E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Massoud Hossaini / AFP - Getty Images
Angry afghans attacked U.S. bases after reports of Quran desecration.
There have been violent protests across Afghanistan since it emerged on Tuesday that copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, used by detainees held at the Bagram military base had been burned.
The incident has become a public relations disaster for foreign forces in Afghanistan, more than 10 years after the U.S. invasion of the country began.
On Thursday, President Barack Obama sent a letter to Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai apologizing for the burning of copies of the Quran at a NATO military base, but it is uncertain whether or not that will quell the anger.
NBC News Correspondent in Kabul, Atia Abawi, answered reader questions about the controversy earlier today.
Click on the link below to replay the chat.
Leave a Comment:
The soldiers there have responsibilities and there is certain actions they can take to fulfill them. i don't think it was part of our (American) agenda to burn those books. these guys down there need to be reminded that their actions will portray us a nation.
What is not being said is;
The books were confiscated from the enemy and contained hand written notes detailing operations against the US troops and allies. They had to be burned.
Seems that minor detail was left out of the public media reports
It also seems it's ok for the muslims to KILL their own for converting to Christ, but it's a world tragedy if their books get burned.
WTF America get a clue, we're at war take care of business and get our troops out of there. to hell with them.
Agree, we don't protest when they burn the American flag. The books were confiscated from a prison and according to "them" the proper way to dispose of the Koran is to burn it. Well, it was burned. Nuff said. Second part, why are we apologizing in a war zone? Guess I'm just one dumb retired Marine that just doesn't understand today's way of fighting a war. Get the troops out. Said when all this crap started that it was another Vietnam. Haven't been proven wrong on that account. We still didn't win in Iraq, just pulled out as we did in Nam. Guess we had better pull out of Afghanistan like the Russians did after so many years. It's a war we can't win because it's a politicians war.
What ever made us think we could drag these medieval animals into the modern world? Get out and let them deal with the taliban again.
Easy for you to say since you aren't getting shot at. Soldiers are trained to kill the enemy and not be politically correct aholes like yourself. They are dying out there so idiots like yourself can open their mouth and spew crap. You should move to afghanistan to see how long your ideals keep you alive in that country of savages
Are you kidding me. This is absolutely ridiculous. Muslims around the world burn the churches and holy places of other faiths around the world. They kill people around the world for converting to other faiths and we can not afford kissing their butts over small stuff. You cant even have a church or wear christian religious items in Saudi Arabia. Come on the Muslims are killing people in countries around the world for being non-muslim. So get a life and understand you have to stand up to them and stop running. No more compromise
Do the Islamic religious Nazis need a reason to riot?
If they don't get one, they will invent one.
One learns from past mistakes.
9/11 was due to Saudis, Pakis and UAE.
Whom did we go to wars: Afghanistan and Iraq?
Directors and producers of these wars: Saudis, oil companies and their lobbyists. As usual, plays have to be started by Israel!
Who benefitted: they. Who lost: we, soldiers and economic mess inside.
Still, Syria and Iran dramas are being invented and drum beatings started.
Those who oppose them: they get abuses as before and during Iraqi wars!
Now see the cries in Iraq and Afghanistan: it is not our business, let us get out!
Sorry: oil is important. We got into Iraq wars as oil was $30 a barrel. During Iraqi wars: precious oil jumped to $145.00.
Sorry: oil is critical. With Iran and sanctions to thwart WMDs, it will shoot to $200.00!
Do our gutless leaders need to apologies over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over....if they had any guts they would have said that these books had wording that incited violence and we decided to burn them...we don't apologies for nothing...and then when the flea ridden neandrathralls start to lose it just protect yourself with force and then cut off any funding.
We need to get out of Afganistan. Should never have gone in there in the first place, the Russians had already had a 10 year disaster. It makes me sick to think of the young American lives lost and the horrible injuries so many have suffered. For what!? As for the burning of their stupid book, again, I am sick and tired of this administration constantly apologizing. These people are barbarians and there is no way we can bring them into the 21st century. America quit getting into the affairs of the nations around the world. There is absolutely no excuse for us being in 193 countrys. Remember the old saying "charity begins at home".
