Gen. David Petraeus, head of Multinational Forces in Afghanistan, on Tuesday repeated his warning that any plans to burn the Muslim holy book — considered a major offense in the Islamic community — would jeopardize U.S. military efforts.

But Terry Jones, pastor of the 50-member Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., told MyFoxOrlando.com that he and the church’s members feel strongly about their decision to hold the book burning despite being denied a permit from the fire department.

“We understand the general’s concerns, we are taking those into consideration,” Jones was quoted saying. “We feel it’s maybe the right time for America to stand up. How long are we going to bow down? How long are we going to be controlled by the terrorists, by radical Islam?”

On Tuesday, Petraeus said that even rumors of the possibility the church would hold a Koran-burning touched off protests in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia.

“Images of the burning of a Koran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence,” Petraeus said. “Were the actual burning to take place, the safety of our soldiers and civilians would be put in jeopardy and accomplishment of the mission would be made more difficult.”

Though the National Association of Evangelicals and the National Council of Churches have denounced the plan to burn the Koran, Jones indicated he had support from other churches around the country. He did not name any, however.

Jones said he and members of his church are taking seriously several death threats directed at them, but if something happened, it would not be their fault.

“We will not be responsible,” Jones said. “We are only reacting to the violence that is already there in that religion.”

MEXICO CITY

The Cadereyta refinery, located in the state of Nuevo Leon, is owned by Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.

A Pemex press officer would only say that the company was gathering information and would issue a statement once it had more facts.

The Nuevo Leon state Civil Protection agency said the explosion occurred just after 10:30 a.m. EDT at or near the Cadereyta refinery, which is around 22 miles east of the business capital of Monterrey, according to local newspaper El Universal’s Web site.

Cadereyta processed 217,000 barrels a day of crude oil in 2009, accounting for close to 17% of Pemex’s refining output that year.

Pemex produced 1.47 million barrels a day of refined products at its six refineries in the first seven months of this year, including 445,000 barrels a day of gasoline.

The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., said it will burn the Islamic holy book on the ninth anniversary of the terror attacks. Local officials have denied a permit for the bonfire on the church’s grounds. But the center, which made headlines last year by distributing T-shirts that said “Islam is of the Devil,” insists it will go ahead with the plan.

About 3,000 members of a hard-line Islamic group marched Saturday to the U.S. Embassy in downtown Jakarta, waving banners and posters condemning the plan. The group organized similar rallies in five other cities across Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation.

We used to have real men in this country; in fact, we seem to have specialized in them.  George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, the Marquis de Lafayette (officially designated as an Honorary American, and buried in American soil, by his choice, in Paris) and so many other extraordinary men at the time of our Founding, were alpha males all.  They, to a man, exhibited remarkable courage and strength, both in character and in action, in a time of life or death for them, and for the country they were working so diligently, and at such great peril, to found.

Where are men like George Washington and the others today?  Do they in fact still exist?

Yes, they do, though not in preponderance, and this is for a number of reasons.

The number of wars we have had in our nation’s history has not been easy on succeeding generations of alpha males.  It is, in fact, this genre that has been the most affected in our history of conflict, as it has been alpha males who have been at the forefront of every battle of every war that has occurred since our first war.  This, the American Revolutionary War, was responsible for the creation of our nation, and perhaps defined what it was to be an American alpha male.

Among the many alpha males who abounded in late 18th Century America, a quite unlikely individual provides a rather extraordinary demonstration of the genre – a short, portly, largely self-educated book seller from Boston, Henry Knox, whom Washington had come to know, and whom he later appointed to lead the Continental Army’s artillery division.  The General assigned then-Colonel Knox  to a rather onerous command – get the cannon and other artillery pieces left at Fort Ticonderoga by the British, and bring them back, poste haste, to where the Continental Army was quartered in New York.  It was presented to the Colonel, rightly, as a life or death mission for the Continental Army.  The season was a difficult one, as it was mid-December, a predictably dangerous time to travel, especially in a northern direction; nonetheless, Knox and his men immediately marched off and spent the next month doing the impossible in brutal terrain and temperature and arrived back to where General Washington had ordered a month later with 60 tons of artillery.  Neither Knox nor any of the men in his command had any particular experience nor expertise with artillery, nor with its transport, especially in punishing conditions; nonetheless, they proceeded to position and apply the guns they had gone to such lengths to acquire to rout the enemy.

General Washington, the ultimate alpha male, chose well in his unlikely, though fellow, alpha male, Henry Knox, who proved to be one of Washington’s best Generals, and later became the Secretary of War in his first Cabinet.

From the wars succeeding the Revolutionary War, to the Civil War, perhaps the cruelest war in our history, it was the alpha male who led the troops, in courage, in valor and in battlefield behavior.  It was the alpha males in America who, when necessary, voluntarily gave their lives, the ultimate sacrifice that few other than they understood.  At the time of the War Between the States, especially, the code of the alpha male was exhibited in the ranks of  the Confederacy as well as in the Union; as both sides of the bitter conflict were replete with alpha males.  One of the more obvious example of an alpha male was General William Tecumseh Sherman, the implementer of the vicious scorched earth policy in his march through the South.  Though a brutal military policy, Sherman executed it brilliantly, and it was one of the main reasons for the Confederate surrender.  No one ever said that alpha males were nice.

