Terror Free Tomorrow, an organization that recommends jizya as an antidote to terror, says that Islamic terrorism isn't that big a deal anyway. In "The myth of Muslim support for terror: The common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews" in the Christian Science Monitor (thanks to Ahsen), Kenneth Ballen, the founder and president of Terror Free Tomorrow, explains that poll results show that more Americans support terrorism than do people in majority-Muslim countries:
WASHINGTON - Those who think that Muslim countries and pro-terrorist attitudes go hand-in-hand might be shocked by new polling research: Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria.The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University of Maryland's prestigious Program on International Public Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "never justified," while 24 percent believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified."
Contrast those numbers with 2006 polling results from the world's most-populous Muslim countries – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Terror Free Tomorrow, the organization I lead, found that 74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are "never justified"; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent.
It would have been interesting to see how the results would have changed if the people in Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria had been asked about jihad violence, instead of about terrorist violence.
Do these findings mean that Americans are closet terrorist sympathizers?Hardly. Yet, far too often, Americans and other Westerners seem willing to draw that conclusion about Muslims. Public opinion surveys in the United States and Europe show that nearly half of Westerners associate Islam with violence and Muslims with terrorists. Given the many radicals who commit violence in the name of Islam around the world, that's an understandable polling result.
Mr. Ballen is generous to grant that. He might have added that the evasions and smear tactics that self-professed moderate Muslims frequently employ in the West against those who are exploring the elements of Islam that jihadists use to justify their actions only feed the suspicions of Westerners who are unfooled by the reflexive cries of "racism" and "bigotry."
But these stereotypes, affirmed by simplistic media coverage and many radicals themselves, are not supported by the facts – and they are detrimental to the war on terror. When the West wrongly attributes radical views to all of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, it perpetuates a myth that has the very real effect of marginalizing critical allies in the war on terror.
Who in the West really "attributes radical views to all of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims"? What the Qur'an and Sunnah teach, and how those teachings have been interpreted by the schools of Islamic law, is one thing, but what any given Muslim knows or cares about all that is quite another. By conflating the two, as is common practice in the mainstream media, Ballen is just setting up a straw man and obscuring the crucial effort need in order to distinguish true "critical allies in the war on terror" from false ones.
Indeed, the far-too-frequent stereotyping of Muslims serves only to reinforce the radical appeal of the small minority of Muslims who peddle hatred of the West and others as authentic religious practice.
I don't believe it when Dinesh D'Souza says it, and I don't believe it when Ballen says it. Stereotyping is always annoying, but the idea that it would make peaceful people turn violent is, at the mildest, unproven. And if Ballen means by stereotyping examinations of the violent elements of the Qur'an, Sunnah, and Islamic law, I still maintain that any genuine Muslim reformer will not react with rage and radicalism to an exploration of the elements of Islam that need reforming.
Terror Free Tomorrow's 20-plus surveys of Muslim countries in the past two years reveal another surprise: Even among the minority who indicated support for terrorist attacks and Osama bin Laden, most overwhelmingly approved of specific American actions in their own countries. For example, 71 percent of bin Laden supporters in Indonesia and 79 percent in Pakistan said they thought more favorably of the United States as a result of American humanitarian assistance in their countries – not exactly the profile of hard-core terrorist sympathizers.
Nonsense. If America wants to pay jizya, the jihadists certainly will not refuse it.
For most people, their professed support of terrorism/bin Laden can be more accurately characterized as a kind of "protest vote" against current US foreign policies, not as a deeply held religious conviction or even an inherently anti- American or anti-Western view.
This view founders, of course, on the fact that jihad violence is much older than current US foreign policies.
In truth, the common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews. Whether recruits to violent causes join gangs in Los Angeles or terrorist cells in Lahore, the enemy is the violence they exalt.
Indeed. But how to address this phenomenon, and combat it? In Lahore it cannot be ignored that people join terror cells because they believe it is their religious responsibility to do so, and that they will be rewarded with Paradise. To ignore this because of political correctness would be silly, and possibly dangerous.
Our surveys show that not only do Muslims reject terrorism as much if not more than Americans, but even those who are sympathetic to radical ideology can be won over by positive American actions that promote goodwill and offer real hope.America's goal, in partnership with Muslim public opinion, should be to defeat terrorists by isolating them from their own societies. The most effective policies to achieve that goal are the ones that build on our common humanity. And we can start by recognizing that Muslims throughout the world want peace as much as Americans do.
