On 9/11 and Terry Jones

Two days from now it will be nine years since the United States of America came under attack by Islamic extremists. At least, that is how most of the nation remembers the terrorists who attacked us nine years ago; not as men who defied how the Koran says to wage jihad, not harming innocents being a prime commandment of how to wage jihad. This will be a rare political post on my part, diverging from my primary topic of faith; at the same time it will indeed deal with faith, or the twisted parody of it.

That day was hard on all of us. In a single morning, over three thousand people lost their lives; citizens from 91 nations were killed. It was truly an attack of a global scale on the center of world trade and finances, as well as elsewhere; a small field in Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon...the most overlooked of the target sites, but still where more people died than during the Oklahoma City Bombing. In a single morning, the worldview of an entire nation changed, and a myth of invincibility held by my parents' generation and my grandparents' generation was shattered forever. No nation had brought America to its knees, a group of highly organized stateless terrorists had.

Nine years ago, a terrible event occurred that has left lasting scars upon not only the American people, but the world. However, nine years ago, for a few brief weeks, the world stood united in one voice to decry the horrors of which it had been subjected to. When I think about it nine years later, my first thought is not of collapsing buildings or aircraft; rather it is of the still photographs of the people who were jumping from the World Trade Center, thinking it was preferable to the death that awaited them inside. I get chills just thinking back to it, the looks on their faces as they embraced a quick death over smoke inhalation or being burned alive; what would I do if those were my only choices? Would I burn? Would I cease to be able to breathe? Would I apologize to God as I jumped, and what would I think of on those brief seconds on the way down?

Nine years later and we have still not rebuilt Ground Zero...but we have debates about mosques and cultural centers that may be built nearby. Nine years later and we are still in Afghanistan, where the war has taken a turn for the worse. Nine years later and we still have yet to capture Osama bin Laden, the head of Al Quaeda. Nine years later, we are a divided and heavily partisaned nation.

I am twenty four years old. Around a third of my life, give or take, has happened since that fateful day in September, and still I hold on to the memories of that day as if they were yesterday. Sitting in Keyboarding as the second plane hit when we turned it on, everyone almost immediately realizing it couldn't be an accident. The announcements drowning out the television because the office didn't realize anything was going on. Going to science class as something was being said about a fire at the Pentagon and the teacher making us take a test because she wasn't going to let us out of it for some sort of accident. The use of television being banned in the school while we took that test. And then when being picked up, finding out about what had happened in my day of being cut off from the outside world at school: the twin towers I had once looked out from were gone, the Pentagon was partially destroyed, and a fourth aircraft had gone down in Pennsylvania. The FAA had shut down United States airspace for the first time in history; leaving Americans abroad to be cared for in an unprecedented way by the citizens of the nations they were stranded in. We didn't know how many people were dead, or if there was more coming in the following days.

Life would go on and life did go on. Earlier I mentioned that it has been nine years since we entered into a war in Afghanistan. In the time since, US troops have been ensconced in Iraq. Special forces are operating in any number of nations as part of the global war on terror. Multiculturalism has not been my nation's strongest trait, with many American children learning geography from where we're bombing in the news. Yet, even with a distinct lack of impression on most people's parts of how the rest of the world negatively perceives us, almost everyone I know can agree on one thing...burning the Koran is wrong.

Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida is planning a bonfire of the Koran for September the 11th in the year 2010. They have not been granted a permit by the city of Gainesville to burn in the city limits, but intend to face the fines anyhow. Due to the inherent danger and death threats he has recieved, his bank has demanded immediate repayment of his $140,000 mortgage on the church and his property insurance has been canceled.

His actions are reprehensible and add untold sorrow and frustration to all sides on what should be a solemn day of remembrance. He also is unnecessarily placing the lives of American civilians abroad in danger, as well as those of American soldiers still serving in a number of nations, including Afghanistan. Not that there's any proof of that, except for little things like:
1) Jordanian extremists have announced that the burning of the Koran is a declaration of war.
2) Protesters are already in the streets in Afghanistan burning Pastor Jones in effigy as General Patraeus, commanding forces in Afghanistan has warned that U.S. troops are in danger due to this book burning.

