A popular man
An interesting report on polling in Pakistan, from Mid Day:
Nearly two thirds of people in Pakistan hold favourable views of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and 86 per cent approve of President Pervez Musharraf, according to a survey by a major American organisation.Nearly half of those interviewed said suicide bombings against Israelis and, in Iraq, against Americans and other Westerners are justified.
The report by the Washington-based Pew Global Attitudes Project survey found that 65 per cent favoured Osama and that pluralities of 47 per cent believed Palestinian suicide attacks on Israelis were justified. Forty-six per cent thought attacks on Westerners in Iraq were justified.
The Pew Research Centre is a non-profit and non-governmental organisation, which specialises in opinion surveys. Its reports are widely respected in Washington’s academic circles.
Pakistan was one of four Muslim-majority countries in the survey, which also included Turkey, Jordan and Morocco, the governments of all of which have strong ties with the US.
Pew, the polling organisation questioned 1220 people in Pakistan’s urban areas, 1000 nationwide in four Moroccan cities and about 1000 each nationwide in Turkey and Jordan between February 19 and March 3.
The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Pew also conducted polls during the same period in the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Russia.
Brain washed, misguided, and spoon fed their own opinions......some life they live.
A fundamental feature of the present jihad is mis-information. Jihad Jouralism, as it is known, plays a key role in that institutionalised mis-information conspiracy.
As one can see Pakistan is a hot bed of jihad journalism and thus the mis-information conspiracy directed against the West. Some " allie " in the War On Terrorism.
Another aspect , which does fall under mis-information in the broader sense but none the less has it's own inertia, is concealment of facts and the truth in general. More specifically to put a disguise on the true nature of the jihad threat.
One bit of mis-information is that it is a close knit conspiracy of violent few trying to " hijack " Islam, often refered to a ' great religion '. The fact of the matter and self evident truth is that it the jihad, including the terrorist aspect to kill as many members of the working class as possible, is a widely supported cultural phenomenon in the Islamic world. This could be seen by all the cheering by muslims the world over of the horrific events of 9-11.
And who is one of the leading point men for this bit of dis-information that we are dealing with a tiny conspiracy of terrorist with in the broader Islamic world not broadly supported by it? None other than the President Of The United States himself George W. Bush!
Who has given billions and billions of aid to the major nuclear proliferator in the world today and bulwark of the jihad, Pakistan. We will come to regreat this just as we came to regreat supporting Iraq or Osama himself in the past.
wesley
i too always wanted to believe the terrorist few theory because i knew that condemning all muslims was ridiculous and wrong and race hate.
Perhaps its just a question of mugh higher percentages ?
we know about the hushed by the BBC pictures of PAL joy at 911 . Now we are getting stats of over 50% from Pakistan. Wonder what the stats would show in the UK ?
To David:
The percentages supporting terrorism are lower in UK, but still shockingly high.
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"MUSLIMS POLL MARCH 2004"
http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/reviews/2004/guardian-muslims-march-2004.htm
"ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 500 Muslim adults aged 18+ by telephone on 3rd-11th March 2004"
"Q5. President Bush and Tony Blair have said war against terrorism is not a war against Islam. Do you agree or disagree?
Agree 20%
Disagree 68%
Don't know 12%"
"Q7. Would you regard further attacks by Al Qaeda, or similar organisations on the USA as justified or unjustified?
Agree 13%
Disagree 73%
Don't know 15%"
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13% Neonazis aproving of violence are a little too much...
Other relevant surveys can be found at http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=796
USA needs to be very careful not to discredit their efforts in reducing terrorism.
Even in Britain 41% do not believe that the U.S.-led war on terrorism is a sincere effort to reduce international terrorism.
In Germany and USA the figures are 65% and 25% respectively.
Appeasement is a dirty word, but for now I think it is necessary for USA reduce the hostility by being very careful what it does. You just cant get common people to snitch on suspected terrorists if they view the war on terror as insincere.
As recently as 2002, 53% of Jordanians expressed a positive opinion of Americans. Now it is just 21%. The big drop most likely came because of the Iraq war.
An interesting point somewhat buried in the report is that 65% support OBL and 86% support Musharraf. Now this is pretty much self-contradictory as Musharraf has literally bet his life on capturing/killing OBL, or so we are led to believe.
Let's accept that proposition for the sake of discussion. Then we see starkly demonstrated the key problem with Islam -- illogic. Ask a Muslim why a dropped rock falls and you're just as likely hear: "Because Allah wills it" as to hear any mention of gravity, mass, Newton, Einstein.
Trapped in superstition, effectively illiterate, denying cause/effect and beyond logic, these are the people we hope to see reform themselves. And that's just humanities professors; Muslims are at least as bad.
Concerning the Bush administration promoting the "small minority" line, I have this question: what else can they do? It seems massively counter-productive to declare war against all or most of Muslims -- at least right now. Just as the Iraqi invasion is spoken of as the "Iraq War" rather than noting that it is merely a campaign in the ongoing global war. I expect a more factual approach will gradually emerge on both of these issues over the next few years.
"Nearly two thirds of people in Pakistan hold favourable views of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and 86 per cent approve of President Pervez Musharraf"
It's pretty disturbing that those who support OBL also support Musharraf. Despite the tensions between the two, most Pakistanis do not see a distinction in what the two men are doing.
or, they may be taking a pragmatic position in the middle so that they can end up on the winning side of the current conflict in pakistan in one way or another
Is it jsut me, or does that picture of Bin Laden look like he's giving a "Seig Heil!" salute?