I never said there were no better private companies than Blackwater (hence I named them specifically and stated
they were known for behaving very badly).
Also never said it wasn't without risk and I also never argued what the Taliban do is not worse. Have you read the article I posted earlier? That shows the complicated nature of the Afghan mission in quite some detail.
What I did say, is that observing or respecting local customs and if you expect others to abide by laws, to also follow those laws yourself and set an example.
Never did I say that removing your helmet does not involve risk and should be done with great care and careful consideration of the situation (if it's possible or not), but, that axing was merely an incident. It doesn't happen that much and it's extremely unfortunate when it does. To base policy on incidents is IMO bad, because then you would not get positive results based on the removed policy elsewhere. It's not ignorant, it's willingly accepting some risk. Sometimes the higher the risk, the higher the reward and unfortunately in a war, soldiers and civilians are always the ones to pay the price.
Though with only around 1800 dead casualties in the entire war, I can't say it's an extremely intense war on a physical level, more so on a psychological level because it's taking so damn long and because of the type of combat applied by the Taliban (ambush and bombings often using civilians and sometimes even children). :/ Sometimes I wonder if the nations involved in the war are really committed to winning it, since sending only a few troops (say 2.000) to cover a province the size of a nation in Europe or state in the US is simply not a lot. IMO that's one reason why the war against the Taliban is dragging on, the other is the complexity of a tribal nation. If they were a unified people and had a simpler geography, it'd be entirely different. IMO it's been extremely underestimated just how hard it'd be to pacify a nation like Afghanistan.
However, it then doesn't help that to appease the media, the death toll is kept low by applying low risk strategies and a lot of long distance strikes, resulting in a lot of errors being made with civilian casualties as a consequence. :/ I'm not saying it can be avoided, but a too low risk approach both in combat and in civilian situations IMO simply does not yield proper results, but mostly can be used to create frustration within the Afghan populace.
And there is simply no excuse for stupidities like burning Korans, regardless what they were used for.
You Americans should know, it's like insulting Nascar in Alabama! D:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6987775n
http://mcooki.es/57748