So what sort of people are joining together that one might not expect, in condemning this burning of Islam's holy book? Maybe a more disparate cast than you might imagine:
1) Sarah Palin (Former Governor of Alaska)
2) Attorney General Eric Holder (Attorney General of the United States of America)
3) General David Patraeus (U.S. commander in Afghanistan)
4) Angelina Jolie (Celebrity)
5) Representative John Boehner (House Minority Leader)
6) Anders Fogh Rasmussen (NATO Secretary-General)
7) Michael Bloomberg (Mayor of New York City)
8) The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (The Vatican)
9) Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State of the United States of America)
10) Joe Lieberman (United States Senator)
11) Ban Ki-moon (Secretary General of the United Nations)
12) The Simon Wiesenthal Center (An international Jewish rights foundation)
13) Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe (Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance)
14) Glenn Beck (Conservative talk show host)
15) Keith Olbermann (Liberal talk show host)
16) Shirley Phelps-Roper (Second in command of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church)
17) Rev. Father Mark Arey (Director, Inter-Orthodox Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America)
18) Galen Carey (Executive Director of the Office of Governmental Affairs, National Association of Evangelicals)
19) Rev. Richard Cizik (President, New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good)
20) Dr. Gerald L. Durley (Pastor, Providence Missionary Baptist Church)
21) Dr. Mohmaed Elsanousi (Director of Community Outreach, Islamic Society of North America)
22) Prof. Rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer (Chair, Department of Multifaith Studies and Initiatives, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College)
23) Dr. Welton Gaddy (President, Interfaith Alliance)
24) Rabbi Steve Gutow (Executive Director, Jewish Council for Public Affairs)
25) Rev. Donald Heckman (Director for External Relations, Religions for Peace)
26) Bishop Neil L. Irons (Executive Secretary, Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church)
27) Mr. Rizwan Jaka (Board Member, Islamic Society of North America)
28) Rev. Rich Killmer (Executive Director, National Religious Campaign Against Torture)
29) Dr. Michael Kinnamon (General Secretary, National Council of Churches (NCC))
30) Imam Mohamed Hag Magid (Vice President, Islamic Society of North America)
31) Rev. Steven D. Martin (Executive Director, New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good)
32) Father James Massa (Executive Director, Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB))
33) Rabbi Jose Rolando Matalon (Rabbi, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun)
34) Dr. Ingrid Mattson (President, Islamic Society of North America)
35) Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, Archdiocese of Washington)
36) Bishop Donald J. McCoid (Executive for Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA))
37) Dr. Roy Medley (General Secretary, American Baptist Churches)
38) Rabbi Jack Moline (Director of Public Policy, Rabbinical Assembly)
39) Mr. Nicholas Richardson (Communications Director, Archdiocese of New York)
40) Pastor Bob Roberts (Pastor, Northwood Church in Keller, Texas)
41) Mr. Walter Ruby (Muslim-Jewish Relations Program Officer, Foundation of Ethnic Understanding)
42) Rabbi David Saperstein (Executive Director, The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ))
43) Rabbi Marc Schneier (President, Foundation of Ethnic Understanding)
44) Rabbi Julie Schonfeld (Executive Vice President, The Rabbinical Assembly, the Association of Conservatives Rabbis)
45) Dr. Parvez Shah (Secretary General, Universal Muslim Association of America)
46) Bishop Mark Sisk (Bishop of New York City, The Episcopal Church)
47) Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed (National Director, Islamic Society of North America)
48) Rabbi Steve Wernick (Executive Director, United Synagogue)
49) Mr. Jim Winkler (General Secretary for Church and Society, United Methodist Church)
50) Mr. Safaa Zarzour (Secretary General, Islamic Society of North America)
51) Dr. James Zogby (President, Arab American Institute)
52) Mitt Romney (Former Governor of Masschusettes)
53) Scott Trotter (Spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)
54) Morpheus Ravenna (Pagan Priestess)
55) Members of a Board of Trustees (Parliament of the World's Religions)
56) Abdul Basit (On behalf of the Pakistani Foreign Ministry)
57) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (President of Indonesia)
58) P. Chidambaran (Home Minister of India)
59) Dr. Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury)
60) David Cameron (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom)

And of course, one other person who condemns this but shouldn't be included in such an august list is myself. Pastor Jones actions are reprehensible in nature and only fan the flames of hatred and intolerance on all sides. That said, he has done something for the upcoming anniversary of the September 11 attacks that no one else has quite managed to do since...he has united people in common cause. That cause of freedom, respect, and equality is not his cause, but it is the only silver lining to this atrocious situation.