D'Souza couldn't have said it better, Mr. Ballen. But neither you nor he explain how we can identify these peace-loving Muslims, much less build alliances with them. Maybe the Muslims throughout the world who want peace as much as Americans do could start off the kumbaya party by taking decisive and effective action to pronounce takfir on Osama bin Laden and all violent jihadists and Islamic supremacists. Takfir is the declaration that they are so far outside the pale of Islamic orthodoxy that they are non-Muslims. One would think that since most Muslims abhor what they do, that shouldn't be a difficult operation to perform, should it?
The jihadist lobby in the US is really succeeding. (Visit http://www.masada1234.blogspot.com for a new approach to Israeli and World politics!)
Only by polling Demoncrats could they come up with numbers like that.
These two surveys are not comparable. One concerns bombing and other attacks , the other concerns terrorist attacks. Most respondents would view them differently.
"Those who think that Muslim countries and pro-terrorist attitudes go hand-in-hand might be shocked by new polling research: Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria."
"...74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are "never justified"; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent."
How interesting. Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than people from Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh? What a pile of crap. How come most of the terrorist attacks occur in the countries mentioned and almost none occur in the U.S.? Are we as a people sneaking over to cause all this mayhem in the above mentioned countries because, what, we can? Kenneth Ballen has an anti-American agenda and he asks his questions accordingly.
NOTE TO TERROR FREE TOMMOROW: Get back to me when Muslims no longer commit the overwhelmingly vast majority of all terrorist attacks in this world. Until them, cram your surveys where the sun don't shine. Islam spews quite enough taqqiya as it is. We don't need any Western mouthpieces blathering on about the supposed Religion of Peace. [spit]
"And we can start by recognizing that Muslims throughout the world want peace as much as Americans do."
Believe that and you and your family will be dead.
ALL muslims subscribe to the SAME satanic book.
ALL muslims worship the SAME "god" (Ha Satan).
ALL muslims believe in the genocidal, demonic, illiterate, terrorist, pedophile muhammad.
ALL muslims are REQUIRED to put allah before everything else: family, country, ethnic identity, friends, everything.
ALL muslims are REQUIRED to put other muslims FIRST.
The suicidal and insane (Western, I might add) notion of "radical muslims" and "moderate muslims" is defective on so many levels. There are only OBSERVANT muslims and LESS OBSERVANT muslims.
They are ALL muslims! All their "souls" belong to the same "god" - the one that gives 72 virgins to suicide bombers that kill kids in a pizza parlor or suicide gunmen that shotgun YOUR kids at your local mall.
islam is satanic. islam is death. islam is coming for YOU.
Bravo! I haven't seen such a good contortionist act in years! The human pretzel! I especially like the part where you bow so low that your entire head goes completely up your rectum.
But, neither the questions nor the answers are equal. Note: "The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University of Maryland's prestigious Program on International Public Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "never justified," while 24 percent believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified."
Contrast those numbers with 2006 polling results from the world's most-populous Muslim countries – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Terror Free Tomorrow, the organization I lead, found that 74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are "never justified"; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent."
Of course Americans will remember WWII where we did bomb civilians intentionally as part of the war effort. That is most definitely NOT the same as same as saying that, "terrorist attacks are 'never justified' " because bombing attacks, artillery barrages, etc., which frequently kill civilians, simply aren't the same thing!
No, I don't believe all muslims are violent, I know a lot of them, but that's only about 1/1,000,000,000,000th of 1 percent. The professional Islamic isn't going to sell his career, for a bomb vest, but Jihad is Jihad, and all the violence is from brain-dead muslims !
.....including Bin Laden.
The reason often is that the definition of terrorism that states and leaders of countries like Pakistan use, is very different from ours.
To make the point, I'll post an entire editorial from the Daily Times of Pakistan, which makes this very point.
See the URL
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007/02/25/story_25-2-2007_pg3_1
QUOTE
EDITORIAL: Our clerics favour suicide-bombing!
In a case of “wrong or misleading heading”, a survey on suicide-bombing by a Karachi Urdu newspaper has confused the press. It has wrongly concluded that our leading ulema have renounced suicide-bombing. This is what an online academic magazine has concluded: “Clerics from all schools of thought have declared suicide attacks un-Islamic and forbidden them under the Sharia; they said killing a non-Muslim without a legitimate cause was against the Islamic way of life”.
