The United States government took unprecedented action today and proved once and for all that we do negotiate with terrorists after all.With the clock ticking and only a little over 48 hours to work with, this afternoon Secretary of Defense Bob Gates called a dopey, unknown pastor in Florida to try to persuade him to cancel his plans to burn Qurans.
At 6pm this Saturday—the ninth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks—a confused looking guy who calls himself Pastor Terry Jones plans to burn a couple hundred copies of Islam's holy book at the site of his “church” in Gainesville, Fla., as a means to “confront terrorism,” and, most importantly, spread the message. “We do not want to become like Europe—that’s the message,” Jones said today in a rambling statement to a throng of reporters now assembled at his ironically-named Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville.
But mainly it seems like he just wants to piss off all Muslims everywhere.
Jones has repeatedly said nothing will stop him from going through with his plan, but hinted in at least one statement to the press that a direct call from the White House, State Department, or Pentagon just might change his mind. That or direct orders from God, of course.The White House and the Pentagon, figuring they had nothing to lose, took a shot and placed a call—essentially negotiating with a mad man.
Jones—a former hotel manager and author of “Islam is of the Devil”—resembles your average aging Harley Davidson enthusiast with his weathered face, silver handlebar mustache, and loaded sidearm. He looks a lot like Jed Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies, except he wears a suit in front of the cameras in a weak and ultimately futile effort to legitimize himself.Although it is unclear if Jones' few dozen followers represent a church or a cult, it doesn’t matter much now that the television cameras are amassed in their front yard. It’s actually kind of amazing—like a Field of Dreams soapbox. If you build it, they will come--the “it” being a hateful book-burning ceremony, and the “they” being scores of journalists and TV people from every corner of the globe.
Both the Obama administration and the Pentagon are concerned about the impact that images of kooky-lookin’ Americans burning Qurans would have around the world, and specifically what blowback our troops in Muslim countries could face.
THIS WEEK
The week began with two days of angry protests on the streets of Kabul where Afghans chanted, “Death to America!” and burned American flags.
On Tuesday the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan Gen. David Petraeus told ABC News, “It puts our soldiers in jeopardy very likely. And I think, in fact, images from such activity could very well be used by extremists here and around the world.”And that is when this story exploded.
A statement came out of Iran saying that Muslims can’t be held accountable for their insane actions when they go absolutely apeshit on Saturday.
“We advise Western countries to prevent the exploitation of freedom of expression to insult religious sanctities, otherwise the emotions of Muslim nations cannot be controlled,” warned foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast.
And the predictably chaotic and bloody reaction seems to be exactly what Jones is hoping for.
"Of course it's insulting, of course it's not a nice thing to do," Jones said on ABC News Nightline yesterday. "But this is a very dangerous religion. If we don't do it, when do we stop backing down?"Of course, Jones seems completely ignorant to the fact that he’s playing right into the hands of al Qaeda and America’s biggest enemies by attacking Islam this way.
Yesterday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "It is regrettable that a pastor in Gainesville, Florida, with a church of no more than 50 people can make this outrageous and distrustful, disgraceful plan and get the world's attention, but that's the world we live in right now," Clinton said.Despite the condemnation of his plans by everyone, Democrats and Republicans alike, Jones seems committed to burning Islam’s holy book before the world Saturday.
TODAY’S TIMELINE
Despite wanting to stay on message about his well-received economic speech in Cleveland yesterday in which he started applying pressure to specific GOP leaders, even President Obama was forced to weigh in on the crazy Florida pastor today on ABC’s Good Morning America.
“If he's listening, I hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans, that this country has been built on the notion of freedom and religious tolerance,” Obama said. “And as a very practical matter, I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women who are in uniform."
"Look, this is a recruitment bonanza for al-Qaeda. You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan. This could increase the recruitment of individuals who would be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities,” Obama said.FBI agents visited Jones and presumably warned him of any threats to his life that they are aware of, and have begun beefing up security at the Dove World Outreach Center, and around Gainesville in general, in preparation for any violence.
The afternoon kicked off with Department of Defense spokesman Geoff Morrell fielding reporters’ questions at the White House press briefing.
“We want to make sure every measure is taken to avoid this potentially inflammatory situation,” Morrell said. “It is a very real concern for us.”
A couple hours later, the State Department issued a travel warning for Americans abroad who could find themselves kidnapped and beheaded in a couple days depending on where they are.
Midway through the afternoon, Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner offered a weird half-condemnation of Jones’ proposed Quran burning in which he made the case that burning a Quran is no more distasteful than building a Mosque near Ground Zero. “To Pastor Jones and those who want to build the Mosque,” Boehner said, “Just because you have a right to do something in America, does not mean it's the right thing to do. We're a nation of religious freedom—we're also a nation of tolerance. I think in the name of tolerance, people ought to really think about the kind of actions they're taking.”
Tea Party mascot Sarah Palin’s statement followed, and like an underachieving teenager who borrows a friend’s homework to copy down the answers before class, her message mirrored Boehner’s exactly: The desecration of a holy book is equivalent to the creation of a place of worship, she said.“Book burning is antithetical to American ideals,” Palin’s statement read. “People have a constitutional right to burn a Quran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation – much like building a Mosque at Ground Zero.”
Around 4pm, Secretary Gates called Jones. One hour later, Jones walked out of his church, faced the cameras again, and announced that Saturday’s Quran-burning festivities had been canceled because some kind of deal had been struck between his meager group and the one headed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf trying to build an Islamic Community Center and Mosque in Manhattan.
