Afghanistan Not Worth Any More American Deaths

And the beat goes on in Afghanistan in the wake of the Koran burnings by American troops.

At least four Americans have been murdered by Muslim fanatics--and one of those fanatics was an Afghan cop on duty to protect American advisors posted to the Interior Ministry in Kabul.

Now the protests and violence have spread to Pakistan--another nation not worth the life of one American soldier.

Enough is enough.

I spent time in both countries when the Russians were still fighting in Afghanistan back in the late 1980s.

Even then I saw that trying to bring Afghanistan into what was then the 20th Century was an exercise in futility. Trying to bring it into the 21st Century is even more daunting.

This is a primitive, squalid land ruled by boorish religious fanatics who, to paraphrase our wonderful apology-prone president: "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."

Of course, Obama made those comments about small town Americans in Pennsylvania and the Midwest--not the religious zealots who are running around the streets of Afghan cities shouting Anti-American epithets.

"Death to America!" That's Gratitude for you.

My question when I see scenes like this: what the hell are we doing in this God-forsaken place?

The Afghan people don't want us there--no matter how many schools and hospitals we build or infrastructure investments we make.

I recall going into Afghanistan with Mujahideen rebels who were fighting the Russians in 1987. During one conversation with the guerillas I was with the conversation turned to Russians.

'We will kill them all if they don't leave,' one rebel named Ghorzang told me. 'We want no foreigners in our country.'

'What about Americans?' I asked, figuring he might be less hostile to Uncle Sam because of the hundreds of Stinger missiles and other weaponry Washington had covertly provided to the Mujahideen to use against the Russians.

'If Americans come, we will kill them also,' he said.

'That is not a very grateful attitude,' I responded.

'We owe no gratitude to infidels,' he said. The Koran says: "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."

I was not willing to let the conversation end there.

'So, if America helps the Mujahideen defeat the Russians, you feel no sense of indebtedness at all?' I asked.

'Not if they are unbelievers,' he replied.

At that point I had serious reservations about what we were doing to help the Afghanis defeat the Russians. Today I am convinced that this wretched land with its religious intolerance, its inept political leadership and a population that cares little about the blood spilled by Americans in the cause of freedom should be left to its own devices.

Allowing it to sink deeper into its own cesspit of 8th Century values would be doing the world a favor.

Death to the Koran Burners!

As the week was ending last week Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office demanded that NATO put on public trial those who burned copies of the Koran at a NATO base.

 What about the Afghani cop who killed those two American officers in the Interior Ministry? I suspect he is being hailed as a hero and no doubt is being protected by someone--possibly "peace-loving" mullahs and imams or perhaps someone in Karzai's government.

Those soldiers need not be put on trial. In the first place the books they burned had already been defiled by secret messages written in them by Taliban captives. Secondly, since when did book burning become a capital crime? And why is the Koran any more sacred than the Old Testament or the writings of Buddha?

I have to think that in the Status of Forces agreement between the U.S. and Afghanistan burning the Koran is not listed as a felony.

If President Obama, the Great Apologizer, wanted to show any leadership at all in this issue, which he apparently doesn't,  he would bring not only those soldiers home who burned the Koran, but all of our troops who continue to be in harm's way in a fetid land where they are neither wanted nor appreciated.

The Pentagon might even consider giving the Koran burners a medal--along with all of the soldiers, who have risked their lives for a people, who: "owe no gratitude to infidels."

Koran Burning Aftermath Once Again Exposes Muslim Fanaticism

 After hearing about the furor created when four Korans were burned with garbage at a U.S. military facility in Afghanistan I tried to recall the last time similar rioting broke out when Old and New Testaments were destroyed by Muslims.

Bibles are destroyed all the time in many Muslim countries where Christian and Jewish religious items are forbidden. But I have yet to see armed Christians and Jews march on Saudi or Iranian embassies in protest.

That is what is happening in Afghanistan, however. So far 12 people have died in riots and two American soldiers have been shot to death in retaliation for the Koran burning incident.

Naturally, Barak Obama, who has already bowed to the Saudi King thereby demeaning the office of U.S. President, quickly issued a hang-wringing written apology for the Koran burning. God forbid that the White House should ignore any affront to the world's most violent and confrontational religion and the fanatics who wallow in it.

Obama Bowing to Saudi King

Muslims, as we are seeing in Afghanistan, are a peace-loving people. Except, of course, when somebody says anything--and I mean ANYTHING--negative about their blood-stained religion; burns the Koran; or attempts to depict a likeness of Islam's founder and prophet Mohammed. Then, watch out! Blood will be spilled.

Islam a tolerant religion? I think not. As a foreign correspondent I spent a lot of time in Islamic nations. I quickly discovered that Islam is the most intolerant and vicious religion on our planet.

Both the Koran and Hadith collections clearly tell Muslims to "kill infidels, kill Jews, and make treaties with your enemies until such time as you are able to make war and plunder them." Mohammad also instructed his followers to give the enemy the opportunity to convert to Islam, and if they did not, they were to kill them. These are facts taken from Islam's holy books.

Not long ago Ergun Mehmet Caner and Emir Fethi Caner, two Arab Muslims who converted to Christianity, wrote a book ("Unveiling Islam: An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs") in which they gave an eye-opening account of Islam's prophet.

Citing passages from the Hadith, the collected sayings of Muhammad, the Caners note that, by his own account, the founder of Islam was often possessed by Satan. The phrase "Satanic Verses" refers to words that Muhammad first claimed had come from God, but which he later concluded were spoken by Satan.

During his life Muhammad married 11 women, kept two others as concubines and recommended wife-beating. His third wife was 6 years old when he married her and 9 when he consummated the marriage. The argument can made, therefore, that Muhammad was a demon-possessed pedophile. Not something many Muslims would concur with. Yet this information comes from Islam's holiest books.

So here we are in the 21st Century and one of those books has been burned, probably by mistake. That event has triggered three days of bloody riots in city streets all across Afghanistan.

Muslim Rioters in Afghanistan

One has to ask, therefore, if Mohammed would condone such violence? Jesus Christ, whom Muslims regard as just another prophet of God (and secondary to Mohammed) would not have--at least one does not find a call to violence in any of his teachings.

Yet the violence we are seeing in Afghanistan is condoned and encouraged by Islamic leaders in that country, many of whom are calling for Jihad against Americans.

Jihad defined is the forcible advancement of Islam, coupled with a contrived hatred for the Western world. It appeals to the hearts and minds of millions of disaffected Muslims worldwide, many of them young and eager to give their lives in the cause of Allah.

Many well-educated Muslims, in the Middle East and in the West, have taken hold of the intellectual cause of Islamism and support this jihad wholeheartedly. Witness the exultation of Muslims worldwide at the destruction of the World Trade Center towers...not only in Palestinian, Pakistani, and Egyptian villages and slums, but also in more well-to-do North African neighborhoods in France and on many college campuses in North America.

So my question is simply this: Given the obvious nature of this most violent, intolerant, iniquitous of religions, why should our government issue a groveling apology for burning a few pages of paper called the Koran--a book that commands and commends religiously-motivated violence against unbelievers?

Given its intolerance of Christians, Jews, Buddhists and others, why should we wring our hands when someone dares to depict what the Prophet Mohammed might have looked like?

For my part, I still like the way the animated comedy South Park handled the issue of what the Prophet looked like.

During an episode in 2010, the prophet appeared disguised in a bear suit. 

See for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG0quz3Gu8g