But the truth is that the meaning of what these clerics said is quite different from that which has been attributed to them. For instance, Maulana Amir Hamza of Jamaatud Dawa is quoted as saying that a suicide attack is an act of terrorism and that someone who kills himself to kill others also accounts for the sins of those killed. But he also added (found on website) that “no suicide attack is justified in a country which has Islam as the state religion, ruled by a Muslim ruler and is not under occupation by infidels”. This means that Iraq is excluded from this definition because it is occupied by infidels. In other words, Maulana Hamza would justify suicide bombing in Iraq against the occupying infidel.
This also means that suicide-bombing is not okay in Pakistan — because Islam is the state religion, the country is not occupied by infidels and General Musharraf is a Muslim ruler — but okay in a non-Muslim country like the United Kingdom, for instance. The scholar is clearly worried about Muslim suicide-bombers killing innocent Muslims. But what may become moot at any time is whether even Pakistan can qualify as an Islamic state and whether General Musharraf can be denounced as a bad Muslim for allying with an infidel like the USA.
The second cleric included in the survey is Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, formerly of the JUI, who actually allows suicide-bombing while alluding to Palestine!
Then there is a former minister and Sunni cleric, Dr Mehmood Ahmad Ghazi, who says that suicide-bombing is wrong but he too imposes the condition of the Islamic state, implying that it may be okay to kill innocent people in a non-Muslim state. Dr Anis of Jama’at-e Islami says he can’t be sure if suicide-bombing is wrong, but he too refers to Palestine without noting that Al Fatah condemns suicide-bombing while Hamas actually does it.
Our morose-looking Barelvi mufti, Munibur Rehman, says nothing new, as expected, but also maintains that suicide bombing in an Islamic state is not legitimate. This implies that one may suicide-bomb innocent non-Muslims and even target a non-Muslim state with impunity. Thank God, the shia scholar, Allama Qamber Abbas Naqvi, says that even a non-Muslim can’t be killed in this manner.
Therefore a re-reading of the views of these gentlemen leads to the conclusion that they have outlawed suicide-bombing only in very specific conditions and not generally at all.
In fact our clerics have confirmed that Al Qaeda, which began the trend on 9/11, can go on doing it. It is not clear if killing the Shias in Iraq is wrong because the ulema did not explain if they thought Iraq was being ruled by Muslims. It is quite possible that they may eventually disqualify Iraq as an Islamic state because the Americans are in occupation there. All of them cunningly ducked the question whether Al Qaeda’s killing of the Shias of Iraq — and the killing of innocent Sunnis by thugs like Muqtada al Sadr — was okay.
Tragically, they all allowed suicide, expressly forbidden by the Quran, under the condition of jihad. They also abstained from explaining what jihad was: war initiated by the Islamic state or by private parties posing as pious entities pursuing amr and nahi? In short, was jihad an ‘official’ function or a private one? They also did not adjudicate the global trend of dubbing private jihad as terrorism. Can the Muslims pursue private wars in the face of international law that recognises legitimate war only when it is conducted by a state?
What were the clerics driving at? If they wanted to outlaw suicide-bombing in Pakistan, why did they refer to Palestine where suicide-bombing is done to kill innocent people as legitimate collateral damage? The survey is the most hair-brained piece of work done by a publication whose rightwing religious views are well known. The problem really is that we are killing ourselves through suicide-bombers and the bombers are treated as martyrs on the videocassettes they leave behind.
The clerics should have touched on the trend of killing the Shias through suicide-bombing. The truth is that most of the casualties of suicide-bombing in Pakistan have been innocent men, women and children of the Shia community. Why weren’t the clerics interested in outlawing the fatwas of apostatisation (takfir)? It is the fatwa of takfir under which the Shias and at times the Barelvis are killed. The suicide boy who killed Allama Hasan Turabi last year said on film that he was going to Paradise for his deed!
Above all, our clerics have failed to rise to the level of common humanity by not condemning (barring the Shia scholar) suicide-bombing that kills innocent non-Muslims in non-Muslim states. The faith they pretend to profess believes in justice no matter how tough the circumstances. The Prophet (PBUH) did not exempt himself from humanity when he was besieged and endangered by his non-Muslim enemies. *
UNQUOTE
There is no difference between islamists Christians and Jews? Oh brother,
The murder of Hamda Abu-Ghanem, whose bullet-riddled body was found in mid January at her parents' house in Ramle, surprised nobody.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/829440.html
The founder of a group in Germany for former Muslims has sought police protection after receiving death threats.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/20070223-014518-1922r/
Abdel Karim father announced today that he is disowning Abdel Karim, and that he would like to see Sharia Law applied to his son, in which he would have 3 days to repent at the end of which if he is not repentent, he would be killed.
http://www.sandmonkey.org/2007/02/18/abdel-karim-family-disowns-him/
These links are all in a few minutes work via LGF. They are all from the same 1 day. Just think how long the list would be if someone spent oh say a week on the subject.
