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While I understand the points you are making regarding your opinion that winning hearts and minds is a bad idea, I respectfully disagree - and that I believe is where I differ from some on this board.

I don't see Muslims as monolithic (and I know I will be skewered for that statement). While there are many who are monsters, and their religion is violent if followed as many follow it, I do not believe that all Muslims are evil and not worth the bother.

At the heart of my view is my faith in God, and who He is as loving Creator, and that people in the ME were created by Him with a need for Jesus as Savior, just as we were.

Without giving details, my veteran son was part of the 'hearts and minds' campaign and his experience, even in the belly of the beast in East Baghdad does not support that Muslims are monolithic and evil (and he was being mortared and shot at by the worst of them).

What our military has done under Petraeus, while being far from universally successful has made an enormous difference in Iraq. It has worked.

There are a number of Muslims who are monstrous, and it is they whom we must destroy. There is another group who have been manipulated, wittingly or unwittingly, by evil people, and they must be stopped. But there are also a number of Muslims who need to be rescued from the oppression of evil leaders and a screwed up religion.

It is a messy, complicated situation, and people like this ninny Jones has at best done nothing worthwhile, and at worst has willingly aggravated the situation and put our troops at further risk as a result.

Petraeus was RIGHT to chastise him for his reckless, thoughtless, self-absorbed behavior.

btw, what do you think about Beck's thoughts on the subject and the Soros/Obama/Jones inflammation of the ME?

I don't see Muslims as monolithic (and I know I will be skewered for that statement). While there are many who are monsters, and their religion is violent if followed as many follow it, I do not believe that all Muslims are evil and not worth the bother.

The problem is that our approach is to try and being nice to Muslims and respecting their religion. What we SHOULD be doing is trying to create an environment where those people who only go through the motions of believing in the Moon God, can feel safe to live their lives without being in fear of their neighbors who would stone them for apostasy, should they not be a believer in the Moon God.

I don't see Muslims as monolithic (and I know I will be skewered for that statement). While there are many who are monsters, and their religion is violent if followed as many follow it, I do not believe that all Muslims are evil and not worth the bother.

At the heart of my view is my faith in God, and who He is as loving Creator, and that people in the ME were created by Him with a need for Jesus as Savior, just as we were.

No disagreement from me. Maybe we shouldn't be so hesitant to offer our faith as an answer vs. running scared from offending generations who were raised to accept "Islam", which in the wrong hands, IS evil.

I am not saying the winning hearts and minds strategy has no place in our struggles in the ME, I question at what price to our military, or to the principles of freedom?

Afghanistan is a far more backwards country than Iraq (or so I've read, since I've never been in either country). Operating on that premise, they are more easiily manipulated by powerful figures. In comes Terry Jones with his little incident, what does Karzai do? Make sure everyone knows about some little yosimite sam's stunt and how outrageous it was to the WHOLE MUSLIM NATION.....nobody over there could have known about his action until Karzai issued his statements of "outrage".

.....then the imams, Talibans, crazy Muslims with a chip on their shoulder used it as an excuse for their outrage and killed "infidels".

Now, given all the tragedy, evil, whatever you want to call it has occurred to this point, Gen. Petraeus has the opportunity to react to the events that have occurred. What does he do? He calls Yosimite Sam's incident enormously intolerable, and says the inflamed "passions" were maybe understandable. I'm sorry, that is appeasment, excuse-making, and will not improve the dialogue in Afghanistan. And what about Karzai? Where was the condemnation for his little power play?

btw, what do you think about Beck's thoughts on the subject and the Soros/Obama/Jones inflammation of the ME?

I do not agree. Terry Jones did what he did for his reasons - prove a point about Muslim's reaction to burning pieces of paper? ....get attention? increase his membership? I don't know exactly what was in his mind, but he acted in his own interests. (IMO)

Thank you to your son for his service and to you for your support of his mission.