Democracy in Afghanistan

Note Michelle Malkin's logic in a post on the riots sparked by a brief item in Newsweek that alleged that interrogators flushed the Koran at Guantanamo Bay. Malkin reprints an editor's note from the current Newsweek that admits that the story is at best, unverifiable.

Naturally, for Malkin and her allies this is another MSM scandal, and let me say shame on Newsweek for reporting the unverified and possibly untrue story in the first place. But then Malkin says, "Newsweek has blood on its hands. Blood on its desks. Isikoff should cough up his source." She believes that Newsweek (and not the people doing the actual killing) is morally culpable for the fact tha Muslims are killing each other over their story.

These people are missing an important story -- the thin veneer of "democracy" in Afghanistan. According to the Times story, "the most violent protests were in Afghanistan, where the death toll in clashes between demonstrators and security forces reached fourteen after a third day of rioting. Three people were killed and twenty-two injured near Faizabad, in Badakhshan province, when a thousand rioters burnt down aid agencies’ offices." But we have been hearing of the wonders of Afgan Democracy -- an idea so silly only a neocon could fall for it -- for months now. That a tiny item in Newsweek could spark (if in fact, it did) this level of violence indicates how close to the edge this country is some three years after the U.S. military liberated it from Taliban rule.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg and Glenn Reynolds agree -- Newsweek and not the Muslim rioters are responsible for the recent violence in the Islamic world.