This was a complete setup by the Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners and non-US contractors. This was a deliberately created propaganda scenario. Where is the outrage for the prisoners' desecration of the Qurans in which they wrote their clandestine messages? Where is the outrage for prisoners putting Qurans in the trash they knew would get burnt?
The world will not be free of this 7th century barbaric religion and its outrageously barbaric culture until ALL their Qurans are burnt and the Satan spawn Islamic murderers, rapists and paedophiles who teach Islam are dead.
When Islamists stop killing Christians and burning churches then we should apologize. Get out of Afghanistan and let the Sunnis and Shiates kill each other. They can't even get along with other Muslims. Islam is of the devil and I will NEVER SUBMIT.
thank you horselover 222
Amazing that Obama would apologize to these backward people who hate each other and pretty much every other living thing on earth. They want to destroy our way of life and little by little they will succeed if we keep electing people like Obama. He owes the Catholic Church an apology for stepping on their religious beliefs but do they get one? Of course not. Obama is a hypocrite and I think he is one of them. Our lame apology isn't going to make a bit of difference in the long run. They hate us, they always will and no apology is going to soften that or change it. Vote the coward out this year. We want a president who loves America not someone who is always apologizing for us.
obama does'nt apologize for all of us,only his fellow muslimes
Dave The only problem there is, he is apologizing while he is representing the entire USA.. So it makes it look like he is apologizing for ALL of us. On that note, i wish to officially withdraw my apology, because I'm NOT sorry!!
Please remember the posts some of you are making.
In that case, Syria and Iran are a big: NO, NO despite Saudis, oil companies and their lobbyists Iran war drum beatings, screams, abuses of those opposing the Iran war business about to start.
I will get editors for my English right here for free instead of leaving it to my US publisher.
ALSO
After a decade, when Afghan babies, women and jihadies cry different songs in different places, please don't jump: we need to help them as is being done in Somalia.
I feel this was simply a big misunderstanding and an act of carelessness on part of our troops. The guys are told to clean out an area and burn everything and they do as they are told. Training is the key here. Our guys need to be trained to be sensitive to muslim religious items. These are sacred to the muslim community, even more so than the bible is to the majority of us. An apology was warranted and given, a promise to train the soldiers to hopefully prevent further incidents would help as well i feel. That being siad, I know it is difficult, but the muslim community needs to see this for what it was, a misunderstanding, not an attack against them and let it go. We should not have to constantly walk on eggshells when we deal with these people who look for the slightest excuse to be offended.
So how many time we gonna apologise to a bunch of illiterate sheep herders who, thanks to Russa and Iran and the US are armed to the teeth, and we provide them a target rich environment. and Mr. President stop apologising to everyone else and start apologising to the American People for all your poor policies.
They don't seem to mind trying to offend the USA. We send our troops over there to try to stop the crimes against humanity in their country, and they try to kill as many of our troops as they can. The ones who are friendly towards our troops, would kill them in an instant, in front of their countrymen given the chance. They burn our flags, but accept the money and food we send to them. Something is completely backwards here. They even have our candy azz president apologizing to them and bowing down to their president. I say BS, get our troops out of there, and let them continue on slaughtering each other as they have been for thousands of years. If they continue to harbor religious groups who's sole purpose is to send their people over to our country to attempt to harm us, we should just level the entire country and every living thing in it.
We shouldnt be trying to win the hearts and minds of people who dont have either.
peanutGalleryTheater, good point! I love it when these mental midgets shoot their guns straight up in the air and then wonder why the people around them are getting killed and wounded by the falling bullets.
Again, the sole purpose of our soldiers should be to kill the enemy and to protect this country and its citizens, we don't need to make politicians out of them. The muslim world sucks and we should not have troops in the mideast unless we are really going in for a true military purposeof destroying them since they will not get with the times and remain savages that kill each other for a book or their differences on their own religion.
People may not know that Afghanistan and Iraq are tougher battle zones than N. Korea or Vietnam.
Not many have won in those areas.
When such wars are fought in very tough environments, these mistakes do happen. Also you have to consider the cases and backgrounds of poor soldiers.
About the Quran burning issue, Afghans got a readymade one!
If this was not there, they will come up with something else.
After all these are part of their Islamic cult normal business practices!
sandman, yu just needa go bakk to sleep. For another 50 year too.
