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Fisher: Qur'an blunder has made Afghan mission more dangerous
Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News 23 Feb
http://www.canada.com/news/Fisher+blunder+made+Afghan+mission+more+dangerous/6199087/story.html#ixzz1nFHTWQeQ
MOSCOW — Thanks to a staggering blunder by American troops, the jobs of all NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, including more than 900 Canadian military advisers scattered across more than a dozen bases in Kabul and western Afghanistan, got more complicated and dangerous this week.
President Barack Obama apologized to Afghans Thursday for the ignorance of two U.S. soldiers who burned several Holy Qur'ans at a U.S. airbase near the Afghan capital. It was the second abject American apology since the religious books were put in an incinerator at the Bagram Airbase dump on Monday night.
The incident has infuriated Afghans, who are regarded across the Islamic world as among the most pious of Muslims. Violent demonstrations have ensued that are likely to get worse after the mullahs lecture the faithful at prayers this Friday.
Here are the costs so far. Six Afghan protesters are dead. So are two NATO soldiers who were shot and killed in eastern Afghanistan by a man dressed in an Afghan army uniform. There has been widespread rioting. A number of NATO bases have been attacked. The Taliban — which thrives when they receive such incendiary gifts from those they are fighting — has demanded that Afghans avenge the burnings by beating up and murdering any "infidels" whose paths they cross.
As a result of what happened at the old Soviet base at Bagram, a logistics hub where the U.S. air force launches many of its attack drones, most of the western citadels in Kabul, including NATO bases, embassies and NGOs are on lockdown. Given that I was staying this week in a lightly guarded guest house in the capital, I am thankful that after being trapped for three days by snowstorms and fog, I was able to fly out of the capital Tuesday just as news of what had happened at Bagram began to circulate. Friends who are still there say they are too scared to venture outside right now.
How can it possibly be, 124 months after invading Afghanistan and after at least 250,000 U.S. troops have rotated through Afghanistan and half a million more have rotated through Iraq, with many on their third and fourth tours, that there are still soldiers who have no clue as to the significance of the Qur'an to Muslims?
There is no point saying that Afghans overreact to such incidents. The reality is that they do react this way. And there is no question that treating religious materials in such a manner is highly offensive and disrespectful, with inevitable consequences in a country as volatile as Afghanistan.
Nor does it help that this follows a recent incident in which U.S. Marines shot a video of themselves urinating on the corpses of several Taliban fighters.
Fingers are now being pointed mostly at the two hapless soldiers at Bagram who dumped the Qur'ans in the fire. But they are hardly the only ones to blame. More culpable, almost certainly, are the Americans who run Bagram's notorious detention centre. They were the ones who collected the Qur'ans and sent them off to be burned because they were no longer needed as the number of most Afghans and Pakistanis being held at the base has been declining.
If only they had asked their army of Afghan interpreters, they surely would have alerted them to the fact that the Qur'an was venerated and should never be sent to a dump to be burned.
There are, I am told, proper ways to dispose of Qur'ans including burial in a Muslim cemetery. However, clearly the easiest thing to have done if the Qur'ans were no longer required at the detention centre, would have been to give them to local mullahs. These religious leaders would have been duty bound to accept them and protect them.
Most culpable of all are likely the men and women in the U.S. who devise and run the training programs that troops attend before deploying to Afghanistan. It would be interesting to know how these courses compare to those given to Canadian soldiers and diplomats before their Afghan tours. From what the Canadians have told me, these briefings always include a stiff dose of no-nonsense information from Afghan-Canadian mentors about cultural and religious sensitivities and taboos and how to avoid running afoul of them.
Given the consequences of this colossally stupid act at Bagram, Obama might have also apologized to Canada and to the other coalition forces in Afghanistan for making the work of their troops more perilous.
Fisher: Qur'an blunder has made Afghan mission more dangerous
Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News 23 Feb
http://www.canada.com/news/Fisher+blunder+made+Afghan+mission+more+dangerous/6199087/story.html#ixzz1nFHTWQeQ
MOSCOW — Thanks to a staggering blunder by American troops, the jobs of all NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, including more than 900 Canadian military advisers scattered across more than a dozen bases in Kabul and western Afghanistan, got more complicated and dangerous this week.
President Barack Obama apologized to Afghans Thursday for the ignorance of two U.S. soldiers who burned several Holy Qur'ans at a U.S. airbase near the Afghan capital. It was the second abject American apology since the religious books were put in an incinerator at the Bagram Airbase dump on Monday night.
The incident has infuriated Afghans, who are regarded across the Islamic world as among the most pious of Muslims. Violent demonstrations have ensued that are likely to get worse after the mullahs lecture the faithful at prayers this Friday.
Here are the costs so far. Six Afghan protesters are dead. So are two NATO soldiers who were shot and killed in eastern Afghanistan by a man dressed in an Afghan army uniform. There has been widespread rioting. A number of NATO bases have been attacked. The Taliban — which thrives when they receive such incendiary gifts from those they are fighting — has demanded that Afghans avenge the burnings by beating up and murdering any "infidels" whose paths they cross.
As a result of what happened at the old Soviet base at Bagram, a logistics hub where the U.S. air force launches many of its attack drones, most of the western citadels in Kabul, including NATO bases, embassies and NGOs are on lockdown. Given that I was staying this week in a lightly guarded guest house in the capital, I am thankful that after being trapped for three days by snowstorms and fog, I was able to fly out of the capital Tuesday just as news of what had happened at Bagram began to circulate. Friends who are still there say they are too scared to venture outside right now.
How can it possibly be, 124 months after invading Afghanistan and after at least 250,000 U.S. troops have rotated through Afghanistan and half a million more have rotated through Iraq, with many on their third and fourth tours, that there are still soldiers who have no clue as to the significance of the Qur'an to Muslims?
There is no point saying that Afghans overreact to such incidents. The reality is that they do react this way. And there is no question that treating religious materials in such a manner is highly offensive and disrespectful, with inevitable consequences in a country as volatile as Afghanistan.
Nor does it help that this follows a recent incident in which U.S. Marines shot a video of themselves urinating on the corpses of several Taliban fighters.
Fingers are now being pointed mostly at the two hapless soldiers at Bagram who dumped the Qur'ans in the fire. But they are hardly the only ones to blame. More culpable, almost certainly, are the Americans who run Bagram's notorious detention centre. They were the ones who collected the Qur'ans and sent them off to be burned because they were no longer needed as the number of most Afghans and Pakistanis being held at the base has been declining.
If only they had asked their army of Afghan interpreters, they surely would have alerted them to the fact that the Qur'an was venerated and should never be sent to a dump to be burned.
There are, I am told, proper ways to dispose of Qur'ans including burial in a Muslim cemetery. However, clearly the easiest thing to have done if the Qur'ans were no longer required at the detention centre, would have been to give them to local mullahs. These religious leaders would have been duty bound to accept them and protect them.
Most culpable of all are likely the men and women in the U.S. who devise and run the training programs that troops attend before deploying to Afghanistan. It would be interesting to know how these courses compare to those given to Canadian soldiers and diplomats before their Afghan tours. From what the Canadians have told me, these briefings always include a stiff dose of no-nonsense information from Afghan-Canadian mentors about cultural and religious sensitivities and taboos and how to avoid running afoul of them.
Given the consequences of this colossally stupid act at Bagram, Obama might have also apologized to Canada and to the other coalition forces in Afghanistan for making the work of their troops more perilous.
