The tool of choice for occupation forces and tyrants for millennia, the US military has long been loath to engage in an official policy of book burning. In the wake of World War 2, so aware was the US of the stigma surrounding flaming piles of books that officials decided to pulp, but not burn, the massive numbers of German language texts destroyed in occupied West Germany. Book burning was just too powerful a symbol.
Not so today, where Gen. John Allen (the US commander of NATO occupation forces in Afghanistan) formally apologized after the revelation that several Qurans were among the piles of books thrown into a military “burn pit” at Bagram Air Base.
Gen. Allen didn’t apologize for burning books, but for burning one particular religious book. Officials insist that the books taken out of the prison library to be destroyed were being used to “fuel extremism” in Afghanistan, and so non-controversial was the decision to burn them that it wasn’t even mentioned, officially, until massive numbers of protesters showed up at the front gates. How did we get from there to here?
It is difficult to determine exactly when policies were changed, or how common these official book burnings are, since the same culture of secrecy that led the Pentagon to buy every single copy of a 2010 book by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and burn them all is also keeping them from talking about most cases.
The conclusion, then, is that we don’t really know how often the US military hurls books into “burn pits” nowadays. That Allen was only sorry about the Qurans, and only promised to change the policy so they wouldn’t be burned in the future speaks volumes, however, about the attitude in command that destruction of written material is now a trivial matter.
The explanation is really very simple: the Brownshirts don't wear brown these days. Some of them wear suits and make policy, and others wear camouflage and carry out those policies.
Of course, by changing the topic to 'burning', the Generals try to avoid discussion about how attacking the Quran in various ways has been a steady and constant part of US military policy for at least a decade. The US military has urinated on the Quran and done just about everything else to it, so I guess burning was just next on the list. But hey, lets change the topic to book burning and act like these sorts of acts of Christian fundamentalist extremism are somehow new to the US war machine.
Book burning, of any sort, demonstrates the demoralization of the American society – it demonstrates a trend, a trend on what America is becoming as a nation and as a people. The symbolism behind something like the public destruction of books, absolutely any book, clearly shows the intellectual and moral decadence of a society. Book burning can only be carried out by barbarians and would never come under consideration in a civilized society, which doesn´t mean that the fall of a once civilized society wouldn´t consist of both factions. The trend is crystal clear "they will know us by our deeds."
I agree with your assessment. It is as though the most illiterate elements of society are in the driver's seat – a fact I sort of blame on the rise of the Red States, where emotion usually trumped reason in political matters. The top class kept the majority in line by keeping them uneducated. They responded by building fundamentalist colleges. It's sad. Of course there is a lot of support amongst these people for the destruction of other peoples' holy books, since they are so unable to imagine any holy book's validity but their own. It comes with being an uncritical believer. The North was literate from the start, not as stratified a society. Ordinary people were educated, and with that came some more measured response to the Bible, and an interest in other ideas as well.
In my opinion, the Civil War isn't quite over even now.
Only one more taboo to break: NATO must be reserving the gas chambers for Iran.
Indeed, we have sent down the reminder (I.E., The Quran), and indeed, we are its Guardian. Quran chapter 15. Verse 9. American military might or any anti Muslims in the world especially the Jews will never succeed of removing or altering the Quran because Majority Muslims memorize the Quran word by word. In the early 1970s the Zionist Jews printed 100.000 copies of the Quran. They only changed a few letters from one chapter out of 114 chapter or out of 604 pages. It was discovered immediately by regular Muslims and were destroyed by burning. I am sure this genious general think he did very well by burning a few copies of our holly book. He did service to the Muslim world to let them hate what America stands for.
It is probably a pretty good be that Gen Allen had no idea about the book burnings until the "stuff" hit the fan. This kind of decision is usually made at a much lower level of authority, and never in writing – maybe even a Noncom squad leader.
"Hey Sarge, what do you want me to do with these books?" "Take em to the burn pit, kid!!"
Not to relieve the General of responsibility, just sayin'…
making friends everywhere
not mentioned with the burning books were the bridges left smoking
So the 'change' was the method of destroying books; as if there'd been something understandable about drowning and crushing them rather than burning them. I have a vague idea of why that's gotta be the spin, I might've even missed some sarcasm. Something that's puzzled me, though (probably not too original): supposedly people are 'radicalized' by youtube, and by certain reading materials… …how often do you hear about 'em being pussified by the crap the establishment (and it's two legged products) 'approve?'