"To Muslims, and especially to Afghans, religion is much higher a concern than civilian or human casualties." This is very hard for non-Muslims to understand, even those who are devoutly religious. After all, isn't each human being valuable as a work of the Creator and irreplaceable as an individual, while copies of a book that exists in plentiful copies are obviously more expendable? That's obvious, but it depends upon the assumption that human life is valuable in the first place, while in the Islamic schema, Allah creates some people only to torture them in hellfire (cf. Qur'an 32:13) and directs believers to murder those who don't believe in him (cf. Qur'an 2:190-193; 4:89; 9:5). Clearly human life is not as important in Islam as it is in Judaism and Christianity, in which each person is a unique being made in the image of God.
"In Reactions to Two Incidents, a U.S.-Afghan Disconnect," by Rod Nordland for the New York Times, March 14 (thanks to Anne Crockett):
Afgans never civilized, they live in the 15th centry
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