Reader Joe comments
Did you notice the front page of the L.A. Times on Saturday? The one with the Marines relaxing INSIDE the mosque in Fallujah? Stretched out, with rubble all around them, in their boots? (Most mosque, IIRC, have the faithful take their shoes off before entering.) Then today we had another picture, buried deep in the first section, with a Marine officer or NCO squatting on the prayer rugs in his boots, instructing his men. What’s the matter with the morons? Do they have NO clue as to the message that such a picture sends to the Muslim world?
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity” could certainly apply here, however the insults do seem deliberate, don’t they?
(If I”d been the commander, I would have found a bunch of brooms, cordoned off the area, and sent the locals in with a bunch of brooms to clean up the area and get it ready for prayer.)
If Iraqis invade an American city and set up camp at the altar of a church and used the vestments for tents, you can bet that Americans would be furious. How can we expect the Muslims to be any different from ourselves in reacting to intrusions into their religious buildings?