Afghan Mob Kills 10 UN Workers

[Double Edge]

We are seeing the tyranny of the minority at play. Lashing out violently at perceived insults cows the entire world into an artificial "respect" that should be earned rather than forced.

Hear hear

Its nothing to do with allowing people the right to be offended.

Of course it is, they think what they did was right under the circumstances instigated by self-appointed defender-of-the-faith who gave his assent. Usually this is all about power play, in this case the intended audience was domestic.

Religions don't need to be defended, they defend us.

Do you not agree that, under the circumstances and having regard to the intelligence available, Jones was utterly reckless as to the possibility that his actions would considerably increase danger for civilians in Aghanistan?

You'd have to show Jones intended to cause this result in afghanistan. His action could have caused adverse reactions in any number of countries but i've not heard of any. Even if it happened it isn't enough to charge him with anything.

To be honest, if its good enough to charge Assange with (and thats a big if) then it should be good enough for Pastor Jones.

Ah, what is Assange being charged for ?

[Chogy]

Book burning (a stupid act, IMO) has long been acknowledged as an act of protest, of speech, and finds itself protected in the U.S. by the Bill of Rights. Right alongside of flag and cross burning.

One take on book burning w/regards to 1st Amendment

An ACLU branch's take on Qur'an burning...

The government cannot touch the Pastor. But wouldn't it be interesting if he was sued by survivors in a civil suit? The application of civil law in the U.S. is different than enforcing State and Federal crimes. So you have the freedom to express yourself, but if your expression results in death and mayhem, and you knew this was a very likely outcome, there may be grounds for a civil suit. This coming from a guy (me) whose entire legal expertise comes from watching "Law & Order" on T.V.

Maybe someone else can comment on this...

[S2]

Double Edge Reply

"...Yes, you can do the same again but there is more value in being able to deter the same from happening in the future. Don't think you could have achieved this with just a small op and pulling out afterwards."

Don't think you paid close attention to the net effect of that "small op". Had you done so you'd have noticed the scattering of the taliban government of Afghanistan to the four winds. Did not that government provide sanctuary and succor to Al Qaeda? I think it's rather obvious the implication to ANY government that housed Al Qaeda back then.

Now? It would require a formal Presidential declaration to reaffirm that salient fact.

Not one penny, not one dead soldier's life, not one stateman's word has since been devoted to removing Al Qaeda from Afghanistan. Things went south for us the day our SOF became involved with the prisoner uprising at Mazur-I-Sharif. That was the northern alliance's business. Everything that's followed at great financial and human cost hasn't added one iota to our security.

[Chogy]

Horse Soldiers is an excellent book detailing the early weeks, and describes the prisoner uprising in detail. That was where the first U.S. soldier paid the ultimate price.

S2... off the top of your head, do you know the ratio of Taliban to foreign Al-Quaeda forces at the start of hostilities? Just how many AQ terrorists were there? Has the focus on the Taliban completely derailed this effort?

The Taliban are nasty folk, but they didn't attack U.S. assets, Al-Q did. Somehow, we went from crushing Al-Q to "remove the Taliban, create democracy, rebuild the country."

[Bigfella]

Jones got what he wanted & so did our unnamed imam. We should lock the two of them in a room with clubs & then shoot the survivor.

[S2]

Chogy Reply

"S2... off the top of your head, do you know the ratio of Taliban to foreign Al-Quaeda forces at the start of hostilities?"

I don't off-hand. I'd be surprised, though, if there were more than five hundred men inside Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 that were directly engaged as members of Al Qaeda. This would exclude foreign auxilaries like Chechyans, Uzbeks and Tajiks who were soldiers of convenience mobilized by Al Qaeda recruiters.

My sense is that Al Qaeda remains an amorphous, trans-nat'l terror organization whose primary direct function is generating propaganda mobilizing the ummah to a pan-muslim uprising. Secondary functions would include acting as recruiters for footsoldiers in various locales (Yemen, Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan) and as facilitators to locally-affiliated terror organizations. Direct acts of terror are occasionally formulated and implemented with a design to support their information operations and gain credibility as an organization prepared to put their blood behind their words.

[troung]

The only silver lining is when we leave Karzai will have his throat cut ear to ear. So long as we don't allow that piece of shit here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/wo...n.html?_r=1&hp

Both Afghan and international news media had initially played down or ignored the actions of Mr. Jones, the Florida pastor. On Thursday, however, President Karzai made a speech and issued statements condemning the Koran burning and calling for the arrest of Mr. Jones for his actions. On Friday, that theme was picked up in mosques throughout Afghanistan.

“Karzai brought this issue back to life, and he has to take some responsibility for starting this up,” said a prominent Afghan businessman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution if he was identified as a critic of the president.

“Karzai’s speech itself provoked people to take such actions,” said Qayum Baabak, a political analyst in Mazar-i-Sharif. “Karzai should have called on people to be patient rather than making people more angry.”

[Chunder]

I wonder if the same people that protested the burning of the Koran ever did, or supported, one of the following in their lives:-
Burnt a U.S. Flag,
Persecuted anyone of any other faith,
Banned/Burnt any other religious materials or supported doing so.

