Bush, General, Apologize for Sniper Using Koran as Target

Public relations crap aside, this is just plain ass-kissing:

BAGHDAD (May 20) – President Bush has apologized to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for an American sniper’s use of a copy of the Quran for target practice, Maliki’s office said Tuesday.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Bush spoke to al-Maliki about the Quran shooting incident during a regularly scheduled videoconference on Monday. She said Bush expressed his “serious concern.”
“He told the prime minister that we take this matter seriously, and he noted that the Soldier had been reprimanded and removed from Iraq by his commanders,” Perino said.

A statement issued by al-Maliki’s office said Al-Maliki told Bush of the “disappointment and anger of the people and government of Iraq over the soldier’s disgraceful action,” the statement said.

Bush told al-Maliki that the sniper would face trial, it added.

Separately, the statement said an Iraqi Cabinet meeting Tuesday called for the “severest” punishment against the sniper and warned of “grave consequences” if similarly offensive actions were committed in the future.

It also called on commanders of U.S.-led foreign troops in Iraq to educate their Soldiers on the need to respect the religious beliefs of Iraqis.

The U.S. military said Sunday it had disciplined the sniper and removed him from Iraq after he was found to have used Islam’s holy book for target practice on May 9. The copy of the Quran was found two days later by Iraqis on a firing range in Radwaniyah, west of Baghdad, with 14 bullet holes in it and graffiti written on its pages.

On Saturday, the top American commander in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, and other officers held a formal ceremony apologizing to tribal chiefs in Radwaniyah.

……Al-Hashemi’s Iraqi Islamic Party also issued a tough statement Monday saying that an apology alone was not enough and the U.S. military should impose the “severest punishment” on the soldier to ensure others do not repeat his act.

Link: http://news.aol.com/story/_a/bush-apologizes-for-quran-shooting/20080520092609990001

This is what White House spokesperson Dana Perino had to say during the 20 May Press Briefing:

Q: Can I just ask you on another topic, on the Koran, why the President decided it was important to directly tell Prime Minister Maliki that he had regret about it. And can you talk a little about this — whether it was actually an apology, or what significance the White House attaches to how he —

MS. PERINO: I think we talked to you about this earlier today. The President yesterday had a regularly scheduled secure video teleconference with Prime Minister Maliki. He opened the meeting — I believe it was either the first or the second issue that the President brought up to tell Prime Minister Maliki he had heard about the incident, where a Koran was desecrated, and he apologized for that, in the sense that he said that we take it very seriously. We were concerned about the reaction. We wanted them to know that the President knew that this was wrong, and that the commanders in the field have publicly reprimanded the soldier and removed him from Iraq.

Q Do you know — the Iraqis have talked about a trial for this soldier. Does the President have a position on that, or let the military decide? How do you —

MS. PERINO: The military would have to decide what course of action would be — would take place. And the Multi-National Force in Iraq is prepared to answer those questions. I talked to them a little bit earlier.

Link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/05/20080520-5.html

While Bush is appeasing the Islamic extremists with an apology over the Army sniper who used a Koran for a target, he may as well have the poor guy beheaded. That’s what the Islamofascists would do. They target our troops with IEDs, and commit atrocities in the name of their religion, as proscribed in the Koran, yet we’re supposed to kow tow when one of our Soldiers finds an appropriate use for that 7th Century misogynist, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-“infidel”, visceral screed?

Islamic terrorism is rooted in the Koran. He ought to read it sometime.

Can you imagine an American President apologizing for the target range use of an imperialist Japanese book of Zen Buddhism or Hitler’s Mein Kampf in World War II?

Placating the muslims with a dog and pony ass-kissing as a gesture of “winning hearts and minds”, is beyond absurd and only lends legitimacy to extremists who want to transform the planet into a Caliphate.

If Nouri al-Maliki and his fellow Iraqis want to improve the image of their religion and its followers, they’d be better off concentrating on fighting the muslims who adhere to the violence and brutality instructed by Mohammad, and disavowing the Koran, instead of having hissy fits over its use for target practice.

The only thing the Soldier should be reprimanded for, is wasting 14 bullets on a book instead of the heads of 14 Islamic jihadists.