Janie, no one is saying (at least, I don't think they are) that people can't write whatever they want to, but the fact is that wildly thrown rocks are going to strike somewhere, and whether you meant to klonk an innocent bystander or not, the bystander is within his rights to feel outraged.

And, Janie, I'm not sure Iceland-as-humourous-bomb-target is a good example of 'the contextual richness of your community', since in this case, the writer seems to know nothing about it, and likely neither does the community he's speaking to. In this case, not just 'someone in another country', but an entire country, government included, is somewhat upset, as I'm sure the article could be read as rubbing salt into wounds with regard to the Icelandic airbase.

Personally, I see it as another example of how uninformed many US journalists appear to be, as I'm sure the writer did not mean to upset anyone in Iceland.