WASHINGTON (AFP) – The pastor of a small Florida
church said Tuesday he will go ahead with his plans to hold a Koran
burning this week, despite warnings by the US commander of the Afghan war of violent reactions in the Islamic world.

Terry Jones, who heads the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville
Florida, said he had given "serious" consideration to the concerns
expressed by General David Petraeus over plans to torch a Koran to mark the ninth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, but said he would proceed anyway.

"We are taking the general's words very serious. We are continuing to pray about the action on September 11th," he said.

Nevertheless, he said "we have firmly made up our mind" to go ahead with burning the Muslim holy book.

"I mean, how long, when does America stand for truth?" he said.

"Instead of us being blamed for what other people will do or might do,
why don't we send a warning to them? Why don't we send a warning to
radical Islam and say, don't do it. If you attack us, if you attack us,
we will attack you," he said.

In a statement, Petraeus expressed concern that the planned torching of
the Koran would be a propaganda coup for Islamic extremists.

Jones said however that the Koran torching on Saturday aimed "to
remember those who were brutally murdered on September 11th," and to
send a warning "to the radical element of Islam."

"We wanted to send a very clear message to them that we are not interested in their Sharia law. And we do not tolerate their threats, their fear, their radicalness. We live in the United States of America," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100907/pl_afp/afghanistanunrestusreligionislampastor

This is a very interesting situation. You can be in the United States of America and practice your 'freedom of speech' by antagonizing people of other nations.

Some small town pastor of a small town church decided to appeal to the radical elements of his church by antagonizing the radical elements of people in a different nation. And the poor United States of America does not know how to respond to this. It doesn't want to support taunting people in a different nation/religion. But it doesn't have the power to shut its own people up.

America has many "spoilt children" like the above pastor. America does not have the power to discipline the pastor. But America has sworn to protect people like the pastor, no matter how radical of a statement he makes.

My guess is that this situation is going to escalate.

Nas dai,

I think there are two ways to answer your question. One is from a legal angle and the other is from an international politics angle.  

From an American legal point, you are quite correct with the comparision between the "Ground Zero Mosque" and the burning of the Holy Koran.

From the international politics angle, America, because of many reasons, including the fact that it is a big supporter of Isreal, is a haven for born-again Christians, etc, is seen with a certain angle from Muslim nation's eyes. There are people in Muslim nations who are already inclined to interpret any action by Europeans (remember the Mohammed cartoons?) or Americans as being 'anti-Islam.' The Muslim-brotherhood is quite sensitive to anything perceived as being 'anti-Islam' (Remember Salman Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses?')

There was a fatwa issued to both the European who made the cartoons and Rushdie. Now, in the case of this pastor, he seems to deliberately pushing on this button.

All you need is the right setup and for a few unfortunate events to go out of control and you can have a full blown war that drags many nations into it. Heck, isn't that how world war I started?

http://www.firstworldwar.com/origins/causes.htm

So when they burn American flag, which happens almost everyday in some countries, is fine? This is what makes America very vulnerable, PC is a BS. Who cares who burn what ? Ooops sorry, only liberal Muslim in the US does...

What makes America a great nation is it's tolerance. But naturally, being great comes with a price you have to pay. Otherwise all nations would be cheaply great.

I completely condemn the act of burning any religion’s holybook. This is a cowardly provocative act stemming from utter ignorance.

However I do have to agree with the similies mentioned above between the burning and the mosque close to ground zero.

 

Muslims have every right to build the mosque close to ground zero. However is that the right thing to do? Probably not specially knowing that it would irk the community gravely. But if somebody tries to stop the construction, I would say NO..they have every right to build it.

The father also has every right to burn it, but it is not the right thing to do.

 

Doing of select fundamentalists shouldn’t be levied to the whole religion. This applies to the father as well, what he is doing shouldn’t be held against the whole America, specially since no crime in legal sense is committed here.

 

But going back to my point, A Right to do doesn’t make it right to do. The priest should be ashamed of the hatred lessons he is preaching.

Right Vs Wrong
Legal Vs Illegial

I heard a guy say on the radio, which summed up everything.
Constitutional right is for everybody even KKK. You can go out dressed in KKK hoody, you can expand your hatred organization, get legal protection from the government, and preach about it. But is it right to be a KKK? Ask the question and majority of American will disagree and denounce it. Same rule applies to the mosque. Legally they have the RIGHT, but morally, they're WRONG. It will only lead to more problems in the future if they do that.
Same thing with burning the Koran...

tolerence in usa???????????????????? wake up man.........usa is the most racially and untolerance country in the world...just look at all the report from amensty international......  usa should learn democratic values from  uk and other european country   it will take .....nevertheless i suport of burning koran............burn it.........it would be nice to see koran and one dhoti burned together(((dhoti means dhoti(garment) not actual indian person)..burn it ...burn..it...dhoti and koran...lol

Does anyone in the US have the freedom to burn the holy Bible? If so then they should be able to have the freedom to burn the Koran.

But maybe by us debating the above topic us Nepalese are missing the greater point. The point is that by taking a radical stance this pastor and the muslims in New York have gotten us to debate and talk about their cause. Why haven't we Nepalese done what it takes to get a greater world to understand our cause? Why are we sitting around debating about the 'right and wrong' of others cause? Why haven't any of us Nepalese taken a radical step so that people feel sympathy (or anger) for the Nepali cause?

The chain of the reputation of a people is as strong as it's weakest link.

This incident is a classic example of this. Radical Islamic extremists are a minority in Muslim nations. Yet, people in Western nations consider that this is the majority opinion in Muslim nations.

Similarity, this pastor mouthing off with 50 of his followers are a ridiculously small minority. And yet, these few are seen to be the majority opinion in Muslim nations.

Does the majority have a responsibility over how the minority represents them?