Stupidity

There was an article in the Winston-Salem Journal about a month ago concerning a US Army sharpshooter in Iraq who used a Quran for target practice and left it on the firing range for Iraqi police to find two days later. The Sunnis were understandably in an uproar over the incident and ultimately Dubya and the US military leaders were obliged to make an formal apology to the Iraqi prime minister.

This was, of course, the action of one incredibly stupid US soldier or, as the CFO would have me put it, an incredibly stupid act by a single US sildier. I can only hope that he had received some form of sensitivity training concerning the folks whose country he was sent to "liberate". But, then again, I can hear the conversation now from his perspective:

"Son, we are gonna have to send you stateside pronto."

"Whyzat, Sarge?"

"Well, you remember that Quran you shot up? The Iraqi police found it and now the Sunnis are in an uproar about it."

"You mean to tell me, Sarge, that you brung me all the way over here to blow the head off them fellers what's been readin' it but it ain't OK to shoot at what they's been readin'."

"That's right, son."

"Golly, Sarge, don't that beat all?"

Kinda makes you wonder what would have happened if the Iraqi police we trained down in Mississippi had shot up a King James while they were here, doesn't it?