Rev. Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Centre, Gainsville, Florida, is celebrating the ninth anniversary of 9/11 by having a “burn the Koran day”:

An American church has been urged to call off a plan to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks.

Muslim and Christian groups have condemned the protest saying it will only escalate tensions between the two faiths.

But despite death threats to its members, the Florida-based Dove World Outreach Centre has refused to back down.

The controversial church even claims they have received thousands of messages  of support for their stand against what they call an ‘evil religion’.

The church’s pastor Terry Jones has called on other religious groups to join in his ‘International Burn a Koran Day’ on the ninth anniversary of the terror attack on New York city and Washington DC.

‘Islam and Sharia law was responsible for 9/11,’ said Jones.

Unfortunately, even if Rev Jones is correct and Islam is an “evil religion”, his burning of a Koran is more of a political statement – one he has every right to make – than a Christian one: there are no accounts of St. Paul running around burning idols are there? Rev. Jones seems to be at the opposite end of the spectrum to social gospel liberals who concentrate their energy on leftist social programs instead of the Gospel; both have made the Gospel subservient to politics.

Meanwhile, General Petraeus is bleating that Rev. Jones is ruining the war effort – although, since war is usually about killing one’s enemies, I can’t quite see how; perhaps he means the appeasement effort:

KABUL—The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the planned burning of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a small Florida church could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort.

Gen. David Petraeus said the Taliban would exploit the demonstration for propaganda purposes, drumming up anger toward the U.S. and making it harder for allied troops to carry out their mission of protecting Afghan civilians.

Afghans are responding by burning effigies of Rev. Jones. So far, General Petraeus has not warned the Afghans that any more effigy burning and Rev. Jones will be driven to burning more Korans – my guess is he won’t.

After reading something like this, I am left with the conclusion that Rev. Jones, while his methods may be counter-productive, has his fundamental premise correct:

Afghanistan’s dirty little secret

Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy’s father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to “touch and fondle them,” military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. “The soldiers didn’t understand.”

All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, “Pashtun Sexuality,” startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked – and repulsed.

For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means “boy player.” The men like to boast about it.

So, why are American and NATO forces fighting and dying to defend tens of thousands of proud pedophiles, certainly more per capita than any other place on Earth? And how did Afghanistan become the pedophilia capital of Asia?

Sociologists and anthropologists say the problem results from perverse interpretation of Islamic law. Women are simply unapproachable. Afghan men cannot talk to an unrelated woman until after proposing marriage. Before then, they can’t even look at a woman, except perhaps her feet. Otherwise she is covered, head to ankle.

“How can you fall in love if you can’t see her face,” 29-year-old Mohammed Daud told reporters. “We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful.”