Responsibility, and who has it:

The creators of an erroneous report which provoked religious fanatics to kill, or those who think extreme disrespect for their religion deserves death? Or perhaps the religious leaders who promote such violent beliefs?

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Afghanistan's government said Tuesday that Newsweek should be held responsible for damages caused by deadly anti-American demonstrations after the magazine alleged U.S. desecration of the Quran...

Pakistan joined the international criticism of the magazine's article and said Newsweek's apology and retraction were "not enough."

The article, published in Newsweek's May 9 edition, said U.S. investigators found evidence that interrogators at the military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ...flushed one (Koran) down the toilet to try to get inmates to talk....

Afghan presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said Newsweek's retraction Monday was a "positive step" toward clearing up concern about the report.

"But at the same time, we feel angered at the way this story has been handled," Ludin told a news conference Tuesday. "It's only fair to say at this stage that Newsweek can be held responsible for the damages caused by their story."

I'm not sure there is a libertarian position on this, other than, perhaps, that ppl should be responsible for the consequences of their actions. So, Newsweek, or rioters they provoked? I opt with the rioters, but is this the only reasonable libertarian position?

I remember that when I was in Afghanistan in either 1975 or 1977 (I forget which) I met a European couple who were holed up in Kabul waiting for several hundred dollars to arrive so that they could pay a blood price for having run over and killed a guy with their van. As they told the story, they were driving along when a fellow ran out from between two parked trucks and they hit and killed him. They had no chance to see him or avoid him, but the court held that if they had not been driving a motor vehicle, they could not have killed him, therefore the death was their responsibility.

This reminds me of...I think it is Joseph Kessel's book The Horseman, in which the Afghan owner of a major horse is left for dead by his assistant, after the owner verbally gives the horse to him if the owner dies- then has a terrible accident and assistant flees. The elders who tried the assistant held that the owner had imposed such a terrible temptation on the guy that his abandonment was his own responsibility, so they found the assistant not guilty.

Of course, the remarks by the Afghan & Pakistani gov't spokesmen were likely provoked by US Gov't pressure, so who is responsible for those? Bin Laden, because w/o his actions George Bush wouldn't know where Afghanistan is?