Am viet nam vet and between both places..Iraq and Afghanistan there has been about 8K lives lost..Viet nam alone lost 57K lives All pretty sad either way. We did not have to worry about religious fanatics so much in the VN war... But I would say myself that we did not need to tell anyone that we are sorry.,,@!$%# happens in any war..Deal with it and move on. Obama does not have a clue..He was never even in the armed forces. I think that a requirement for any pres elect should be a tour in the armed forces regardless of job..This person would learn alot.
im actually ashamed of our weak ass presidant making our great country look like a bunch of woosys
apology for what..i want an apology for burning of our flag .we shouldnt have been there in first place let them blow each other up been going on for 1000s of years they still in stone age and seem they dont want out. They boo hoo for help money from all these countries willing to help yet they get spit upon killed etc . they dont appriciate the help they get when they ask.If i were these other countrys i wouldnt give them help of any sort they just gonna blow it up again.they want demoracy or freedom to become a civilized nation they gotta prove it .b4 they get anything.burned us once wont happen again.The money we gave coulda help our country or whoevrs country that helped them just to get @!$%#e on.)
Really People, I am so tired of the Adminstration and the public getting upset with our troops. The liberal News People should all have to go and try to clean up that mess! Personally, I could care less about the opinion of the Muslim country as we could not make these people happy for anything. Most of them are very mean and hard people that just fight...and they do not care about human life at all. Yes, I do believe it!!
I once burned a copy of "Tom Sawyer." Next thing I knew, a bunch of hostile older men, all dressed as Mark Twain, surrounded my abode. I was saved by an elite squad of Jules Verneses, who formed a safety barrier long enough that I could board my dirigible and escape. Good thing I paid my annual dues to the Jules Verne Society For Protection Against Mark Twain And/Or Samuel Clemens Impersonators. When the salesman first called, I thought it sounded ridiculous.
...same kinda thing happened to me. I accidentally dropped my well-worn hardcover edition of the collected works of Oscar Wilde into a trash fire I was illegally hosting on my property, when a bunch of "light-in-the-loafers" Oscarwildeans pounced...lucky for me, I popped a capsule of Invisibility Formula, scurried to my basement & hopped aboard my Time Machine, went two minutes into the past, & re-emerged & attacked with a Martian Tripod, lasers blazing & Black Smoke belching, yelling "Yippee-Ki-Yi, Speilberg, put this in yer TomCruiser & smoke it!"
Whilst the Oscarwildeans were debating the merits of the Orson Welles War Machines vs. the Hollywood "Flying Machines", I unleashed an army of giant-sized Ant Warriors, who pretty much made mincemeat of those fellers...sure am glad I'm a lifetime member of the H.G. Wells Fraternity For the Preservation Of All Things Noteworthy, LLC...
Awww, crap! I think I just burned a copy of Dianetics. Or was it an extra volume from The Invaders Plan? I'm just really not clear on what the repercussions might be.
hourselover-- Totally agree
horselover--I totally agree
Why don't Christians get an apology when they're offended?
Nothing to appologize for. I use the pages of the Quran when I run out of toilet paper.
Took the words right out of my mouth!!
Very wrong attitude. How do you think the religious Christians feel if somebody starts using pages of Bible for toilet paper?:)
Who really cares about christians anyway....why don't you people go away...I know..go to the middle east..
SATAN
Libra_Man1
They did actually muslums took over a church in the West Bank and made a point of telling the world they were using the Bible for toilet paper. The difference, we did not kill anyone for it. Maybe we should have and had riots in the streets of america and killed each other over the great offence.
I've known Christians who used pages from the Bible to roll joints. Religious outrage over any physical item is just silly. God doesn't care.
Let's pull our kids out of there, before something else just as stupid happens. Because it will. Repeatedly.
I can accept and get along with anybody. It doesn't matter what race or religion they are SO LONG AS they act in a humane way and EARN everything they have coming. No more handouts or treating certain races or religions like we owe them the world. I have in the past heard many ethnic jokes about my past and I know who I am and where I came from so it doesn't bother me. Is it necessary to do those things: NO but they will never go away. I am sure there have been many bibles burned in the past so if you are Muslim just get over it and move on. If you come to this country then it must be better here than where you came from so treat the USA with respect or go home. PERIOD!!!!!
So, let me get this straight... These people chop the heads off of our citizens while contracting over there, and kill our military men, but we have to apoligize for someone burning their Quaran? No. Absolutely not.
