Analyst's note:   Perhaps Michael Yon in recent tweets - American writer and photographer who served in the Special Forces in the early-1980s, and became a general freelance writer -- says it better than me: 

"5 Soldiers to be Reprimanded Because of Weak US Leadership.  Our people are facing loss of rank because primitive madmen murdered about 40 people (so far) over some accidentally burned paper that most of the madmen cannot read.  US Government Speaking with Forked Tongue.  The left fork of the tongue says the Koran burning was accidental. The right fork says Soldiers are facing disciplinary action.   Was it an accident, or not?

Burning the Koran Burners: Our Human Sacrifice to appease madmen. This could have unintended consequences. What next if a million people decide to burn Korans in support of the five troops that our leadership wishes to offer as human sacrifice?

.... Afghanistan is not Sovereign.  Karzai and we like to pretend Afghanistan is sovereign, but it's no more sovereign than a 16 year-old kid who is penniless, jobless, and drives his dad's big car around town with gas bought by his dad. Afghanistan lacks every form of capital to stand on its own feet. Karzai and crew are playing a dangerous game when they bet that we won't leave them.

.... American money and effort was spent to refurbish a mosque that literally was in the immediate area where Mullah Omar grew up. That's right. While we prepare to offer five Soldiers as human sacrifice for burning a few Korans, we literally helped open a mosque in the middle of the beating heart of the Taliban. (This should be in Ripley's Believe it or Not.)"

 Please join me in demanding that these men NOT be reprimanded or otherwise punished.  Please write, call and/or visit your Congressman.

[...] U.S. military officials said that although the five service members will be reprimanded, it is unlikely that their names will be released or that their punishment will approach the severity of what some Afghans are demanding, including trial in an Islamic court.

"For the soldiers, it will be serious — they could lose rank. But you're not going to see the kind of public trial that some here seem to want," said one U.S. military official. Another military official said: "What they did was careless, but there was no ill will."

[....]Senior Afghan clerics, in a statement issued after a meeting with President Hamid Karzai, said, "This evil action cannot be forgiven by apologizing. The perpetrators of the mentioned crime should be put on a public trial as soon as possible." [....]