So, the very act of 'stereotyping' Muslims makes Muslims more prone to those 'stereotypes'?
This claptrap is a perennial favourite. It would be interesting to determine whether it is more often peddled by dhimmis and apologists for Islam like Kenneth Ballen, or by Muslims themselves.
That is, which set is more likely to think of all Muslims as acting in one utterly predictable and homogeneous way?
Even assuming the 'worst' about the numbers quoted for this poll regarding americans...my conclusion would be that americans are slowly compelled to accept the overriding fact that we ARE in a war of the peoples.
And it is the peoples who are among the targets, a significant portion of them, in the mirror.
The truth of this is the hole in the ground which remains in Manhattan.
All we need to do is think about the result of the Zogby and Pew polls, and consider our 'friends' in KSA, or Jordan, or Pakistan..and remember our own past. Dresden. Nagoya. Berlin. Richmond.
"This war differs from other wars, in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war." - Someone named Sherman
These are the sad but unavoidable facts.
Examine the source of the poll to discover any underlying agenda -
PIPA's Foundation Sponsors
* Rockefeller Foundation
* Rockefeller Brothers Fund
* Tides Foundation
* Ford Foundation
* German Marshall Fund of the United States
* Compton Foundation
* Carnegie Corporation
* Benton Foundation
* Ben and Jerry's Foundation
* Americans Talk Issues Foundation
* Circle Foundation
I don't believe that guys like this Kenneth Ballen are genuine.
They have vested interests. They are either paid agents or they belong to some Sowdi/Islamic outfit like John Esposito or Koran Armstrong.
The same goes for the despicable peanut Khadr or BJ Clinton, who is said to have received some 40 million in speaking fees in the last 6 years, nearly all of it from Arabs.
No wonder he doesn't speak for freedom and democracy, no: He claims the cartoons should have not been published! And the other demented A-sole smears Israel and calls it an apartheid state.
Whoever supports such whores is beneath contempt!
Huh...I would like to pick the brains of those people who were polled, and find out what their definition of "innocent" is. For all we know, the innocent are only people who are members of the Ummah.
The problem with this poll and "Terror Free Tomorrow" in general is that they are operating under a false assumption- they are projecting their values on a different culture. How can anybody patch the differences between two systems/ideologies/cultures/whatever when one side (ours) lives by the golden rule and believes in the universal and inalienable rights of ALL people while Islam reinforces an us-versus-them mentality and pushes for the goal of Islam dominating everyone and everything.
Blah, stupid nonsense, that poll!
"Indeed, the far-too-frequent stereotyping of Muslims serves only to reinforce the radical appeal of the small minority of Muslims who peddle hatred of the West and others as authentic religious practice."
How many times must people say this. All any muslim has to do is pick up the Quran to "reinforce the radical appeal of the small minority of Muslims who peddle hatred of the west". He don't need Robert Spencer, Piglet, Bill Clinton or the stripper dancing at the local club. How can anyone stereotype something that is written in stone? If people said "Arab men are sexist" then yes that is racist and stereotyping BUT if I say "Muslim men are sexist" then I am stating a fact based on the teachings of Islam. If a muslim does not beat his wife and treats her as a equal is he still following the tenants of his religion? No. Thus when I say "Muslim men are sexist" I am not refering to him.
Perhaps just to be on the safe side I shall say "Traditional Muslim men are sexist" but "Non-Traditional muslim men might not be sexist". Something like that...
Also I think the poll is flawed.....too many reasons to count..
When I read this a couple of days ago, my eyes rolled and I visited his website. It's total propaganda for Ballen 'you gotta hire me! Jizya is the solution'. And who is one of his endorsers - McCain. What a loser jumping in bed with Ballen. Just another reason to dismiss McCain. But no surprise.
“Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "never justified," while 24 percent believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified."
The 24% have come to realize that when fighting islamists the best place to find them is pretty much anywhere that women and or children are gathered. The 46% shows that a lot of people have been fooled by these islamopologists, these pied pipers of the jihad among us. The article seeks to tie our hands, try to make us feel guilty for having to attack the islamists where they are. We see it over and over, the islamists hiding among the masses, that way when we do strike them they have a ready made atrocity to put on display like some horrific carnival opera of death. They revel in media attention the less they get the more barbaric they become. Why do you think that Pearle was viciously murdered early in this battle and then later Centanni was kidnapped, converted and freed? Because in the beginning they wanted to scare the **** out of any media they could and then later play the, see we are not murderers card. It’s all about media control and portraying themselves as the victims, and they know how to play a softhearted dimwitted American like a fiddle.
