Who's Really to Blame?

Now that the dust has settled a bit on the Newsweek/flushed Koran ruckus, it's time to stand back and take a look at who is to blame for what.

The cry in some quarters has been, "Newsweek lied and people died!" The writers and editors at Newsweek didn't lie. They made a mistake. They dropped the ball. They made an error in judgment. They showed themselves as not having the understanding of the Islamic world that they purport to have. They revealed that their hunger to publish a juicy story was greater than their sense of discretion. They showed their gullibility. And they have reaped the rewards or their mistake and/or negligence by being held in temporary derision by portions of the press, opinion makers and a public that is growing ever more skeptical of the establishment press.

One thing Newsweek did not do was cause the deaths of between fifteen and twenty persons during riots in Afghanistan. Newsweek basically spread a rumor that was used as an excuse for those with bad intentions to excite anger and violence against the West. Consider the fact that, as far as I know, Newsweek does not publish in Pushtan or Afghani. Few, if any, of those who rioted are able to read Newsweek in English. They got their information second or third hand. Who knows what the various mullahs or coffeehouse buddies told the rioters? I doubt if it was a verbatim reading of the article. Was there ever increasing bias in this resultingly violent game of telephone?

The only people the rioters have to blame is themselves. Their behavior was primitive, savage and unacceptable by any standard. Even if the Newsweek piece were true there is no excuse. If the story were true they had every right to feel that their religion was insulted and react with vocal protests or shrug their shoulders and say to one another in their souks, "What can you expect from a bunch of infidels?"

But others have fallen prey to mass hysteria recently in religious matters:

When the jolly boys of the Taliban decided to take target practice on giant statues of the Buddha back in 1999/2000 the result among Buddhists in South Asia was violence breaking out...nowhere. Historians and archaeologists wrung their hands over it, but I don't recall a self devouring frenzy taking place.

Or consider this from the May 23 issue of The National Review:

Saudi police busted a secret ring of Christians, arresting 40 Pakistani men women, and children who were praying in a Riyadh apartment. Police found religious books and cassettes and a cross. "These people tried to spread the poison and their beliefs to others," said a police source, "by means of distributing pamphlets and publications." Now that that's all cleared up, on to al-Qaeda.

The result of the above incident was. Well, there wasn't a reaction. Just a collective rolling of eyes despite the fact that the Saudi police source reffed to the Christian faith as "poison."

When Pope John Paul II was shot by a Turk Rome and the Roman Catholic world was wracked by what? Riots? Protests? The burning of Turkish towels and Turkish taffy? No. A lot of prayer was the result.

Apparently many Muslims are more hot headed and thin-skinned than the rest of the world.

Newsweek spilled some gas on the garage floor, and before they could mop it up the Islamic clerics in Afghanistan lit the match. The result was that a lot of people got burnt. People need to excercise care when handling inflammable materials, but they can't always prevent others from taking advantage of their mistakes for bad purposes.