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http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/21/us-nato-apologise-afghan-quran-burning?cat=world&type=article



I dont know who exercised poorer judgement:

1. The US soldiers that burned copies of the Quran and other religious documents while cleaning out an Afghan library?

2. The supervising Afghan officials tht left US soldiers unsupervised while they cleaned out a library contaning copies of the Quran and other religious documents?

Probably the soldiers, although I think the situation could have been avoided quite easily with supervision from the afghans themselves. It is their library, after all.

Wait they were cleaning out a libary... with fire?

Mohammed didn't write the Qu'ran he dictated it

Private_Joker wrote:Wait they were cleaning out a libary... with fire?

They were cleaning out a library and burning contents. Afghan officials were supposed to be supervising.

Honest mistake?

Soldier shennanigans gone public?

Orchestrated by anti-US element to bolster unrest?

Not sure it matters at this point...

CT GAMER wrote:

Private_Joker wrote:Wait they were cleaning out a libary... with fire?

They were cleaning out a library and burning contents. Afghan officials were supposed to be supervising.

Honest mistake?

Soldier shennanigans gone public?

Orchestrated by anti-US element to bolster unrest?

Not sure it matters at this point...

Yeah, the damage has been done....well so much for winning hearts and minds

When the US military wants to clear out a library by burning books, any books, its looks like the 'supervision' is hollow indeed.

Its more a case of you must turn up to legitimise what we do.

Still a poor result.

What are the "official" US military guidelines for disposing old religious materials (including Bibles) that are no longer able to be used by Chaplains and US troops?

If those exist, then they would probably be a good starting point for determining how to dispose of religious materials of other faiths.

This reminds me of one of the former service members I talked to who said one of HIS friends got a bumper sticker that says "Mohammed is my other ride" and put it on the back of his Humvee.

Barely got out alive after his Humvee was mobbed by angry citizens.

Huffy wrote:

CT GAMER wrote:

Private_Joker wrote:Wait they were cleaning out a libary... with fire?

They were cleaning out a library and burning contents. Afghan officials were supposed to be supervising.

Honest mistake?

Soldier shennanigans gone public?

Orchestrated by anti-US element to bolster unrest?

Not sure it matters at this point...

Yeah, the damage has been done....well so much for winning hearts and minds

it was totally uncalled for to burn religious material like that.

Were the books rotten and unreadable or were they just not seen in the big pile of books?

Uh....why were they "cleaning out" a library in the first place? A link to an artical mentioning this might help (not heard anything like this in the UK). I don't see what purpose burning any library books would have. I mean they could have been given to the local community or something? This all seems to be a silly issue, though I'm wondering if the soldiers accidently destroyed the books, or it was done with spite (I can't think that any soldier would be dumb enough to burn the holy book of the people their suppposed to defend, or is that just British military doctrine?).

http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/21/us-nato-apologise-afghan-quran-burning?cat=world&type=article

CT GAMER wrote:http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/21/us-nato-apologise-afghan-quran-burning?cat=world&type=article

>m.

are you on your phone?


anyways, it doesn't help the u.s. nato's image, and this incident has done nothing to help either.

To be fair, I don't think I'd recognize the Qur'an if someone pointed it out to me.

remilia_scarlet wrote:

are you on your phone?

Yes, sorry lol, I don't usually post from it and didnt realize it would link to a "skinny" article...

Wyrmalla wrote:Uh....why were they "cleaning out" a library in the first place? A link to an artical mentioning this might help (not heard anything like this in the UK). I don't see what purpose burning any library books would have. I mean they could have been given to the local community or something? This all seems to be a silly issue, though I'm wondering if the soldiers accidently destroyed the books, or it was done with spite (I can't think that any soldier would be dumb enough to burn the holy book of the people their suppposed to defend, or is that just British military doctrine?).

From what I read the reason they did the "cleaning" was because the books were confiscated from prisoners and were accidently sent off to incineration with a heap of other documents. I think since it was an airbase burning any waste documents that aren't needed is essential as there might be sensitive information or prisoners messages inside the books that they didn't want passed along. The person probably didn't know what the Quaran looked like or didn't realise the significance of actually burning a holy book. However that didn't stop anti-American's jumping on the band wagon and overreacting to the situation.

Wyrmalla wrote: However that didn't stop anti-American's jumping on the band wagon and overreacting to the situation.

Including more than a few in our own nation.

gregor_xenos wrote:

Wyrmalla wrote: However that didn't stop anti-American's jumping on the band wagon and overreacting to the situation.

Including more than a few in our own nation.

As has already been discussed the burning was hopefully an accident and not intentional.

Regardless the reaction is not unexpected given the tension between said parties (Afghanis and American military).

As to your claims of overreaction:

Im sure if a group of Muslims in the US burned a bunch of Bibles and it became public knowledge on an international level nobody would bat an eyelash.

I bet it wouldn't even make the news (especially fox news, they never feature stuff like this) or be discussed here in OT if it did...

Right?

Now imagine for a second that a muslim army happened to be occupying the US (Red Dawn III?) and their soldiers burned bibles. Again nobody would comment or feel angered right?

Perspective and all that...

I'm glad CT gamer is holding himself to the high standards of Fox news.

Scrabb wrote:I'm glad CT gamer is holding himself to the high standards of Fox

Try to stay on topic.

gregor_xenos wrote:

Wyrmalla wrote: However that didn't stop anti-American's jumping on the band wagon and overreacting to the situation.

Including more than a few in our own nation.

If you make enemies, then of course they're going to try and ruin your reputation.
Deal with it. We've been doing just that since the end of the Empire.