The sweet sound of wingnuts' heads exploding

That's probably what you're hearing as Wingnut Nation becomes aware that a U.S. general is reading the Qu'ran.

The top U.S. general in Afghanistan reached out to influential Afghan tribesmen in regions where U.S. troops will soon deploy, apologizing for past mistakes and saying he is now studying the Quran, the Muslim holy book.

Gen. David McKiernan met with villagers in Helmand and Kandahar - two of Afghanistan's most violent provinces - in an attempt to foster good will ahead of the U.S. troop surge that will send 21,000 more forces here this summer to stem an increasingly violent Taliban insurgency.

McKiernan said he wanted to show respect to tribal elders by traveling to Kandahar on Wednesday to explain some of the mistakes U.S. forces have made in the past - such as arresting people based on information taken from one side in a tribal fight, or killing civilians during operations.

[...]

McKiernan told the Afghans that President Barack Obama's new strategy is to combat instability in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region as a whole. He said that in the future, Afghan forces will enter villagers' homes if necessary, a pledge that brought another round of applause. He then said he was studying the Muslim holy book.

"I'm reading a very good book now about this part of the world. It's written in English, but it's all about you - it's the Quran," McKiernan said to applause. Moments later an Afghan man stood up and gave McKiernan a bright purple, red and green cloth in which to wrap the translated version of [the] holy book.

Diplomacy with those nasty brown people? Who would have thought America would try that?

Well, of course, we wouldn't have under the Bush crime syndicate; we'd just bomb them out of existence. But maybe -- just maybe -- we can make progress internationally by treating other nations like, well, other nations, not like enemies (unless, of course, they are enemies).

How about that, wingnuts? A general reading the Muslim holy book ... doesn't that just jumble your circuitry right up?

Oh, and please clean up all this exploding-head matter when you're done, um, exploding. Thanks in advance.