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Misrepresenting our troops in Afghanistan

Published in the Indianapolis Star, March 17, 2012

To the Editor:

A March 14 letter to the editor in the Indianapolis Star grossly misrepresents the Koran burning incident in Afghanistan. Our soldiers did not burn Islamic holy books because they were arrogant. It was an accident.

The fact of the matter is that Muslim terrorists were writing messages to each other in the pages of the Koran - which is considered a desecration of the Koran in Islam. And yet, neither the Muslim terrorists nor their apologists in Indianapolis are heaping condemnation on the Muslim terrorists who intentionally desecrated the Koran. I wonder why that is?

The desecrated Korans were confiscated by American soldiers. A different group of soldiers were disposing of various items and erroneously included the Korans with the other materials - and then immediately retrieved the books when they realized the mistake. All of this has been well documented.

The fact of the matter is that this was a mistake. It was a mistake that should not have happened, and I am confident there are procedures in place to prevent it from happening again. But the response was telling: Muslim terrorists rioted and murdered a number of people in response to the burning of some paper with ink on it. That is the action of savage barbarians, not devout people of any faith.

Christians believe the Bible to be the inspired and inerrant Word of God, yet you do not see Christians rioting and murdering over charred paper.

Some of my fellow Republicans have criticized Barack Obama for apologizing for the Koran burning. I'm no fan of Obama, but this was the right thing to do, even though the burning was completely accidental. If you step on someone's foot, do you refuse to apologize because you did not intend to cause harm? No, that would be silly. Of course an apology was appropriate here.

Scott Tibbs.