A Matter of Life and Paper

    Once again the United States finds itself in a bizarre position in a Muslim country.  On one end of the scale, high in the air, are the lives of two American soldiers snuffed out by an Afghan soldier during a riot.  On the other side is the apparently far more weighty matter of some burned copies of the Koran, the reason for the riot.  But the apologies are flowing in one direction, and it's not towards the families of the dead soldiers.  Searching the news for "Obama apologizes" or "Obama apology" yields hundreds of results.  A similar search substituting "Karzai" for "Obama" returns none.  Instead, we are treated to this from the Taliban:

"Since the invasion of Afghanistan by the animal Americans, this is almost the 10th time that they have degraded the holiest values of Muslims," said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in an emailed statement.

As infuriating as the statement is, Mujahid is admitting that the USA has been in Afghanistan for more than a decade and hasn’t even hit double digits in degrading holy Muslim values?  A sitcom in this country can degrade holy Christian values 10 times in a half-hour, including commercials, and no one riots.  Sadly, few of us even bother to use our First Amendment rights to speak out against internal attacks on our culture and religion.  But as decadent as our country has become, we still value human life (post-birth, anyway) over a book.  Is our government's reaction to this latest travesty reflecting our values to a watching world?  Or are we showing weakness in the face of radicalism?  I fear it's the latter.