I am totally opposed to burning the Koreans!

Seriously, who burns korans?  The thin paper they use is bound to produce more ash than Mount Saint Helens. 

GEN Petraeus warns that doing so will enrage the Afghans, and put lives at risk.

The Afghans need to take a farking pill, too.  So what if a bunch of Americans burn Korans?  They aren't burning their Korans.  In fact, they have to buy the Korans to burn them, resulting in the publisher making more money off them, and in turn seeing an increase in demand for Korans.

In the end, their holy book, my holy book, your holy book, is just words on paper codifying a belief system.  It's no different in that respect than Ted Geisel's "Yertle the Turtle."  If they burn a Koran, Torah, Talmud, Bible, Zend Avesta, Tipitaka, or Kama Sutra, it's no different than roasting The Guinness book of world records, Harper's weekly, Teen beat, Esquire, GQ, Maxim, Penthouse, the U.S. Constitution, or The Blogs of War.  As long as one copy survives, the knowledge can be passed on. 

Of course, the Afghans get it when a pussnuts runs into a barracks full of troops and kills them, or when a girl has acid thrown in her face, or when an Afghan commits one of the myriad horrible things they do to actual people damn near daily... "It wasn't us, oh no, it was others, outsiders, ali baba, bad people.  Don't judge all of us by their actions."  Too bad they can't apply that logic to us.  It's high time we told these fourth-world mud-hut dwelling rock farmers to step off and back up before they really piss us off (Ask the Japanese about that.)  We put on the kid COIN gloves, and can take them off any time we want.  If they can't take a long view, or worse, control themselves over news that has zero effect on them, then we have succeeded nowhere in stabilizing the country (the house built upon the sand, as it were), and they will devolve just as rapidly at the slightest internal or external provocation when we leave, despite everyone else's best efforts. 

My patience is worn thin by dealing with populations with less restraint than my seven year old daughter.  These people have damaged egos, the inability to control the id, they are at the mercy of the whims of their perceptions of insults, threats, and slights, and have no ability to rationalize, let alone understand anything beyond the immediate satisfaction of their desires.

Ever consider they are just looking for the reason du jour to be pissed off and effect reprisals?  After five years of COIN, shouldn't many, if not most, be more understanding and realize that we are the good guys and there to help them?


--Chuck