newsweek was wrong

So much hatred, so little time

There are two kinds of people in the world: sincere people of good intent (even if they sometimes make mistakes), and evil people.  Additional labels such as Christian, Arab, Jew, Muslim, American, etc. add spice to life, but right now our world has too much spice.

The Newsweek article was probably true.  I don't say that because I believe Americans are evil.  I say it because:

1.  The International Red Cross has made numerous complaints to the U.S. in the past regarding desecration of the Qur'an.

2.  The early response by the U.S. government was not to deny the allegation, but to say it was the prisoners themselves who tore pages from the Qur'an to make the toilets overflow.  They only changed to a denial when they realized there was going to be big trouble.

3.  The government changed their story three times in the days after the article appeared.

4.  Common sense dictates that Muslim prisoners in an American war prison are frightened.  They have only Allah.  Even if any Muslim on earth would desecrate the Qur'an, and we know that is very unlikely, no human being would desecrate their holy book under the circumstances.  As Americans say: There are no atheists in foxholes.  Since the American govenment obviously lied regarding this, there is no reason to believe their current story.

5.  Newsweek is owned by a large corportation.  Large American corporations are known to be vulnerable to political pressure.

When Americans hysterically and aggressively deny the possible -- in fact probable -- truth of this story, they are really saying they can't believe their military would do such a horrible thing.  Now, it's true they should know better.  We all saw the pictures of Abu Gharib.  But Americans -- like other people -- love their country very much, and they've been raised to think such horrors are simply not possible.  It's very painful and it takes time for an American to accept the truth regarding the atrocities their government is capable of. 

It's understandable if other people don't have any more patience left to give to America.  In many cases, we can all admire the kindness, patience, tolerance, and generosity of spirit others have shown to Americans.  If some now are completely fed up and are responding with horrifying violence, this too is understandable, although it is no more acceptable than American atrocities.

We need to return to basics, supporting sincere people and rejecting evil people without regard for anything else.   There are good and decent Americans, good and decent Muslims, good and decent Jews.  There are also sick, degenerate, rabid animals among all those groups.  The world is too complicated for us to have the luxury of being able to point to any group and say "those people are evil."

Allah told us to encourage good and forbid evil.  If we concentrate on that, without allowing ourselves to become distracted by superficial labels and the need to identify one group or another as the personification of evil, we'll have all we can reasonably do.

Incredible,just remember muslims,jews, atheist,hindus,catholics all those labels make up the U.S.Your own people help create this country and they are looked down upon if they ever return home,or maybe even killed for living in the here.Now tell me how thats not ironic?So yes there is evil everywhere,but when you leave the U.S wether you are evil or not you are always persecuted,just for bieng an american.Which is again acountry made up of the worlds people,who vote evryday for there freedom to express and believe what ever they want,and yes some do create havoc to get others to believe in there ways,but bombing of restuarants,and public places to innocent people that want to be free is not the way to handle things.Thank you for your comments they did not lean to one side and that is what is important.God Bless You

Well, I'm wondering...are we still talking about the false statement of newsweek??With the Quran flushed down the toilet...when i heard this, even with there apology i still think its all a lie! This is only my opinion, but I think that they apologized because it was offending the Muslims in the world, yet it really happened. If you have any comments about my opinion, just post a reply.