Posted on 05/22/2007 9:31:56 AM PDT by Mr. Brightside
Some US Muslims justify suicide attacks
By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer
26 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - One in four younger U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable at least in some circumstances, though most Muslim Americans overwhelmingly reject the tactic and are critical of Islamic extremism and al-Qaida, a poll says.
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The survey by the Pew Research Center, one of the most exhaustive ever of the country's Muslims, revealed a community that in many ways blends comfortably into society. Its largely mainstream members express nearly as much happiness with their lives and communities as the general public does, show a broad willingness to adopt American customs, and have income and education levels similar to others in the U.S.
Even so, the survey revealed noteworthy pockets of discontent.
While nearly 80 percent of U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings of civilians to defend Islam can not be justified, 13 percent say they can be, at least rarely.
That sentiment is strongest among those younger than 30. Two percent of them say it can often be justified, 13 percent say sometimes and 11 percent say rarely.
"It is a hair-raising number," said Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, which promotes the compatibility of Islam with democracy.
He said most supporters of the attacks likely assumed the context was a fight against occupation — a term Muslims often use to describe the conflict with Israel.
U.S. Muslims have growing Internet and television access to extreme ideologies, he said, adding: "People, especially younger people, are susceptible to these ideas."
Federal officials have warned that the U.S. must be on guard against homegrown terrorism, as the British suffered with the London transit bombings of 2005.
Even so, U.S. Muslims are far less accepting of suicide attacks than Muslims in many other nations. In surveys Pew conducted last year, support in some Muslim countries exceeded 50 percent, while it was considered justifiable by about one in four Muslims in Britain and Spain, and one in three in France.
"We have crazies just like other faiths have them," said Eide Alawan, who directs interfaith outreach at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Mich., one of the nation's largest mosques. He said killing innocent people contradicts Islam.
Andrew Kohut, Pew director, said in an interview that support for the attacks represented "one of the few trouble spots" in the survey.
At a later news conference, he said much of that support could be attributed to age because the findings were consistent with numerous other surveys showing young people more inclined to violence and to support wars.
The poll briefly describes the rationales for and against "suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets" and then asks, "Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?"
The question did not specify where a suicide attack might occur, who might carry it out or what was meant by using a bombing to "defend Islam."
In other findings:
_Only 5 percent of U.S. Muslims expressed favorable views of the terrorist group al-Qaida, though about a fourth did not express an opinion.
_Six in 10 said they are concerned about a rise in Islamic extremism in the U.S., while three in four expressed similar worries about extremism around the world.
_Yet only one in four consider the U.S. war on terrorism a sincere attempt to curtail international terror. Only 40 percent said they believe Arab men carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
_By six to one, they say the U.S. was wrong to invade Iraq, while a third say the same about Afghanistan — far deeper than the opposition expressed by the general U.S. public.
_Just over half said it has been harder being a U.S. Muslim since the 9/11 attacks, especially the better educated, higher income, more religious and young. Nearly a third of those who flew in the past year say they underwent extra screening because they are Muslim.
The survey estimates there are roughly 2.35 million Muslim Americans. It found that among adults, two-thirds are from abroad while a fifth are U.S.-born blacks.
By law, the Census Bureau does not ask about people's religions.
Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,050 Muslim adults from January through April, including some in Arabic, Urdu and Farsi. Subjects were chosen at random, from a separate list of households including some with Muslim-sounding names, and from Muslim households that had participated in previous surveys.
The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 5 percentage points.
They live here and justify suicide attacks? What the hell are you doing here then? We hate your guts!
Would you be willing to shed more light on your personal experiences? I’m listening.
Exactly.
Put them on the Faralons...
This is a lie.. Many converts(to christianity) from Islam say at LEAST 70% of muslims support Jihad.. and parse occurrences secretly.. Muslims do what they are told by their Shamans..
This can be true because lieing is LEGAL in Islam.. especially to Jews and Christians and all women..
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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Link to the study (108 pages) at
here is what Pipes wrote in 2003:
Daniel Pipes’ Weblog
How Many Muslims in the United States?
April 22, 2003
Islam is widely touted as “the fastest growing religion in the United States,” so how does one explain that The World Almanac and Book of Facts has these figures for Muslims in the United States:
* 1997 edition (p. 644) says 5.1 million
* 2003 edition (p. 635) says 2.8 million
No, the population did not actually decrease; to understand this reduction in the estimate, see my October 2001 analysis, “How Many U.S. Muslims?” In brief, the almanac stopped accepting the overblown Islamist estimates as accurate. (April 22, 2003)
June 10, 2004 update: Islamist organizations, however, continue to make fantasy claims. Today the Islamic Society of North America issued a press release indicating that it represents “10 million American Muslims.” Of note too is the statement by a journalist in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (in February 2001), presumably influenced by one of the Islamist sources of the article, that Islam is “the second-most popular religion after Catholicism” in the United States.
Oct. 15, 2004 update: Abdel Rachid Mohammad, the first Islamic chaplain in the U.S. armed forces, tells Agence France-Presse, that there are eight to ten million Muslims in the United States. Given his official capacity, this inflated number is especially unfortunate.
June 14, 2005 update: In an undated commentary on the homepage of his organization, The Mosque Cares, W. Deen Mohammed writes that “Partly through conversion but mainly through immigration, the number of Muslims has now risen to three or four million.” What a refreshing change from the boosterism of the Islamists. (Also of note is that he uses the spelling G-d, as in “there is but One G-d and one human family.”
