Scoop’s Views

An unidentified Marine sniper, formerly stationed in Iraq, has been pulled out of the country and sent back to the United States. Why? Because he allegedly used a Quran as a target early this month during some target practice at a shooting range at the Radhwaniya police station, located on Baghdad’s western outskirts, according to reports.

Did the U.S. Marine do this? Under U.S. law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), a case must first be made, and then his innocence or guilt is determined, not hang him first and then figure out later if he actually did anything wrong. Oh, wait! Muslims are offended by this offense, so, by all means, let’s hang him now and later figure out his guilt or innocence.

A tribal leader said the shot-up Quran is a "criminal act by U.S. forces." According to reports, an Iraqi police officer allegedly found the Quran at the range after the shooters had departed.

In following U.S. law, ensuring innocence is presumed, the imbecile sitting in the Oval Office, George W. Bush, expressed his "deep concern" to Iraq’s prime minister, according to National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe. He said Bush spoke with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki yesterday in a regularly scheduled secure video teleconference.

"President Bush expressed his deep concern over the incident and told Prime Minister Maliki that the soldier has been reprimanded by his commanders and removed from Iraq," Johndroe said.

According to CNN, Al-Maliki’s office today said Bush had issued an apology for the action on behalf of the United States and "promised to present the soldier to the courts." The office said Bush made the apology in a call to al-Maliki on Tuesday morning.

After that, things begin to get ugly, at least from my perspective. There was a video on all the network news shows last night of an American military officer, along with Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, who met with local leaders from Radhwaniya, apologizing, and more. The "more" part is some of the most disheartening, sickening actions I’ve ever seen by uniformed members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Hammond, who was quoted by all major news outlets, said to the local Iraqi leaders: "I come before you here seeking your forgiveness. In the most humble manner, I look in your eyes today and I say please forgive me and my soldiers."

Whoa, Nellie! Whoa! "In the most humble manner … ." What is that? Let’s get real. The U.S. is in Iraq, still, being the cops for the country, because Iraqis refuse to stand up on their own, defend their country against invaders and local enemy fighters, and rule their country.

The U.S. flag is constantly under attack in Iraq, and for Christians in the area, well, forget about religious freedoms. As long as the Iraqis, and more specifically, the Muslims of the world, are happy, all is good, as goes the thinking of Bush, and, evidently, Maj. Gen. Hammond. As a senior military commander, I would have expected him to have a back strong enough to tell Bush: "I will not kiss up to anyone over a printed book, Mr. President."

After the feel-good ceremony from Hammond, dedicated to the local Iraqi leaders, Hammond read a letter allegedly from the shooter, which called his own actions "shortsighted, very reckless, and irresponsible," though the letter insisted there was no malice intended.

The letter continued, sounding much like some garbage written by someone at the State Department or some public relations flack. It continued, with: "I sincerely hope that my actions have not diminished the partnership that our two nations have developed together."

After reading the letter, according to the many news reports, Hammond said the soldier’s actions were akin to "criminal behavior."

Let’s back up here. We are talking about a U.S. Marine, not an Iraqi police officer. We are talking about an American citizen who took an oath stating he would uphold the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Nothing in that oath says anything about not shooting a Quran, nor does it say anything about humbling himself into a pile of pudding to appease any Muslim or a group of Muslims. Has the oath of the Armed Forces of the United States changed since I took it? The last time I checked, it was the same.

Hammond, evidently not yet quite done with whipping himself into a pile of mush so he could be used as a wiping mat by the Iraqis, as well as the Muslim community, said: "I’ve come to this land to protect you, to support you — not to harm you — and the behavior of this soldier was nothing short of wrong and unacceptable."

After Maj. Gen. Hammond’s spineless concessions to the Iraqis, things got worse. That’s when an unidentified military officer — at least in the news reports — kissed a Quran and presented it as a "humble gift" to the tribal leaders.

In the U.S. Constitution, in Article 6, Section 3, it says: "

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Since religion plays no role in any office or public trust, including and especially for the U.S. military, when and how did the Quran get elevated to something akin to destruction of a national monument?

In response to the weak-spined Gen. Hammond, according to various news reports, many Iraqi leaders said an apology alone would not smooth things over. Look, let’s get real. I don’t care if it was a luxury leather-bound, hand-sewn copy of the Quran printed on a sheet-fed press in Baghdad the day Saddam Hussein was hanged. The Quran, just like the Holy Bible, the Talmud, and any other religious book, is just that: a printed book. It’s paper, ink, and a cover. There’s nothing special about the book, and I don’t care how radically insane the person is who protests otherwise.

It seems the Iraqi Islamic Party, the movement of Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, condemned what it said was a "blatant assault on the sanctities of Muslims all over the world."

Interesting. A book, riddled with bullet holes, supposedly by an unnamed U.S. Marine, found by an Iraqi police officer, supposedly is a "blatant assault on the sanctities of Muslims all over the world." If that’s the case, then many Muslims the world over blatantly assault the sanctities of Christians and Jews almost every day. This is forgetting about the blatant assaults on the sanctities of Americans — in the United States and abroad, as well as on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.

al-Hashimi’s cheerleading section, the Iraqi Islamic Party, continued the ranting, adding that it reacted to the news "with deep resentment and indignation" and wants the "severest of punishments" for the action.

Speaking with his own tongue, al-Hashimi said:

"What truly concerns us is the repetition of these crimes that have happened in the past when mosques were destroyed and pages of the holy Quran were torn and used for disgraceful acts by U.S. soldiers. I have asked that first this apology be officially documented; second a guarantee from the U.S. military to inflict the maximum possible punishment on this soldier so it would be a deterrent for the rest of the soldiers in the future."

Again, very interesting. Mosques that were destroyed, huh? Most had nothing to do with Iraqi citizens-turned-insurgent, right? None had to do with a loud-mouth radical cleric named Muqtada al-Sadr, right? Heavens to Betsy, no! Saying anything like that might admit the truth, and God knows we wouldn’t want to talk the truth about anything in Iraq, right?

Then the request by al-Hashimi that the "apology be officially documented" goes to the heart of the matter. How about "officially documenting" that Iraq has failed to meet the many milestones set down by the U.S. over the past few years? Iraq doesn’t even have one person with enough leadership capability to help lead its proxy-parliament past stalemate after stalemate. The U.S. continues paying all sorts of bills for Iraq, as well as building key infrastructure, not to mention, defending the Muslim nation with the blood of those they are calling infidels.

If Iraq is so unhappy with the U.S. military, it’s time to tell the troops to pack up and come home. It’s time to tell Iraq to police its own streets, dead cops and all. It’s time to tell Iraq that it has to make it or fail all by itself — defending itself against al Qaeda. All those billions spent on maintaining troop levels in Iraq can be better spent on helping Americans here in America.

As a matter of fact, yes, let’s bring the troops home. Let’s spend all those billions of dollars spent in Iraq every month on fortifying the United States’ border with Mexico, as well as building new schools, ensuring every American has enough to eat each day (many aren’t, you know), and bulldoze crumbling inner-city areas, rebuilding them into new homes.