When the country’s top military commander and would-be terrorists are saying the same thing, it is a good idea to listen.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Afghanistan who is credited with turning around the war in Iraq, this week warned that a proposed Quran burning in Florida would inflame Muslim extremists.
Earlier, a Taliban operative told Newsweek magazine that protests against the construction of a Muslim center near ground zero, site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City, were a great recruiting tool for radical Islamic groups.
A pastor in Florida says he plans to burn copies of the Quran — and the sacred Jewish Talmud — to commemorate 9/11.
Terry Jones, pastor of the ironically named Dove World Outreach Center, has long called Islam “the devil.” Although attendance at his church in Gainesville has declined to about 50, he now has thousands of online followers. His cynical quest for publicity was successful.
But not without potentially deadly consequences, and that’s why this is a bigger issue than a self-promoting preacher with unChristian beliefs.
Gen. Petraeus, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, said of the protest: “It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort.
“It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community.”
In fact, although the Dove Center has only 50 members, its planned Quran burning has already ignited protests in Afghanistan. Hundreds of Afghans attended a demonstration in Kabul on Monday. They burned an effigy of Mr. Jones and called for President Barack Obama’s death.
The Quran burning comes on top of weeks of protest and heated rhetoric about a proposed Islamic center near ground zero. Critics, including Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, are quick to point out that, of course, the project’s backers have a Constitutional right to build the center, but they should have the decency to build elsewhere.
This is akin to the owner of a small cottage near the shore, protesting when someone builds a huge home on the empty lot across the road, blocking their ocean view. It would be nice if the new neighbor was more considerate, but if a water view was so important, the cottage owner should have bought the empty lot. That’s what property rights are all about.
Still, the New York mosque debate has been kept alive, with dangerous consequences.
“By preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor,” Taliban operative Zabihullah told Newsweek. The anti-mosque fervor in America has made it easier to recruit fighters, including those from the West. “The more mosques you stop, the more jihadis we will get,” Zabihullah said.
The message from Gen. Petraeus and Zabihullah isn’t that Americans should not protest or speak out, but that they must consider the consequences — more terrorist attacks and more dead American soldiers — of their words and actions.