Muslim Sensibilities, Part 2

A wave of anti-American protests is sweeping across Afghanistan, apparently predicated on a report in Newsweek that US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, deliberately desecrated a copy of the Koran by tearing pages from it and flushing them down a toilet. Over several days of rioting, at least nine Afghanis have been killed.

Police officers are reported to be among four dead in Ghazni province, 150km south-west of the capital, Kabul, after security forces clashed with protesters.

Interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told the BBC that some of the demonstrators involved in the Ghazni protest were armed with AK 47s and handguns.

"They tried to attack the governor's house and office", he said, "and fired on police and afghan army troops."

Another three people were killed in the north-eastern province of Badakhshan after police opened fire on what reports described as a large group of protesters who were shouting "Death to America!".

"It's like a tsunami, anything can happen. It's difficult to predict," provincial police chief Shah Jahan Noori told Reuters news agency, adding that demonstrators had fired on aid agency offices.

Security sources say one person was killed in the city of Gardez south-east of Kabul and another protester shot in the north-western town of Qal-e-now.

US forces are reported to have gone to the aid of a UN compound in Gardez when it was besieged by demonstrators.

Reaction to the Newsweek report has come from outside Afghanistan as well.

The Saudi government has voiced "deep indignation" at the reported desecration, while the Pakistani foreign minister said that if reports from Guantanamo are true, those responsible should be severely punished.

Pakistan's powerful opposition Islamic coalition called for protests after Friday prayers but in the main cities only small crowds turned out.

So let's get this right, a single report in an American news magazine, denied, incidentally, by the Pentagon, prompts violent rallies and riots in Afghanistan, whose people the US liberated from the opressive and theocratic Taliban, and harsh condemnation from other Muslim governments. However, when nearly 3,000 American civilians were mass murdered by Islamic extremists, Muslims danced in the streets or quietly expressed satisfaction. There were no anti-al Qaeda rallies or riots denouncing the 9/11 hijackers, who claimed to be acting in the name of Islam. Indeed, throughout the Muslim world, Osama bin Ladin's face appeared on supportive t-shirts almost in a manner befitting a rock star. This is how Muslims behave. They will tolerate the most vile, barbaric behavior of their own people against "infidels" (read: anyone other than their own brand of Islam), but throw hysterical, childish fits of violence on the mere rumor that any non-Muslims has done something they don't like. To make matters worse, the US government practically falls over itself to mollify them.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has promised prompt action if allegations of desecration of the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp prove to be true.

The last time Christian churches were bombed in Pakistan or Indonesia, did Europeans and Americans rage in the streets crying for Muslim blood? Of course not. After 9/11, were Muslims in the US killed wholesale in the streets? No. Were there even riots of angry Americans demanding such? No. Yet the mildest rumor of offense is sanction for Muslims to run riot like demented savages baying for blood and spilling it where ever they please. President Bush has told us that Islam is a "religion of peace." The evidence, mounting in piles of bodies bags every day, strongly says otherwise. So long as the West tolerates this double standard of behavior, Muslims will continue to act like savage children. Only when the West responds, harshly and with devastating force to Muslim intimidation and violence, will Muslims have an incentive to change their behavior.