Where the problem really lies

In recent days the blogosphere has been abuzz with excitement over a Newsweek story that claimed that US soldiers had flushed a Koran down a toilet (some feat!) as a technique to get Muslim prisoners to talk (huh?), the riots and deaths in Afghanistan that ensued and Newsweek's subsequent retraction of the story.

As occasionally happens Andrew Sullivan (see Quote of the Day II) has gone beserk over this:

Even if this incident turns out to be false, our previous policies have made it perfectly plausible. That's the deeper issue here.

Apart from the fact that "fake but plausible" is a dangerous rationale for the media to take up, I also find that it is emphatically not the deeper issue. Isn't the real issue here that Islamists (and many Islamic states) will kill if a Koran is desecrated and that the West is not scandalized?

Also see this interesting post.