Hot Button!

This is coolbert:

Quite literally so this is a hot button item, incomprehensible and inexcusably so even ten years beyond the 9/11 attacks.

"'Qur'an burning' at Bagram base sparks protest – in pictures"

"Protesters besiege one of the largest US-run military bases in Afghanistan, furious over reports that soldiers set fire to copies of the Qur'an"

Copies of the Koran as being used to transmit secret messages and jihadist exhortations placed on a garbage heap fire and burned.

Unthinking and just plain stupid American military personnel behaving in a manner offending the local Afghan and Muslims world-wide and big time.

How this all happened is beyond me! Knowing full well the extreme even ultra sensitivity of the Muslim in such matters, the deed has been done, with the consequences to follow being unpredictable in a bad way too!! NO ONE EVEN ONCE HAD THE THOUGHT MAYBE WE OUGHT NOT TO BE DOING THIS?

NO AMOUNT OF EXPLANATION, APOLOGIES, GOODWILL, GESTURES AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CULPRITS CAN UN-DO THE DAMAGE AT THIS POINT.

Especially in a place like Afghan where the situation can go from bad to much worse in the proverbial heartbeat.

Those US/NATO forces eight hundred miles [1,300 kilometers] from the nearest ocean, an unstable and untenable supply line, no meaningful line of retreat, how to extricate themselves if so needed!! Where exactly to go?

Over and over ever since 2001 I recall in my own mind the British debacle and disaster of 1842. Christmas Day amidst a snowstorm 18,000 English soldiers and camp followers attempt a ninety mile [144 kilometers] march to the Khyber Pass and safety. ONLY ONE MAN SAFELY SURVIVING THE JOURNEY, ESCAPING ONLY BY TYING HIMSELF TO THE STIRRUP OF A HORSE AND ALLOWING HIMSELF TO BE DRAGGED A GOODLY PORTION OF THE DISTANCE!!

Afghan was never going to be easy and is now even that much more difficult. Beware US/NATO forces I hope adequate plans are being made in case the order is given: "get the hell outta there and as fast as you can!!" Hope for the best but plan for the worst?

coolbert.