The first quote is one that has always bothered me. It's another overused, demonstrably untrue saying, like the similarly trite "Violence never solves anything."It bothers me too and I do believe the proverb is untrue, but that does not mean the U.S. did not use it in their foreign policy before, during and after the Cold War. How else do you explain our alliance with the Soviet Union (before the Cold War), the Mujahideen (during the Cold War) and Saddam Hussein (during the Iran-Iraq War). I could list more, like the Contras, but you get my point.

hell we are still doing it in the middle east (and most likely other parts of the world).

A crazy burns a holy book.

Halfway across the world, a hundred or so crazies burn property and attack people.

Numerically speaking, the latter offense is worse.

Both are silly: How can you convict a book? A book is not a person, so unless he's convicting Mohammed or Allah the idea is completely silly. And if he did convict Mohammed and Allah, a deceased prophet and an interpretation of the divine, it's pointless because he doesn't even have "jurisdiction." And meanwhile, you have people getting angry over something that happened halfway across the world and taking it out on people who had nothing to do with it. Furthermore, they should remember that their own deity is the only true source of justice, so "Allah will take care of it!"

This is not religion, this is just insanity. Religion actually requires that you have to think about your belief before you act on it.

I think the idea behind burning the book was that the guy has gained a reasonable if possibly somewhat inaccurate perspective that Islam is kind of a hate-filled religion. They talk a lot about how they're a religion of peace, but the actions most people see behind those words are people committing mass murder in the name of their God.

It bothers me too and I do believe the proverb is untrue, but that does not mean the U.S. did not use it in their foreign policy before, during and after the Cold War. How else do you explain our alliance with the Soviet Union (before the Cold War), the Mujahideen (during the Cold War) and Saddam Hussein (during the Iran-Iraq War). I could list more, like the Contras, but you get my point.

hell we are still doing it in the middle east (and most likely other parts of the world).

Yeah, but we never really treated them as friends. Even before the Cold War 'officially' began, the US and the Soviets were jockeying for position, watching each other very carefully. Neither was at all surprised that the other suddenly wasn't their 'friend' any more.

Again, just because the enemy of my enemy isn't really a friend, doesn't mean you can't take advantage of their short term usefulness. It's just important to make sure you're not helping them too much, and keep a very close eye on what they're doing. I can't really think of an 'enemy of my enemy', or any ally for that matter, that the US trusts enough not to keep an eye on (again, it's not just the US; I doubt any country has 100% trust in any of its allies). 'Alliance' is pretty much a fancy way of saying "Let's work towards this common goal. Meanwhile, I'll try to get as many favors from you as I can, and offer as few in return as I can get away with without a sharp decrease in what you give me." 'Enemy of my enemy' style alliances are this taken to the extreme.

It's all about balancing out attempts to maximize their usefulness with the precautions necessary to prevent them from becoming more of a threat than the one they helped eliminate. The US has made mistakes with this, often helping 'temporary allies' too much, creating a net increase in threat level. However, we generally have a pretty good track record in that regard.

Misunderstood you, I didn’t understand you too were arguing about semantics.

I think the idea behind burning the book was that the guy has gained a reasonable if possibly somewhat inaccurate perspective that Islam is kind of a hate-filled religion. They talk a lot about how they're a religion of peace, but the actions most people see behind those words are people committing mass murder in the name of their God.I think the problem is that both parties have reasoned that an acute, vocal minority must be representative of an entire religion, when in fact, they're probably just representative of a particular, radical ideology that is based on religious themes. Terry Jones certainly isn't representative of Christianity as a whole, and the Afghanis who rioted (or to be more accurate, the religious elite who espoused the violent rhetoric) certainly aren't representative of Islam as a whole.