veiled4allah: at what stage has this indeed become a war on Islam?

There are two excellent posts on the story that American soldiers in Afghanistan burned the bodies of dead Taliban so as to desecrate them.

Hesham Hassaballa:

That being said, it always gives me pause when I learn about incidents such as this one, or what happened at Abu Ghraib, or what is currently happening at Guantanamo Bay. Our actions speak louder than our words, and incidents such as these send the message to the rest of the Muslim World, however inaccurate, that America hates Islam, that America is fighting against Islam itself. What an unnerving message to send, indeed. So, what should be done about this? First, we must all wait for the facts to borne out of the investigations currently ongoing. But, more importantly, the Pentagon needs to examine itself and take a hard look at whether or not there is a deep-seated anti-Muslim sentiment that is pervasive among the troops. If there is, however disturbing that may be, the Pentagon has to work to eradicate it.

We Americans pride ourselves at having open minds, at living in a society where people of all ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds are able to live together in peace. This noble aspect of our culture and people must also be present among our troops - all of our troops - abroad. Our soldiers are the face of America to the rest of the world, and most especially the Muslim World. If they present an ugly face, no amount of diplomatic dispatches will be able to reverse the damage done to our reputation. And we will all be the worse off because of it.

Daniel Martin Varisco at Tabsir:

These reports are in the American media not because of a fuzzy tape sent to al-Jazeera, but due to video coverage by an Australian news crew. If true, no matter that there may have been stinking corpses that needed to be buried or at least wrapped in a body bag created for safe disposal of such things, here is yet another reminder that war brings out the stupid in people. Along with humiliating male prisoners by forcing them to pile naked on one another in sexual poses, these kinds of acts reinforce the overwhelming public opinion among Muslims worldwide that the American military is, at least now, part of the problem rather than the solution... ...There is an obvious difference between setting yourself on fire for a cause, foolish as that might seem to most people, and deliberately burning the body of someone whose religion teaches resurrection and demands a proper burial in the ground. If American soldiers set on fire the bodies of two dead Muslims as an example for other Muslims to stop resisting, there is no difference with Nazi tactics or the brutal retaliations of Saddam Hussein. The end, even if it is demanding an end to violence, does not justify such means. If anything, this act is the most effective recruitment for "terrorist" volunteers I can imagine.

Varisco's post in particular gets at some questions about what is really at issue here.

Unfortunately, this story fits with too much we've heard of before. There is something very disturbingly wrong going on here.