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

One more thing.....FUBO


5 posted on 02/26/2012 2:27:04 PM PST by ColdOne (I miss my poochie... Tasha 2000~3/14/11)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
But the debate that focuses only on whether it is right or wrong to burn Qurans or whether the Afghan people are justified in responding with rioting misses the larger question

Nope, I'd say that's a very relevant topic.

6 posted on 02/26/2012 2:27:44 PM PST by Future Snake Eater (Don't stop. Keep moving!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Did she completely miss the fact that the books were being used as terrorist communication notepads, and therefore already desecrated by the supposed Muslims themselves? Maybe we should have distributed those terror message-laden Korans to the children of Afghanistan?


7 posted on 02/26/2012 2:28:51 PM PST by Flightdeck (If you hear me yell "Eject, Eject, Eject!" the last two will be echos...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Wow....what a loon.


8 posted on 02/26/2012 2:29:56 PM PST by Psycho_Bunny (Burning the Quran is a waste of perfectly good fire.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Photobucket
9 posted on 02/26/2012 2:30:26 PM PST by baddog 219
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Queerans shouldn’t be burned. They should be used for hog feed/pen lining.


10 posted on 02/26/2012 2:45:05 PM PST by rawcatslyentist (BO Stinks! So does Mitts magic underwear!)
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To: All
Thousands Of Rare Books, Journals, Writings Burned At Institute d'Egypt In Cairo
11 posted on 02/26/2012 2:50:56 PM PST by Irenic
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; ColdOne

This is ridiculous. The books were already “defaced” according to Islamic law (by messages in the margins sent by the terrorist prisoners to each other) and that’s the prescribed way to destroy a defaced Koran.

I don’t recall any concern from CNN when the Bibles were burned, even though they were burned for a much more political reason. They were Bibles in the Afghan language sent by some Bible society to a soldier there for distribution to the Afghanis, and while this is a harmless activity, the US government did not want to outrage the Muslims by making it look as if the US was supporting Christianity (heaven forbid!). We spend so much time worrying about outraging Muslims...and see where it gets us.

In any case, I didn’t see any concern about literacy on the part of CNN at that time.


12 posted on 02/26/2012 2:53:02 PM PST by livius
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Of course, Americas can and should burn flags...American flags, that is.

Shove it up your smelly Obamas, CNN. Whilst you’re at it, find room for some Koreans in there. That’s where they belong.


13 posted on 02/26/2012 2:54:26 PM PST by Da Coyote
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“The burning took place in view of local Afghan staff who felt compelled to get word of the action out to the population at large....”

This is the KEY to why this took place, and became worldwide attention. So who approved this being done (or ordered) this way?


14 posted on 02/26/2012 2:54:43 PM PST by UCANSEE2 (Lame and ill-informed post)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Allison Stanger sounds like one of V. I. Lenin's
"useful idiots"

Filling the skulls full of mush with Marxism.


15 posted on 02/26/2012 2:55:56 PM PST by Uri’el-2012 (Psalm 119:174 I long for Your salvation, YHvH, Your law is my delight.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

>> When books are burned in a country desperately in need of more books, where only 43% of men and 12% of women are literate, it should prompt questions.

Don’t recall your concern, Stanger, when the Bibles were turned to ash.


16 posted on 02/26/2012 2:56:45 PM PST by Gene Eric (Newt/Sarah 2012)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Some authors should be burned at the stake using their own books as fuel. Alinsky alas is dead but Bill Ayers would be a good candidate. bill tied to a stake with copies of his books piled hip deep and doused with diesel fuel. What a lovely mental vision.


17 posted on 02/26/2012 3:02:18 PM PST by W. W. SMITH (Obama is Romney lite)
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To: W. W. SMITH

I vote for JP-4, in honor of our vets, but diesel will do.


18 posted on 02/26/2012 3:06:58 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (You can't invade the US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.~Admiral Yamamoto)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Herr Stanger


19 posted on 02/26/2012 4:03:50 PM PST by VeniVidiVici (Obama's War on Prosperity is killing me)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

As Americans we are free to burn any book we want. If someone is so ignorant as to burn a Bible Christians know that that The Word of God lives on no matter what and will be fulfilled no matter what, because it is God’s Word.


20 posted on 02/26/2012 9:12:20 PM PST by Bellflower (The LORD is Holy, separated from all sin, perfect, righteous, high and lifted up.)
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