Florida Pastor To Burn Quarans On 9/11

"Hello....is there anybody in there?....Just nod if you can hear me....is there anyone home?" COMFORTABLY NUMB by Pink Floyd (Roger Waters and David Gilmour)

The Reverend Terry Jones,  pastor of the Dove World Outreach Church in Gainesville, Florida is going forward with his plans to burn Quarans to protest the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in spite of protests from the world's Muslims and other religious leaders, as well as American officials.

General David Petraeus, the American commander in Afghanistan, issued the following statement regarding the planned book burning.

"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort in Afghanistan......(burning Quarans) is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems -- not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."

Jones appeared on American Morning on Tuesday, September 7, and was interviewed by co-anchor Kiran Chetry. Ms.Chetry, who in most interviews usually does not inject her opinion, appeared both appalled and somewhat aghast by the responses Jones gave her, among them his knowledge that the burnings- in protest of radical Islam- would offend moderate and friendly Muslims, and even dismissing General Petraeus warning with a "we'll pray on it". Ms. Chetry asked some tough questions- even telling Jones that one of his answers "just sounds silly": she gets some high marks from this blogger.

Kiran Chetry at one point told Jones that she wasn't questioning the intelligence of the Reverend.

But she is a professional journalist on a 24/7 news network. I am not, and am not subject to network imposed constraints.

Reverend Jones, in my opinion, is either a little bit crazy or a whole lot stupid. What he is contemplating doing has already resulted in counter protests in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, yesterday, as well as another in Jakarta, Indonesia. What he is planning to do is wrong, bigoted, and as un-American as anything I've ever heard....and un-Christian as well.

The United States has spent over one trillion dollars and lost more than 4,000 men and women fighting in Iraq, and more than 320 this year alone in Afghanistan. One of our aims is to build stable democracies in both nations and turn the fighting over to the government troops of both of those Muslim nations. Those troops we are training have a holy book that they follow.....the Quaran. And in one small area in Florida a foolish old fanatic and his equally stupid followers will be insulting the very people we are trying to supposedly democratize, as well as all other well meaning Muslims both home and abroad.

Foolish, stupid.....or crazy. There's nothing else to say, except that below there is an embedded video from CNN that must be seen to be believed.