From the New York Times:
There’s no discussion with a bigot like this: You can’t be argued out of something you haven’t been argued into in the first place.
Jones is not alone in this Islamophobic campaign in the United States, which is what is most disturbing. But before I get to that, let’s talk about the murderous Afghan mob and its enablers.
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, was one such enabler. He was a fool to allude to Jones’s stunt, performed before a few dozen acolytes. Why elevate this vile little deed and so foster mayhem?
Karzai is a man who will stop at nothing to disguise his weakness. His benefactors and underwriters — the West — are those he must scorn to survive.
The foolishness did not stop with Karzai: The imams of Mazar chose to use Friday prayers to stir up the crowd. As for the killing itself — whether by infiltrated Taliban insurgents or not — it was a heinous crime against innocent people and should be denounced throughout the Islamic world, in mosques and beyond. I’m still waiting.
Staffan de Mistura, the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, did not honor the dead by failing to denounce the perpetrators of the crime in a statement. He was right to call Jones’s Koran burning “insane and totally despicable;” he should have used the same words about the slaughter of his men. Not to do so was craven, a glaring omission.