Poll: 1 in 4 U.S. Muslim youths support suicide bombings

Dirt McGirt

Bad Mother****er
Dec 19, 2006
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Poll: 1 in 4 younger U.S. Muslims support suicide bombings
AP

(New York - AP, May 23, 2007) - One in four younger U.S. Muslims said in a poll that 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.
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 the U.S. must 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 Pew surveys 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.

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."

Those of all ages backing at least some suicide attacks were about evenly divided between men and women, with support stronger from those who were U.S.-born and less educated, and those who attend mosques at least weekly.

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.

# Most said they are concerned about a rise in Islamic extremism in the U.S. and around the world.

# 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. Nearly a third of those who flew in the past year say they underwent extra screening because they are Muslim.

# Forty-seven percent said they consider themselves Muslim first, rather than American. Forty-two percent of Christians and 62 percent of white evangelical Protestants identified themselves primarily by their religion in earlier surveys.

# By six-to-one, they favor the Democratic Party over the Republican Party, and by five-to-one say they voted for Democratic Sen. John Kerry over President Bush in 2004.

The survey estimates there are roughly 2.35 million Muslim Americans. 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 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 answered previous surveys.

The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 5 percentage points.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=nation_world&id=5331418
 
This is a pretty disturbing poll. 25% is a pretty huge number considering the demographics.
 
This is a pretty disturbing poll. 25% is a pretty huge number considering the demographics.

Not to mention that PEW tends towards the liberal end and wouldn't want to 'bias' the thinking about Muslims in general. If anything it would probably under report.
 
Well, I don't like polls so am not too concerned. I read the article and failed to see where it says just how many of the 1000 or so surveyed were "younger Muslims" ... if all 1000 are in that category, that is one thing; if 20 fall into that category that is another. Hard to tell without the actual demographics. I am certain there is slant here the polsters don't want us to know (one way or the other)
 
Well, I don't like polls so am not too concerned. I read the article and failed to see where it says just how many of the 1000 or so surveyed were "younger Muslims" ... if all 1000 are in that category, that is one thing; if 20 fall into that category that is another. Hard to tell without the actual demographics. I am certain there is slant here the polsters don't want us to know (one way or the other)

Very good.
 
This is a pretty disturbing poll. 25% is a pretty huge number considering the demographics.

Which bothers you more?

The 25% of Muslims who say suicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable

or

the thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats that believe Pres Bush knew about 9-11 in advance?

The US in a war for its survival and a large part of the nation refuses to recognize the real threat
 
How does the liberal media report this poll?

Guess what?

They bury it


Reporting on Muslim polling
TODAY'S EDITORIAL
May 24, 2007


When polled, about a quarter of young American Muslims consider suicide bombing to be acceptable in some circumstances. This finding is contained in the Pew Research Center's wide-ranging survey of American Muslim opinion, which, with the usual polling caveats, is a mixed bag of positives and negatives overshadowed by this one hugely troubling item. 1.4 million Muslims live in America today. This means that we now count as neighbors hundreds of thousands of people who say that they sometimes approve of a means of warfare which normally involves deliberate attacks on innocent civilians, in the name of religion. That's news.
Naturally, in an act of egregious perception management, most major newspapers buried it in their coverage of the survey.
"Survey: U.S. Muslims Assimilated, Opposed to Extremism," says The Washington Post. "American Muslims reject extremes," says USA Today. The Chicago Tribune: "U.S. Muslims more content, assimilated than those abroad." (At least the Trib's subhead reads: "But 1-in-4 youths sympathize with suicide bombers.") USA Today features this summary prominently: "Muslim Americans are very much like the rest of the country." Those are the words of Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
These headlines and quotes are not wrong per se, just incomplete, misleading and indicative of the "kid gloves" treatment this issue receives. Sure, the majority of American Muslims are peaceable and well-assimilated. Many are not. No newspaper should try to "manage" away these facts.
For instance, the "good news" of "U.S. Muslims more content, assimilated than those abroad" is born out by some of the data, but it is probably not the case regarding the suicide-bombing question. In a survey released last month, the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes asked respondents in Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia whether terrorist attacks on civilians can be justified. The results: 27 percent of Moroccans, 21 percent of Egyptians, 13 percent of Pakistanis and 11 percent of Indonesians replied in the affirmative. If both polls are accurate, this means that American Muslims are twice as likely as Pakistanis to give the wrong answer. That's a big "if." But certainly the picture is less clear than the media portray it.
It's as if the American media expects that the 75 percent of good news can be emphasized with sufficient vigor to make it the full 100 percent. They have made a judgment that too many Americans are disposed to the negative on the subject, and so they shape the coverage accordingly. They expect to be able to downplay the finding that hundreds of thousands of adherents of Islam tell pollsters that they find suicide bombing to be acceptable in some cases. They expect, somehow, to fail to highlight a very highlightable and troubling point of data about people in the United States with ideological and religious sympathies for suicide terrorism.
This is unsustainable in the long run. That's because at minimum, terrorism's sympathizers comprise the unwitting background noise in which the real malefactors remain hidden. It is not fear-mongering, and it is not bigoted, to point this out. It is called journalism.