In all fairness, the TRUTH about what will happen to you if you are caught with a Bible or practicing ANY other religion other than islam in a muslim country should be brought forward to the table. Islam has got to be the most hypocritical, and self-centered religion.
Soldiers burned a book. Religious fanatics killed soldiers. Our President apologized for the book burning, but when do they apologize for the murders? And since when does a book of fiction (I realize that they see it as the direct words of their god) mean more than the life of a man? Something is disturbingly wrong here.
people.. As you can see, other wordly ( christian ) opinions on all things are just now getting through the arabic information wall thanks to the internet..you have seen the results as truth filters in ( libia, syria ). give the muslims one more generation and the world will come together...for now,,just relax and let God do his thing.. your job is to smile and understand..
It's time to tell all the Muslim pantywaists to suck it up! They will look for any reason to be angry, to riot, and to kill people. Just bomb the ever-lovin @!$%# out of those f'n countries and do the entire world a big favor. Nuff said. Happy Thursday by the way! :)
This is unbelievable and goes to show that the three faiths, Christianity, Judaism and Muslim will never be able to totally exist together.
Over the years we have seen the muslim communities in the mid-east burn Christian churches and kill Christians and Jews. We burn a few Qurans and wholly hell breaks out. They can't and won't accept that many in the world are not believers in the muslim religion and they should accept that. The fact that they can't accept that proves just how dangerous it can and will become.
The world had better wake up to the fact that the muslim religion should be feared by non believers.
Burn our book, we kill people. Don't follow our rules, we kill people. Don't follow our religion, we kill people.
When will people of this region of the world become more civilized and learn to live with others who are different than they are.
Go ahead and burn the book from my religion. I will not attempt to kill anyone over your protest.
I suppose if they for once showed respect for us and our customs/culture
"we are after all there to help them" we might not see as many incidences as we are now. keep in mind that we are a country that as a whole doesn't even show respect to our own flag (flag burning) it's no wonder these issues keep popping up, and I certainly don't hear BO asking for a apology from them for all there lack of respect for us and pleas dont give me that bs that we are better than them we are after all human.
If these books were so sacred and cherished why did the detainees write coded messages in them?Isn't that against their laws, to defile a sacred text by writing in it? Besides the fact that they are garbage to begin with, they were no longer considered a personal right of access but a security risk. Nobody brings up the fact that our troops had to burn any bibles in their possession because they objected to us having them within their borders. Then our piss-ant "commander in chief apologizes after 2 marines are killed and several more wounded at a "peaceful demonstration"!!!!!!!!!! The soldiers should have burned them themselves, not bringing them to a dump where some scab ass 7th century muslims were sifting through our garbage, being paid better than anyone else around there .
7th Century? You give them far too much credit. The Muslims haven't advanced nearly that far. How about 7th Century BC? Oh, that's right, there were no Muslims or Islam BEFORE CHRIST. Odd that the world would base its very time formula based upon when Christ was born and not upon when the moron Mohmed was born. Hmmm, interesting.
Quote: Trentgibs " Nobody brings up the fact that our troops had to burn any bibles in their possession because they objected to us having them within their borders."
Thanks for the reminder Trentgibs. Respect is a two-ways track, except it seems for these fanatics, over there you have to either be a muslim or shut-up (or worse).
wow i wouldnt apologize for burning a book :/
We don't need to apologize to these lunatics.
By the way, read the article, these were reproduced/xrox copies not even bound copies and they were already defiled by the current inmate residents.
Does that make the Xerox now a Holy thing?
They can kill us ..behead us..... burn our flags never apologize for the atrocities..but we have to apologize?
they are barbarians...what do we owe them?....did they apologize for 9-11?
Not only did we NOT get any apologies for 911, they were all dancing in the streets when the WTC went down!
It is incredible that there is no mention of the fact that these Qurans were being used to transmit secret messages between detainees. The local commander had every right to destroy this illegal means of communcation.
Now will the President apologize to the families of the 2 soldiers killed over PAPER??? Let see, I'm sorry for the death of your child, who had nothing to do with this Quran burning, but I apologized to their killers for you. I hope this sacrifice bring comfort to you...Thank you, Barrack Obama, President. Get the F**K out of here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!