“The imam has agreed to move the Mosque; we have agreed to cancel the event Saturday,” Jones said.“We have been in contact with the imam in New York City,” Jones said. “I will be flying up on Saturday to meet with the imam at the Ground Zero Mosque. He has agreed to move the location.”
Which was total bullshit! Jones either made it up—which isn’t an option because he’s clearly not that bright—or was inspired by GOP leaders who synthetically linked the two stories just a couple hours earlier.
"Our thought was the American people do not as a whole want the Mosque at Ground Zero,” Jones told reporters today. “If they were willing to cancel the Mosque at the Ground Zero location, or if they were willing to move that location, we would consider that a sign from God.”“We are, of course, now against any other group burning Qurans, obviously..”
Oh, but of course. Obviously. Duh.
Immediately after Jones’ 5pm press briefing, news organizations scrambled to verify whether a deal had been made between Jones and Imam Rauf and quickly concluded that Imam Rauf’s people knew nothing about it.
Before long, Imam Rauf issued a statement confirming that no agreement had been made, and no negotiations with Jones had taken place, adding that he was "surprised" by the announcement of a deal.“I am glad that Pastor Jones has decided not to burn any Qurans. However, I have not spoken to Pastor Jones,” Imam Rauf said.
“We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we here to barter. We are here to extend our hand to build peace and harmony,” he said.
The property developer also denied that any deal had been struck.
“The Muslim community center called Park51 in lower Manhattan is not being moved,” read a statement issued by SoHo Properties. “The project will proceed as planned.”
Sure enough, the last time I saw Jones on TV, he was hunched inside the back of a New York City cab on Saturday night looking like a mental asylum escapee on the verge of panicking without his meds—a man who had traveled all the way to the Big Apple and packed nothing but his delusions.FAIR AND BOUNCED
Ironically, Fox News—who, along with other conservative commentators, fanned the flames of anti-Islamic sentiment that directly led to people freaking out about a Mosque in Manhattan and no doubt inspired Pastor Jones to concoct his gimmicky threat in the first place—refused to cover the Gainesville sideshow.
No news network should have let a half-baked hick like Jones hijack the airwaves to threaten to piss off one billion people for minutes, let alone days. But it’s hard for me to give Fox News credit on ethical grounds when they created the whole retarded mess.
A CONCESSION
I enjoy seeing so-called religious, family values politicians fuck up, squirm, make asses out of themselves, and turn out to be flaming hypocrites. I'm equally repulsed by religious extremists of any ilk and enjoy watching them come unraveled and turn out to be sick freaks like the rest of us. So my joy isn't limited to Muslims acting like lunatics, although I am definitely amused when they freak out in violent rage over something we in the West view as insignificant, such as an artist's satirical rendering of Muhammad.
There's something genuinely funny about sexually repressed religious people taking to the streets, forming angry mobs and destroying their own communities because a guy on the other side of the world created art that they hate.
Free people cannot relate on any level to people whose very sense of humor is shackled. Westerners find that notion as absurd as many Muslims do our apparent insensitivity.
But a hateful provocation on live international television is not the way to go. The smaller and sillier the provocation, the funnier the insane reaction is.
There's a smart, clever way to get irrational Muslims all bent out of shape over nothing at all, like when Comedy Central aired an episode of South Park earlier this year with a timid-voiced Muhammad dressed in a bear costume. The bear costume was a way to avoid actually depicting Muhammad, which is unofficially off-limits ever since the 2005 Danish cartoons uproar, but it still pissed off plenty of Muslims just the same. 
In an interview shortly before that episode aired in April, Matt Stone, co-creator of South Park, addressed the double standard that's existed in Western media since 2005. South Park had already depicted Muhammad free of censorship in a 2001 episode, which airs on re-runs all the time to this day without problems or censorship."It was before the Danish cartoon controversy so it somehow is fine," Stone said of South Park's 2001 depiction of Muhammad. "And then after that, now that’s the new normal. Like, we lost. You know what I mean? Something that was okay is now not okay and that’s just fucked up."
"That’s a big problem, when you have, like, The New York Times and Comedy Central and Viacom basically just pussing out on it," Stone said. "It’s sad; it’s just sad. I was, like, really sad about the whole thing."There's a big difference between pissing off the entire Muslim world just to achieve that end, because you're a scumbag who watches too much Glenn Beck, and trying to gain back freedom of expression that's being lost due to successful terrorism.
When Secretary Gates called Pastor Jones, he successfully negotiated with a terrorist insofar as the guy was threatening to cause immediate harm to America's image and troops, and all that was avoided.
Comedy Central, on the other hand, rolls out the red carpet and caters to those who threaten South Park's creators with death threats, despite the fact that Stone and co-creator Trey Parker aren't concerned about their safety.
If Comedy Central were an airline company with a hijacked aircraft, they would refuel the plane, give the terrorists more ransom than they wanted, cocaine and escorts they didn't request, free vouchers for future travel, and allow them to fly off into the sunset with all the passengers still on board, doomed to die.
It's total bullshit that a bunch of people throwing a tantrum on the other side of the world like whiny adolescent bitches, over freedoms they can't even begin to comprehend, can control and censor what's on my TV in the USA in 2010.
I repeat: A bunch of ideologically enslaved dickheads who don't even watch South Park, or live in America, or have anything to do with anything, determine what's acceptable programming for free people.I'm sorry, I thought this was America.