Perhaps the most devastating war affecting the alpha male population, not just in the United States, but in the West in general, was the tragic First World War.  Some 37 million individuals were casualties in this seemingly inexplicable conflict, denuding the most civilized nations in the West, more so in Europe than in the U.S. due to our later entry into the War, of their young men, many of whom were alpha males.  ‘The War to End All Wars,’ as the first world war was ironically known, quickly segued into the Second World War, where it seemed, almost without a break, a succeeding generation of young men returned to their nations’ bloody battlefields.  In this war, we shared the brutal numbers of the dead with Europe, as we were early in joining our allies to, literally, save the world from fascism, and on two different fronts.

The ranks of alpha males were devastated in the two world wars of the 20th Century.  How, then, could any of these extraordinary men have survived to create succeeding generations of alpha males?  It is indeed a wonder that any alpha males have survived at all.

Nonetheless, some seem to have squeaked through.  For that we should be grateful, as alpha males, by their nature, make difficult decisions in accordance with common sense, and not popular thinking.  For alpha males, it is a natural reaction to protect the young, the weak and the innocent, a category that used to include women.  Alpha males regard their lives as secondary to their honor, and love other people and certain concepts more than they love themselves.  Alpha males act in accordance to what they know is right, and what is wrong, and they have been known to give their lives for things they love, like nations and such. Alpha males are, in fact, indispensable in America, as can be observed, always with admiration and often awe, throughout our history.

And where are the alpha males of today to be found?  They can, of course, be found in our magnificent military, the members of which are, truly, the best of us.  It is perhaps in the military were alpha males predominate that one can find the ultimate demonstration of what an alpha male is to represent: honor, duty, courage and sacrifice.

Are there any alpha males to be found elsewhere in America?

For a nation who desperately needs alpha males not only to continue to survive, but also to remain in place as the last best hope of mankind, the answer, is gratefully, yes.  They can be found among our fathers, our uncles, our brothers, our sons and our grandfathers.  No matter how prodigious the efforts have been to teach American youth that manliness is not a good thing, the true American spirit has superseded this fallacy in our young men, and the genre has survived.  The resilience of alpha males can be observed not only in their performance in battle, and in leadership, through the Centuries, but in their determination to survive in the face of relentless political correctness of the last 60 years.  This last has proved to be one of their most difficult battles.

These exceptional specimens of the male animal indeed fight for the things in which they believe, and possess the courage and steadfastness to stand up to any opposition, no matter how strong or how wrong, in fighting for what they know is right.

Alpha males hunt, and think that it is a good thing; they also understand the significance of and the freedom provided by the Second Amendment of our Constitution.  Alpha males are competitive and can be fiercely so, and alpha males strive to excel, in fact demand excellence in themselves in everything they do.  Alpha males command, and they also follow orders, as they understand a necessary chain of command.  Alpha males can be fearless, and, as a genre, display this both intellectually and physically.

They also have a weakness for ‘muscle’ cars, and if these were no longer available, the biggest, most imposing truck or SUV would have to do.

Alpha males in large part don’t indulge in ‘sensitivity training,’ nor do they go to shrinks. These men don’t reveal everything about themselves early or easily, if ever, and they don’t feel that reticence about oneself is a character flaw.  They actually don’t think in terms of character flaws. Alpha males don’t get depressed, or if they do they don’t let anyone know, nor do they use behavior modification drugs, most likely never having heard of them, because they figure things out, no matter how daunting, and do whatever it takes.

Alpha males reject bureaucratic orders in general, for example, to refrain from eating ‘transfat;’ as they most likely don’t even know what it is, but they would probably love it if they ate it.  Alpha males make decisions by, for and based on themselves and their moral and intellectual foundations, and the only input they allow in this process is the people and the things, (like their country), that they love.

They make no attempt to get in touch with their feminine side, as they probably didn’t know they had one, (if informed that they did, would most likely recoil in horror), and yet have the strength of character to be the gentlest of men with those they love.

Perhaps the greatest thing about alpha males is that we can put our faith in them, and there is so little remaining in America in which we can put our faith.  When we know that alpha males are at the forefront, we can stop being terrified at the relentless destruction of our nation; we can stop being angry and frustrated while the left marches ahead with their agenda against the consent of the governed; and we can stem our agony as we watch helplessly while our great civilization disintegrates.  We can remember what it was like to, truly, have hope.

We can let them know how much we love our country, and they understand.  We can let them know that we want our nation restored to us, and they will do whatever they have to do to achieve that, not only for us, but for themselves.  We can let them know that we don’t want those destroying our nation to be in control anymore, and we can be sure that if anyone would be able to do this, it would be America’s alpha males, few though they may be, who have, no matter what their number, never failed to come through for us in our nation’s history.

In the book, Sarrazin says Europe’s top economy is being undermined, overwhelmed and made “more stupid” by poorly educated, fast-breeding, badly integrated and unproductive Muslim immigrants and their offspring.