The Koran burning issue was not hot enough for the General to throw his iron into the fire! Did he just fan the flames?

General Petraeus' Mistake

By Michael Zebulon

Look, if Gen. Petraeus was in earnest, and I see no reason to suspect otherwise, he could have taken his case (or at least begun by taking his case) directly -- and privately -- to Pastor Jones. This could have been undertaken as a quiet, urgent appeal on behalf of the troops, and even as a personal emissary of the president. At least at first. And that, of itself, might well have been sufficient to secure the solicited cooperation.

The net effect of his going public with it early in the game was tantamount to giving an engraved invitation to the enemy to "up the ante." (And eventually they will, rest assured, now that everybody and their Aunt Mathilda has piled on and made the thing exponentially bigger than it had to be.) Effectively he told the bad guys

• that we are generally afraid of Muslims;
• that, more specifically, our men-at-arms and their commanders can be intimidated; and
• that We the People of this land are willing to let our own civil liberties (and by extension, our sovereignty) be held hostage to increasingly delicate Islamic sensibilities. 

He unmistakably telegraphed that anxiety. And now, whatever happens (or fails to happen), in northern Florida or anywhere else, from this point onward -- even if September 11 has come and gone -- you can take it as a "given" that the enemy's got our number. (This, as if jihadi slime needed an excuse for the evil they do.)