Dunkin Donuts vs. Terrorists?

So I was looking through Google reader and noticed this article which made me disappointed in Dunkin Donuts. I found this story [here] and was put on by CNN.

Story Summary:
So basically this whole thing starts off with Dunkin Donuts creating an advertising campaign in order to sell their new drink, an iced coffee. The online ad had Rachel Ray, from 30-minute meals on the food channel, posing with the iced coffee and a fringed black and white scarf. [The picture is provided on the left. I took it from CNN, which apparently copied it from AP. So please don't sue!] Apparently Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin took the scarf to represent a kaffiyeh which is more commonly worn by Arabs. In his syndicated column, Malkin wrote "The kaffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad." At this point Dunkin Donuts decided to pull the advertising campaign because it did not want to look like it was supporting terrorism. Dunkin donuts even said that "absolutely no symbolism was intended." It had merely been a costuming choice.

This makes me not want to eat at Dunkin Donuts anymore even though it was one of my favorite doughnut shops. How can you pull an ad just because one person thinks that a scarf represents terrorism? Let us remember that symbols change and are also used by many people for different purposes. There are tons of people out there who wear this traditional headscarf and don't go around killing people. There are some who wear the headscarf and aren't terrorists. How can you combine a whole group of people and call them terrorists just because they wear a certain type of scarf? What ever happened to the lesson, "don't judge a book by its cover?" We can also see how symbols can have very different meanings. Looking at the swastika, it had been used for years as a symbol for peace, and didn't have such an anti-Semitic ideology behind it until the Nazis incorporated it into their flag. A symbol can have multiple meanings. This is why it pisses me off that Dunkin Donuts pulled the ad. There was nothing wrong with it, and in fact I thought the scarf looked good on Rachel Ray.

All opinions are welcome.

Ideologically yours,
-Aram the Garmo