Let’s stipulate:
that gratuitously burning a book which people of a given religion hold sacred is a bad thing to do, even if the match bearer deems the book diabolical rather than divine;
that such an act is particularly ill advised when U.S. troops are fighting in a region full of people who revere the book in question, and when previous insults to their religion have become pretexts for mass murder, and;
that the recent burning of a copy of the Quran at a church in Florida was therefore stupid.
But then let us reflect on the greater evil that took place after the burning. (Notice I say “after,” not “because of,” for reasons I’ll explain.)