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20070523-092313-6307r.htm
 
Which bothers you more?

The 25% of Muslims who say suicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable

or

the thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats that believe Pres Bush knew about 9-11 in advance?

The US in a war for its survival and a large part of the nation refuses to recognize the real threat
Let's be fair, the Rasmussen poll also says that 14% of Republicans believe that Bush knew about the attacks in advance. Personally, I don't buy that all Americans in that 22% number believe that Bush knew that 9/11 was going to happen and just let it so he could start wars in the Middle East. I think about two-thirds of the people lumped into that 22% figure thinks that Bush could have prevented 9/11 if he had acted on intelligence reports and recommendations from the FBI and CIA. There's a distinct line that separates the conspiracy kooks, who think 9/11 was a fabricated attack by the government, from the people who believe that 9/11 could have been prevented but wasn't because Bush was asleep at the wheel.

Personally, I don't think Bush could have prevented 9/11 and don't blame Bush for the attacks. I think going into Afghanistan was the right call. I've gotten into it with Paul Revere several times here- so I think conspiracy theories are retarded.

But back on topic, obviously, the 25% bothers me more. Choosing between Americans who believes suicide bombings on civilian populations are justified v. Americans who believe in conspiracies or incompetence is a no brainer.
 
Let's be fair, the Rasmussen poll also says that 14% of Republicans believe that Bush knew about the attacks in advance. Personally, I don't buy that all Americans in that 22% number believe that Bush knew that 9/11 was going to happen and just let it so he could start wars in the Middle East. I think about two-thirds of the people lumped into that 22% figure thinks that Bush could have prevented 9/11 if he had acted on intelligence reports and recommendations from the FBI and CIA. There's a distinct line that separates the conspiracy kooks, who think 9/11 was a fabricated attack by the government, from the people who believe that 9/11 could have been prevented but wasn't because Bush was asleep at the wheel.

Personally, I don't think Bush could have prevented 9/11 and don't blame Bush for the attacks. I think going into Afghanistan was the right call. I've gotten into it with Paul Revere several times here- so I think conspiracy theories are retarded.

But back on topic, obviously, the 25% bothers me more. Choosing between Americans who believes suicide bombings on civilian populations are justified v. Americans who believe in conspiracies or incompetence is a no brainer.

There are nuts on both sides - we agree

To be fair as well, the 9-11 Commission said Clinton inspried OBL to plan 9-11 yet that is ignored

The US is at war and the left and the liberal media are still fighting their war on Bush

BTW, has Paul left the board? I have not seen any posts from him for awhile
 
Don't you live down the street from him? You should check and see if he's still alive.

He says I do. He was probably taken away by the men in white coats and put in a padded room

I do hope he gets the medical treatment he so desperatly needs
 
It's a whitewashed Pew poll - look at the bright side, almost three-quarters of young Muslims think suicide bombing is "rarely or never" justified. There's a difference between rarely and never, what's with the wording?

Looking right at the pdf file:

View of al Qaeda
Very unfavorable 58 63 60 51 36
Somewhat unfav. 10 7 8 16 25
Favorable 5 3 4 7 9
DK/Refused 27 27 28 26 30
100 100 100 100 100

That's a very high percentage of "DK/refused". Then this:

Think of self as:
Muslim first 60 41
American first 25 30
Both equally 10 22
Neither/Other/DK 5 7
100 100

So they all really are "Muslim-American", Muslim first, American second. These numbers are only reassuring when they're stacked next to similar surveys of some European countries, and then just some of them.
 
It's a whitewashed Pew poll - look at the bright side, almost three-quarters of young Muslims think suicide bombing is "rarely or never" justified. There's a difference between rarely and never, what's with the wording?

Looking right at the pdf file:



That's a very high percentage of "DK/refused". Then this:



So they all really are "Muslim-American", Muslim first, American second. These numbers are only reassuring when they're stacked next to similar surveys of some European countries, and then just some of them.



and these are the type of people Dems want to surrender to
 

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