[troung]

To have this "man" do everything in his power to harm us when we sacrifice blood and treasure to keep him in power is enough for me, we should leave Afghanistan.

Anger over Quran burning spreads in Afghanistan - Yahoo! News

The Quran was burned March 20, but many Afghans only found out about it when Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the desecration four days later. The burning took place at the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, the same church where the Rev. Terry Jones had threatened to destroy a copy of the holy book last year but initially backed down.

[troung]

Jones got what he wanted & so did our unnamed imam. We should lock the two of them in a room with clubs & then shoot the survivor.

He has free speech rights, no gun was put to the heads of the protesters. It is spineless bs to sacrifice my free speech rights because someone in another nation could be offended.

They mob and the people who directly got them out on the street should be hung.

[troung]

Gurkhas fight to the death
April 3, 2011
Gurkhas fight to the death
NEW YORK: : Four Nepalese guards fought desperately against an armed mob that stormed a UN compound in Afghanistan but were overwhelmed and died with three workers they were protecting.

United Nations leaders and governments paid tribute to the seven staff killed in what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called an ''outrageous and cowardly attack'' in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday.

The UN Security Council called on the Afghan government to increase protection for UN workers and bring those responsible to justice.
Advertisement: Story continues below

The attackers broke away from a big demonstration in the city against the burning of a Koran by a US pastor.

''Some of them were clearly armed and they stormed into the building'' and set it on fire, UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said. ''The security guards, who were the Gurkhas, tried their best but the number was so high that they were not able to prevent it.''

The Gurkhas were believed to have killed a number of assailants before they were overcome.

An Afghan provincial governor said at least five Afghans were killed in the compound.

An unknown number of UN staff were also wounded and had been evacuated, Mr Le Roy said.

The Mazar-i-Sharif base would remain open though, he said. He did not believe the UN had been a specific target of the attack.

Mr Ban's chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, and a top peacekeeping official had left for Afghanistan to review security in UN facilities.

The attack was the worst suffered by the world body since a bomb blast at the UN compound in Algiers in 2007 that left 17 staff dead.

''Afghanistan has become one of the most dangerous places for UN personnel,'' the UN staff union said.

It listed nine other deaths of UN workers in the country in less than two years, including in targeted attacks, suicide bombings and drive-by shootings.

''This was an outrageous and cowardly attack against UN staff, which cannot be justified under any circumstances,'' Mr Ban said during a visit to Nairobi.

A 33-year-old Swede, Joakim Dungel, was among the dead, the Swedish government announced. Norway said that one of its nationals was also killed. The UN did not release the identity or nationality of the third staffer killed.

The International Security Assistance Force, led by NATO, has about 140,000 troops in the conflict-stricken nation.

Protests against the burning of the Koran were also held in Kabul. Demonstrators shouted slogans against the US, Israel and Britain.

Agence France-Presse

[Parihaka]

RIP to the victims.

'Pastor' Jones should be punished for this. His actions were inevitably going to have this sort of blacklash and it was completely foreseeable and yet he decided to go ahead with it. I don't think he can be punished legally for what he did but I would hope life is going to be made difficult for him by whatever means in as many ways as possible.

I would like to see him punished for something like reckless endangerment, whilst the endagerment he created is so extraordinarily open ended that it would be almost impossible to hold him accountable, where the creation of such endagerment was utterly foreseeable and there were specific threats that it would put lives at risk in a specific region made by identifiable imans then surely there should be some accountability? Although it may be unjust to convict someone for creating endangerment that arises out of illegal actions, I think considering the unique situation in Afghanistan and the available information that violence was certain to be carried out as a result, there should be an exception for Jones.

Well that depends. Do you think that the concepts of liberty and freedom of speech are valuable or should be done away with? Should you only be allowed to say what someone on the other side of the world dictates?

[MIKEMUN]

So where does it end? Whether Pastor Jones was stupid or not is not for me to judge, since I have done some stupid things in my life. He may end up paying for it with his life, if precedents are anything to go by. My point however is that, should the fact that someone will be offended half a world away be used to muzzle free speech? How about if they did not like legalizing gay marriage, for example? Or abortion? Or maybe authorities refuse to grant permission to build a mosque. How far does the west want to bend?

The problem with Islam is Islam itself. Or maybe I should say the greatest bane to religion is religion itself.

[dave lukins]

Well that depends. Do you think that the concepts of liberty and freedom of speech are valuable or should be done away with? Should you only be allowed to say what someone on the other side of the world dictates?

I think there are limits to freedom of speech. British citizens are covered by the European Convention on Human Rights which states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression." But it adds that governments can restrict free speech for, among other reasons, in the interests of national security, preserving public safety and for the prevention of disorder or crime.

[troung]

"Everyone has the right to freedom of expression." But it adds that governments can restrict free speech for, among other reasons, in the interests of national security, preserving public safety and for the prevention of disorder or crime.

Good then machine gun those thugs who killed ten people...

My freedom of speech rights shouldn't be muzzled because of some thugs thousands of miles away. The pastor isn't covered by EU law.