More evidence of what a colossal mistake it was for the Bush administration to label our war against Islamic Jihad a "War Against Terror."
Terrorism is simply orthogonal to the matter at hand and its very definition--killing of "innocents"--unfortunately gets wrapped up in Islam's own perverse definition of innocence.
Will our next president have the courage to retire the "war on terror" label?
Will our next president have the courage to retire the "war on terror" label?
Posted by: kamala
Yes they will....
They will call it the "war on stereotyping"..
Whenever I see these BBC or wacko organizations polling global, I always ask FOLLOW THE MONEY and guess who pops up. Globalist Rockefeller CFR, Democrats and you guessed it MUSLIMS with a few token globalist Republicans.
Nice mix for a goofy poll. Their objective is to win over the Muslim masses away from terrorists. They apparently think by giving away American money in tsunami's and earthquakes makes a difference.
(I will remind people that Indonesians told America to get out after taking supplies and Pakistan is harboring terrorists after all this aid.)
Here is the cast of Terror Free (bought and paid for donations by globalists) Tomorrow
ADVISORY BOARD
U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) the stealth globalist candidate for president.
Lee H. Hamilton as Co-Chair of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States—The 9/11 Commission.
Recently he helped author the pro Muslim findings of negotiating with terrorist states Iran and Syria.
Thomas H. Kean
Thomas H. Kean recently served, also to considerable acclaim, as Co-Chair of the 9/11 Commission.
Slade Gorton
Slade Gorton also served with distinction as a Commissioner on the 9/11 Commission. The same commission which covered up a great deal of 9 11.
Thomas S. Foley
Ambassador Thomas S. Foley is currently the chairman of the Trilateral Commission.
Stephen W. Bosworth
Ambassador Bosworth is currently the Dean of The Fletcher School at Tufts University.He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Louis Caldera Secretary of the Army from 1998 to 2001. (Clinton flunky) with current affiliations include the Council on Foreign Relations.
Husain Haqqani is a leading Pakistani journalist, diplomat, and former advisor to three Pakistani prime ministers. He is a syndicated columnist for Indian Express, Gulf News, and The Nation (Pakistan). Muslim
Mr. Haqqani is currently a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and co-chair of the Hudson Institute's Islam and Democracy Project. Muslim
Muhammad Qodari is a political polster. Muslim
Mr. Qodari is a noted columnist and political commentator in Indonesia. Muslim
Robin Wiener is currently a Board Member and Treasurer of Families of September 11, the leading organization representing family members of the victims of 9/11. (Apparently is the money handler for the millions 9 11 families received)
James Kreindler
Jim Kreindler is the leading attorney in the United States for victims of terrorist attacks. (Ambulance chasing lawyer)
Mr. Kreindler is co-chair of the 9/11 Plaintiffs’ Committee suing terrorist financiers and supporters. (Ambulance chasing lawyer.)
Professor Mansoor Moaddel is one of the foremost academic authorities studying the causes and consequences of values, ideologies and attitudes of the Middle Eastern and Islamic publics. Muslim
Dr. Moaddel (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison/ B.A., Shiraz University-Iran) teaches sociology of religion, ideology, Islam and the Middle East, as well as statistics and research. Muslim
PROFESSIONAL STAFF
Kenneth Ballen
Ken served as Counsel to the Iran-Contra Committee under Chairman Lee Hamilton, where he was the lead investigator for the intelligence and military aspects of U.S. support for the Contra war in Central America. (He was the Democratic witch hunt manager against Ronald Reagan.)
Andi Hutomo
Andi Hutomo, an Indonesian citizen and is also an experienced computer programmer. Muslim
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Andrew Klingenstein former DA in DC, but helped found Fairfax Partners a kind of robber baron investment corporation that acquires companies for the investing partners.
Andrew Claster is Vice President at Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, one of the leading international public opinion survey firms, with research spanning over 70 countries (he is their polling skewer of data)
Nancy Lubin is a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Board of Trustees of the Eurasia Foundation.
John Richardson is an internatioanl (global) lawyer.
John Sopko is someone who worked for Democrat Sam Nunn.
