Terry Jones, that Florida preacher, went ahead and burned a copy of the Koran, even though he had said that he wouldn’t. So a mob in Afghanistan killed seven UN workers. Many more foreigners were injured and there are reports of other deaths in other incidents. See this vivid account.
These killings are not by the Taliban but by the ordinary Afghanis we have been trying to liberate. I am enraged by them and also by the preacher whose stunt provoked these killings, just as General Petraeus told him it would. Yes, Rev. Jones has his freedom of speech, and exercising it led to the murder of at least seven innocent people. (None were American. Killing any non-Muslim would do.) Yes, the murderers are the ones culpable for the murders. But isn’t it possible to have the right and the freedom to do something, while exercising that right and freedom irresponsibly?
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