Looks like another staged event.
Divide et impera!
See also:
– Florida pastor not backing down on Koran-burning (Reuters)
– Should Petraeus have weighed in on Koran burning? General defends himself. (Christian Science Monitor)
Rev. Terry Jones at the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., Monday, Aug. 30, 2010. Jones plans to burn copies of the Koran on church grounds to mark the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States that provoked the Afghan war. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy said Wednesday he was determined to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11, despite pressure from the White House, religious leaders and others to call it off.
Pastor Terry Jones said at a press conference that he has received a lot of encouragement, with supporters mailing copies of the Islamic holy text to his Gainesville church of about 50 followers. He proclaimed in July that he would stage “International Burn-a-Koran Day” to mark the ninth anniversary of 9/11.
“As of right now, we are not convinced that backing down is the right thing,” said Jones, who took no questions.
Jones said he has received more than 100 death threats and has started carrying a .40-caliber pistol since announcing his plan to burn the book Muslims consider the word of God and insist be treated with the utmost respect. Jones, 58, was flanked by an armed escort Wednesday.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Kabul, took the rare step of a military leader taking a position on a domestic matter when he warned in an e-mail to The Associated Press that “images of the burning of a Koran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence.”
Petraeus spoke Wednesday with Afghan President Karzai about the matter, according to a military spokesman Col. Erik Gunhus. “They both agreed that burning of a Koran would undermine our effort in Afghanistan, jeopardize the safety of coalition troopers and civilians,” Gunhus said, and would “create problems for our Afghan partners … as it likely would be Afghan police and soldiers who would have to deal with any large demonstrations.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the pastor’s plans were outrageous, and along with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, urged Jones to cancel the event.
“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 in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Jones gained some local notoriety last year when he posted signs in front of his church declaring “Islam is of the Devil.” But his Koran-burning idea attracted wider attention. It drew rebukes from Muslim nations and at home as an emotional debate was taking shape over the proposed Islamic center near the ground zero site of the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York.
Actress Angelina Jolie, in her capacity as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N.’s refugee agency, condemned the protest during a trip to Pakistan to raise awareness about the floods in the largely Muslim country.
Jones’ actions likely would be protected by the First Amendment’s right to free speech. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that speech deemed offensive to many people, even the majority of people, cannot be suppressed by the government unless it is clearly directed to intimidate someone or amounts to an incitement to violence, legal experts said.
The Vatican denounced the protest and a religious watchdog group, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said it would send a copy of the Koran to the Afghan National Army for every one that might be burned.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder during a meeting Tuesday with religious leaders to discuss recent attacks on Muslims and mosques around the U.S. called the planned burning idiotic and dangerous, according to a Justice Department official. The official requested anonymity because the meeting was private.
In Afghanistan, Jones’ planned burning continued to provoke outrage.
“It is the duty of Muslims to react,” said Mohammad Mukhtar, a cleric and candidate for the Afghan parliament in the Sept. 18 election. “When their holy book Koran gets burned in public, then there is nothing left. If this happens, I think the first and most important reaction will be that wherever Americans are seen, they will be killed. No matter where they will be in the world they will be killed.”
Muslims consider the Koran along with any printed material containing its verses or the name of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad to be sacred. Any intentional damage or show of disrespect Koran is deeply offensive.
Jones’ Dove Outreach Center is independent of any denomination. It follows the Pentecostal tradition, which teaches that the Holy Spirit can manifest itself in the modern day. Pentecostals often view themselves as engaged in spiritual warfare against satanic forces.
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Associated Press writers Kimberly Dozier and Robert Reid in Kabul, Curt Anderson in Miami and Matthew Lee, Mark Sherman and Anne Flaherty in Washington contributed to this report.
By MITCH STACY Associated Press Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. September 8, 2010 (AP)
Source: ABC NEWS