Pakistani Ambassador Calls for Beck Action on Koran Burning

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pakistan's ambassador to the United States is calling on conservative radio and television host Glenn Beck to denounce the planned burning of the Quran to show that Americans are tolerant of other faiths.

"I think it would help if Mr. Glenn Beck came out against it, and said that people of faith do not burn the books of people of other faith," Husain Haqqani told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Ambassador Haqqani may be heartened to know that Glenn Beck did write a widely-circulated blog post on The Blaze on Tuesday evening. You can read the full post here. In the post, Beck made his position clear:

What is wrong with us?  It’s just like the Ground Zero mosque plan.   Does this church have the right?  Yes.  Should they?  No.  And not because of the potential backlash or violence. Simply because it is wrong.

Even though he was on vacation, Glenn proactively contacted me on Monday evening to ask if I would incorporate his thoughts on the story.  He drafted a post, which I quickly published.  That post was also linked in the main story we had on our front page.

Glenn's post was the No. 1 most-read story on Tuesday, and up to this point on Wednesday.  On Tuesday evening, the blog post was also linked on Glenn's Facebook page.  As I'm writing this, it has been "liked" nearly 20,000 times.

When contacted by an AP reporter, a Beck representative provided the link to Glenn's blog post. An updated version of the story was soon posted incorporating information about Beck's position:

Beck earlier this week wrote in an Internet blog posting that burning the Quran is like burning the flag or the Bible — something people can do in the United States, but shouldn't.

"Our good Muslim friends and neighbors will be saddened," he wrote. "It makes the battle that they face inside their own communities even harder."

It was unclear whether Haqqani was aware of the blog posting. A telephone message left with the Pakistani Embassy was not immediately answered.

Since the pastor of the Florida church still seems intent to carry out the Koran burning on Saturday, I will contact Glenn to see if he has further thoughts on the matter or if he plans to say anything about it at the event where he is speaking in Anchorage on Saturday night.

His original post had a pretty firm conclusion:

The only thing this act would prove is that you CAN burn a Koran.   I didn’t know America was in doubt on that fact.   Let’s prove to each other that while there are many things we can do, there are maybe many more things that we choose not to do.