June 21, 2006 update: “There are almost 8 million Muslims in America,” asserts Daisy Khan, executive director of American Society for Muslim Advancement, in a puff-piece produced by the U.S. Department of State.
Oct. 31, 2006 update: Baron Bodissey of Gates of Vienna has the interesting idea in “The Numbers Game” to extrapolate from U.S. experience and slash boosterish estimates for Muslim populations around the world by 1/3. Instead of 21 million Muslims in western Europe, for example, he counts 13.5.
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/1
each update has hotlinks within it
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
They are both good and bad. CAIR is quite good lately.
A high enough percentage, in my opinion, to justify profiling, to use Oldspeak.
There are no "US moslems", just moslems.
After 911 I have only flown twice, the last time the week of May 14. I figured going to an out of the way place like Pellston, Michigan would be a respite from the onerous (billions$?) burden "tolerating" muslims has placed on the American people.
Wrong.
I had a hard time packing my suitcase due to purchases by myself and (ahem) someone else in even worse shape.
I have never in my lifetime felt affection for muslims, but had no conscious animosity toward them until the mid-60s, when they invented skyjacking and random-murder-as-political-statement.
I watched as the TSA crew tore my suitcase apart with mounting anger. Was it random? Was there a reason for undoing my masterful job of packing? Mind you, I complied with every rule that I knew about but had several unavoidable items in my checked luggage: a pedometer, a spare battery for my cell phone...
Here are the facts that simply enraged me, specially after thinking about it...
Let's bear in mind that untill 911 no domestic traveler was subject to any delay whatsoever, once obtaining a boarding pass.
Zero. Nada. Nicht. Nichigo. Zip.
I will make two (conservative) reasonable assumptions here. Argue with me if you must.
Of the 658,000,000 airline passengers in 2006, I am assuming 30% were headed to foreign countries and had to deal with custom hassles anyway.
The remainder, 460,000,000 souls had to restructure their lives from the moment they started planning for their trip; to say nothing of the extra expense of having to purchase items they no longer could take with them, and the additional hotel costs to allow for the needed time to deal with security issues and transportation to the airports.
Real mimimum wage was around $6 in 2006.
Assuming that one fourth the travelers are children, whose time is worth zero, and they don't count anyway.
And further assuming that the time wasted is one hour at home and three (conservative) at the airport...
At the minimum wage, that would mean 345,450,000 times 4 hours times $6 comes to...
Ta-daaaaah!
$8,290,800,000!
Yes, that's billions per year.
And that's not counting the cost of the facilities, the xray machines and the personnel, which probably triples the cost.
It also does not count the additional expenses of having to purchase items that can no longer be taken along.
This is a modest calculation of the cost of "tolerance", or, rather, political correctness.
Unnecessary and almost a criminal burden placed on peaceful American citizens and residents by our so-called leadership.
And totally avoidable and unnecessary.
Do I feel any sympathy whatsoever to whining muslim idiots?
Not in the slightest.
And I'm well on my way to absolutely hating my government.
Nobody seems to pay them any attention, except when they go to board a plane. Then we must all get in line and be frisked and wanded and x-rayed, so that it doesn't look as if they are the only ones who are receiving this treatment. The little green men are getting emboldened, since so many people are leaving them alone. They are now demanding prayer rooms at airports, so that they can pray to the Great Green Gullah. They are demanding (and getting) calls to prayers over loudspeakers at dawn.
We are presently on their planet. Some say it is a war. We are trying to pump up their form of government - strengthening them for whatever future attacks they have planned (against guess who!). We are trying to differentiate the bad green men from the good green men (as if there were any difference - silly!).
http://pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf
Young Muslims, More Observant, More Radical
|
|
Age 18-29 |
Age 30+ |
|
Attend mosque…Weekly or more |
50 |
35 |
|
Few times a month or year |
24 |
26 |
|
Seldom/never |
26 |
39 |
|
|
|
|
|
Conflict btw devout faith & modern life… |
|
|
|
Yes, conflict |
42 |
28 |
|
Not in conflict |
54 |
67 |
|
DK/Refused |
4 |
5 |
|
|
|
|
|
Think of self as: |
|
|
|
Muslim first |
60 |
41 |
|
American first |
25 |
30 |
|
Both equally |
10 |
11 |
|
Neither/Other/DK |
5 |
7 |
|
|
|
|
|
Radicalism |
|
|
|
Suicide bombing: |
|
|
|
Justified |
15 |
6 |
|
Not Justified |
80 |
85 |
|
DK/Refused |
5 |
9 |
|
Views of al Qaeda… |
|
|
|
Favorable |
7 |
4 |
|
Unfavorable |
74 |
67 |
|
DK/Refused |
19 |
29 |
Self-Identity and Views On Suicide Bombing, Sept. 11
|
|
Identify as… American First
|
Identify as… Muslim First
|
|
Suicide bombing first can be justified… |
|
|
|
Often/sometimes |
4 |
13 |
|
Rarely/never |
85 |
79 |
|
DK/Refused |
11 |
8 |
|
|
|
|
|
Believe groups of Arabs carried out 9/11 attacks? |
61 |
21 |
|
Yes |
61 |
21 |
|
No |
20 |
40 |
|
DK/Refused |
19 |
32 |
Despite the headline, that is the scarier answer.
Screw 'em. Profile the muslime citizens and deport the rest.
Shocking.
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