Mightier Than the Sword

You have not converted a man
because you have silenced him
--John Morley

Wherever they burn books
they will also, in the end,
burn human beings
--Almansor, Heinrich Heine

I think every religious person should have
a deep sense of respect for other people's
religious documents and religious symbols
. . . So I think we ought to all oppose
burning the Koran
--New Gingrich
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The book is mightier than the sword.

This is what Afghanistan is showing us in their reaction to the recent Koran burnings. A whole heap of FM-24's on a bonfire would not have elicited a peep.

This incident adds a moment of clarity and truth to a war based on deception and lies. (We agreed a while back that a project based in duplicity is bound to fail.) The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is not about liberal democratic values and has nothing to do with the welfare of the Afghan people. The entire philosophy of Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24 was based upon a simulacrum of truth, and the burning (as with previously reported incidents of Koran desecration) proves the point to the citizens of Afghanistan.

They have endured a decade of foreign invasions, home invasions, personal metrics collection, air strikes and to top it off, Koran burnings. The resultant violence reveals the cultural divide that will never be breached. Halliburton could not be gifted with a contract big enough to build a bridge capable of crossing this cultural chasm.

Conservatives argue that the burning of the war's precipitating event -- the World Trade Center attacks of 9-11-01 -- was a bigger deal than the burning of a few books. However, the comparison is false as the Twin Tower attacks were perpetrated by a terrorist organization called al Qaida, for which the Afghan people have collectively borne the punishment for an event which was beyond their control or comprehension.

They do, however, understand the symbolism of this "accidental" burning.