Early last week, U.S. troops at Bagram Airbase near Kabul literally sparked controversy when they burned several copies of the Qur'an along with garbage. Protests immediately erupted across the country of Afghanistan. Demonstrators gathered outside of Bagram Airbase, chanting "Death to America! Death to the Afghan government! Long live Islam!" Multiple deaths and dozens of injuries followed, including the casualties of two U.S. troops. President Obama attempted to calm the protesters, issuing an apology letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which called the error of the troops who burned the Qur'ans "inadvertent" and said those responsible for doing so would be held accountable.
The President's apology has since been met with mixed reactions. Former Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, who served in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2004, argues that the more the U.S. apologizes, the more it is "going to inflame" the Taliban. And the Taliban is already making the most of the incident, urging the people of Afghanistan to go after Westerners and take revenge for the burning of the Muslim Holy Books. It is not only the Taliban, however, who have criticized Obama's apologies for political purposes. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich targeted the President's apology as well, calling it an "outrage" that Obama would apologize to President Karzai on the same day two U.S. troops were killed and four others injured. Gingrich says it is Karzai who owes the American people an apology instead.
Of course U.S. troops should not have burned the Qur'an. Whether the action was inadvertent or not does not matter to the Taliban - a group always looking for an opportunity to paint the picture of the United States as a heartless country which employs "inhuman soldiers." But taking a look at the facts will show that the reaction far outweighs the crime.
It should be pointed out that the Qur'ans which were burned had initially been supplied to the detention center library for the benefit of the prisoners there. Would we provide POWs with their respective religious texts if only for the purpose of burning them? I seriously doubt it. But this comparative level of benevolence was answered far from innocently. It was discovered that prisoners were using the Holy Books to pass "extremist" messages amongst each other. It was because of this that the Qur'ans were removed from the library in the first place, and from there went to be burned.
Now, we are left to watch Afghans protest, killing our brave men and women and burning our flag in the streets. Yet why, in turn, do we have no right to demand from them an apology? I am about as weary as I can be of listening to our president apologize for our country. It is past time we get our priorities in order - different nationalities will respond differently, and sometimes violently, to perceived offenses, but the United States' playing the role of the nervous apologetic does no one any favors. I do not see the Taliban forgiving us after a set number of apologies. Our best move, then, is to at least allow them to forget, which will not occur until we stop dredging up the issue.
A single apology is enough. As I mentioned, burning a Qur'an, when fighting both for and against people who treat this book as the literal word of God, is unwise in the extreme. The United States does, and should continue to, hold itself to the highest standard of tolerance. When prisoners are misusing religious texts which have been kindly, and unnecessarily, provided and an innocent mistake ensues, are we really obligated to come out apologizing repeatedly? Add to this situation that the response of the Taliban and many Afghans has been to injure and kill our service members, and I find our reaction completely over-the-top.
We should certainly do our best to avoid giving our enemies additional ammunition with which to combat us or turn public opinion against us. But we need to stop tiptoeing around our enemies and bending over backwards to avoid offending anyone. When the crimes of our enemies far exceed our own, and we are the ones promising repercussions for our own people rather than those who are murdering our troops, then we are approaching war and our adversaries in a manner which is fundamentally flawed. It needs to change.
Sam Novack's column appears Tuesday in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at
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