Nine years after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, we can see just how effectively this country has fought the so-called Global War on Terror. As we go to press, the threat of terrorist attacks from the burning of a book has forced the cancellation of Burn a Qur’an Day, one idiot’s way of observing the ninth anniversary of 9/11. We’ve burned the flag, we’ve burned the bra, we’ve burned effigies of those with whom we disagree. All in the name of free speech. But this idiot cannot exercise his right to go out alone in the backyard and burn a few books because it might cause terror attacks against the U.S. from all across the globe. My, how far we’ve come in protecting ourselves.

Do we believe anyone should go out in the backyard and burn even one copy of the Qur’an, the Bible, the Tanakh or any other book that is held sacred by so many? Of course not.

But we also roundly condemn any violent response to such an intolerant act of hate. If America has failed at learning to better protect its citizens from the scourge of terrorism, no less have Muslim leaders failed to convince their followers that terrorism darkens immeasurably the beautiful face of Islam.

Zbigniew Brzezinski once likened Muslim immigrants to America as “a people coming from a land where the sacred is all that matters to a land where nothing is sacred.” He was not being negative about the United States and its freedoms of expression, but highlighting a central component of the cultural conflict between the two groups of people.

Imagine if all the money spent on the war on Iraq and the war on Afghanistan and the covert operations all over the rest of the Muslim World over the past nine years had been spent instead on educating the two peoples on this core difference in worldview and the benefits each has to offer the other. Do you think the threat of a burning book would be top news for two weeks running? Which brings us to another point. Two things democracy needs to flourish is freedom of expression and a responsible media to exercise it. Sadly today, we have neither.

So for the nine years since 9/11, the government has been busily violating and indeed eliminating the civil rights of Arab Americans and American Muslims. Now, that egregious activity is moving to include southern Christian ministers. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” How long will it take us to learn that?

Should the hate-filled pastor burn the Qur’ans? No. As President Obama said when he commented on the subject, to do so is at odds with America’s tradition of tolerance, freedom and respect of religious practice. Should he have the right to? Absolutely. That too is in line with our cherished First Amendment rights.

That almost everyone’s reasons for pleading with him to cancel the event are based on the threat of terrorism and not the tolerance and respect of a faith practiced by 1.5 billion people, shows how far we have not come since 9/11.