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U.S. Army soldier nearly destroys US/Iraqi relationship in town

What a complete and utter fool. I'm not sure what his punishment was, but I hope it was GREAT. Imagine someone shooting at the Christian bible or the Hebrew Old Testament or Torah. I may not be observant, but I'd want to crush some skulls. IIRC, you are not even permitted to touch the letters of the Quoran (or at least my muslim friend asked me not to), so I can imagine how offended they were to find bullet holes in it and that lovely phrase written in it.:icon_rage
 
Reduction in rate, 1/2 months pay for 2 months, and a BCD IMO. Anything less and he's getting off easy. In the cross hairs of a Maj Gen (or the entire brass of the US Army) is not a good place for a SSgt to be.
 
If someone else shot at a Bible I would not be offended. Just because I revere that book or think a certain way doesn't mean they have to as well.
 
HueyCobra8151 said:
If someone else shot at a Bible I would not be offended. Just because I revere that book or think a certain way doesn't mean they have to as well.
Click to expand...

Chances are that if someone took a piss on an American flag you'd be offended though. It's the same deal. They hold a lot of reverence for that book, we hold a lot of reverence for the symbol of our nation. Bottom line, I think that SSgt is an asshat and he deserves everything coming to him.
 
Those people are absolutely frickin bananas over the Koran. They are way more batshit crazy over it than we are over the Bible or US flag.

That said, the SSgt needs to be hammered for upsetting the local populace, thereby endangering his fellow soldiers' lives.
 
HueyCobra8151 said:
If someone else shot at a Bible I would not be offended. Just because I revere that book or think a certain way doesn't mean they have to as well.
Click to expand...

And therin lies the rub. Muslims do not view a physical Quoran in the way that we view a physical bible and your opinion does not matter (nor does mine). In a world-wide war with radical Islam these are cultural differences we need to respect if we hope to have any chance of getting the good side of Islam (and there are plenty) to help us kill as many as the bad ones (and there are plenty)as possible and even more get them to eliminate the bad ones on their side themselves.
 
Are we teaching our guys ANYTHING about counterinsurgency before they get in country? There's a lot of talk about "winning the hearts and minds" and all that malarky. That is all fine and good, but it is a Pentagon buzzphrase, and puts warriors to sleep. It needs to be put in terms that a trigger-puller would be more likely to relate to. He usually doesn't care about hearts and minds when he's just trying to keep his and his troops asses alive. He cares about battle. Our training needs to put together the two ideas instead of making them mutually exclusive.

General Krulak (the first one) put it best when he was talking about counterinsurgency in Vietnam. The BATTLEFIELD here is NOT IRAQ. The BATTLEFIELD is the IRAQI PEOPLE. The idea is to provide more safety and comfort to the Iraqi people than the insurgents can. How much safety and comfort are we percieved to be providing when stuff like this happens?

The warrior cares about winning battles. From day one, that is his mission. If our training can be very explicit about the fact that the people and their beliefs are the battlefield rather than the physical surroundings, then maybe things like Abu Ghraib and this latest foolishness and mayhem would happen a little less.

[/preaching]
 
Just to clarify, I am not saying what he did was ok. I was more commenting on Bogey Spotter's post about the Bible or Torah.

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If no one agrees with me, does it mean I get my $.02 back? ;)
 
That said, I think the brass did absolutely the right thing to recover from the SSgt's jackassery. I wonder what the reaction would have been if Rumsfeld did that after Abu Ghraib.

And the reason that Muslims are so "batshit" over the Qur'an is that it's more than just the Bible. If Christians believe that Jesus was the Word made flesh, then Muslims believe that the Qur'an is the Word made into a book. To them it's more than a Bible. It is the literal Word of God, the logos itself if you are of a philosophical bent.

Also, Christianity as a whole is more concerned with orthodoxy, or right belief, to determine who gets into Heaven. This is exemplified in Matthew 15:11. Muslims are more concerned with orthopraxy, or right actions. As in the person who gets into Heaven prays 5 times daily, eats only halal food, gives alms, goes on a pilgrimage to Mecca if able, etc. So the form as well as the substance is very important to them. The Qur'an is thus never handled without washing one's hands, and is always placed in a dustcover on the highest shelf on a bookshelf.

So when you combine all that, it's easy to see why the Iraqis got ragingly pissed over this incident.
 
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