Who's Responsible?

Big ruckus, as there should be, over the Newsweek item about the allegd desecration of the Koran at Guantanano Bay that seems to have started a riot and perhaps worse.

In these early hours, it's not clear if Newsweek is retracting the story or not. The two open questions are 1) did they have reliable information and 2) even if they thought it was likely, should they have used discretion and not run such an inflammatory item. After all, a fair number of people have been injured and killed, and people are still steaming--was the story really worth it?

But I don't want to discuss these questions now. What I want to do is remind everyone who's really to blame--the rioters, and those directly egging them on. Protest is one thing, this is quite another. We must not excuse those who can't control themselves or, worse, use this story as a pretext to commit violence.

People do offensive things, intentionally and otherwise, all the time. Perhaps these people should be smarter. (Or perhaps they should be offensive--depends on the situation.) But if someone offends you, shooting him is not the answer, nor should the offense be an excuse for your actions.

Americans are regularly offended by Muslims overseas burning our flag. There are many ways to respond, but an unnacceptable reaction would be to attack a local mosque (even if they support the flag-burning). And if someone did something so outrageous, I would condemn the fool who did it, not the AP for running a photo of flag burners.

Pajama Guy agrees: It's hard to imagine riots in, say, Lynchburg, over a report in the Afghanistan press of Muslims flushing the Bible down the toilet.