Posted on 05/23/2008 5:59:46 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
Most of these clerics and former militants, of course, have not suddenly switched to particularly progressive forms of Islam or fallen in love with the United States (all those we talked to saw the Iraqi insurgency as a defensive jihad), but their anti-Al Qaeda positions are making Americans safer. If this is a war of ideas, it is their ideas, not the West's, that matter. The U.S. government neither has the credibility nor the Islamic knowledge to effectively debate Al Qaeda's leaders, but the clerics and militants who have turned against them do. Juan Zarate, a former federal prosecutor and a key counterterrorism adviser to President Bush, acknowledged as much in a speech in April when he said, "These challenges from within Muslim communities and even extremist circles will be insurmountable at the end of the day for Al Qaeda."
These new critics, in concert with mainstream Muslim leaders, have created a powerful coalition countering Al Qaeda's ideology. According to Pew polls, support for Al Qaeda has been dropping around the Muslim world in recent years. The numbers supporting suicide bombings in Indonesia, Lebanon, and Bangladesh, for instance, have dropped by half or more in the last five years. In Saudi Arabia, only 10 percent now have a favorable view of Al Qaeda, according to a December poll by Terror Free Tomorrow, a Washington-based think tank. Following a wave of suicide attacks in Pakistan in the past year, support for suicide operations amongst Pakistanis has dropped to 9 percent (it was 33 percent five years ago), while favorable views of bin Laden in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, around where he is believed to be hiding, have plummeted to 4 percent from 70 percent since August 2007.
(Excerpt) Read more at tnr.com ...
Not that Bush is going to get any credit for this...
What rot. The New Republic is not exactly a credible outfit when it comes to matters such as this. Let’s face it: The New republic thinks The Magic Mulatto is the left’s meaasiah.
I can't believe they printed this.
Bookmark for later
The Rebellion Within
An Al Qaeda mastermind questions terrorism
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/02/080602fa_fact_wright?printable=true
Lawrence Wright
?
Well, I guess I can believe that leftist think the U.S. government has less credibility than a bunch of butchering Islamofascists. It’s just sad to see it printed.
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