One would like to know who is behind, who pays for, not directly but indirectly, for this group "Terror Free Tomorrow," and just who this Ken Ballen, both silly and sinister in his pronouncements, in the sloppiness of his "questions" -- what is the definition of a "civilian" to Muslims who were queried? To the most important Sunni writer today, Al-Qaradawi, even Israeli fetuses inside their mothers are fair game, are not considered "innocent civilians," because, as Al-Qaradawi put it, they can grow up to be "Israeli soldiers." Much the same sentiments have been echoed all over the Muslim world, and the distinction we make between soldiers and civilians, it should be obvious from the observable behavior, over decades, of Arab and Muslim terrorist groups that do not make similar distinctions and yet are wildly popular for their actions, are not made by Muslims.
Yet this Ken Baller thinks he can ask questions about the propriety of attacks on "civilians" or "innocent civilians" without any discussion or further inquiiry or attempt to fix exactly what Muslims take those phrases to mean.
Either he is wilfully ignorant, or incredibly stupid, or merely one more Western hireling of the vast Arab and Muslim campagin, all over the Western world, to render Infidels less wary, less suspicious,and to delay the day of widespread understanding of the clear doctrines of Islam -- easily discoverable in the texts, the Qur'an and Hadith and Sira (one wishes to know what Ken Ballen has read, what he himself knows of those texts and what he makes of them, what significance he attributes to them), and easily observed in the recorded behavior of Muslims, over the past 1350 years of Jihad-conquest and subsequent subjugation of non-Muslims, offered conversion, death, or the permanent status as dhimmis, as their only possibliities. Does Ken Ballen know this? Does he know that more and more Infidels are learning about this, and having been exposed to every conceivable kind of evasion, taqiyya-and-tu-quoque, jimmying of the data, stacking of the questionairre deck, and then the "analysis" that sounds as though it came from an office of CAIR, or some place in Riyadh, that people are getting fed up -- with the likes of all those who make up that army of hirelings, while our own servicemen are forced to risk their lives for polices made by people who, by and large, do not understand the full menace of Islam, nor the many instruments of Jihad, and especially those of Da'wa, demograpic conquest, and the propaganda directed at Infidels that makes those continuing and blatant campaigns of Da'wa and demographic conquest possible without a coherent opposition.
Ken Ballen needs to be examined, and above all - those who constructed those transparently-worded questions to achieve the desired result, and those who have paid him or are paying for this "Terror Free Tomorrow" program, need to be looked into by the security services. Let us know all about Ken Ballen, and "Terror Free Tomorrow." It will be interesting to find out a bit more, won't it?
The nuances of questioning are routinely exploited by all pollsters, whether by manipulation or by clumsiness. In this case I would want to ask questions that eliminate certain pitfalls. Do you believe
1. it is acceptable to kill civilians to make a political statement vs. a military objective?
2. it is desirable to kill civilians to make a political statement vs. a military objective?
One could think of any number of "loaded" questions regarding the religious affiliation of the hypothetical murderers and their victims. This is an essential line of questioning since not all groups value human life as universally or uniformly sacred. We know that now.
A lot of the same ground is run over repeatedly when it comes to assessing "Muslim thinking" or "Muslim outlook". We can skip most of it if we remember that in their worldview there is VIRTUALLY NO DISTINCTION DRAWN (or imagined) between faith, daily life, politics, warfare, art, sex, you name it. Virtually their entire life experience and mindset derives from the Koran and affiliated texts. As much as we have difficulty appreciating this perspective, they have an equally frustrating challenge understanding our separation of this, that and the other thing.
Assuming this basic concept is true, we can save a lot of effort in our communications by focusing on areas of Islam where there are differences in thinking and practice.
Mr. Ballen's poll is all but worthless.
What a ridiculous poll!
There is a world of difference between a Muslim definition of terrorism and a non-Muslim definition of terrorism.
I prefer the polls that ask specific questions.
911 was terrorism to non-Muslims, but not to most Muslims.
Western military presence in Iraq is terrorism to many Muslims, but not to many non-Muslims.
And I find it amusing the way prestigious is used to describe the U of M program. Adds legitimacy, NOT!
Colbert lamblasted D'zouza on the Colbert Report. How can you support a man who says that the liberals were responsible for 9/11?
Let us know all about Ken Ballen, and "Terror Free Tomorrow." It will be interesting to find out a bit more, won't it?
Posted by: Hugh
Well after a simple google search (Alien to those in power) it appears Mr. Ballen has been involved in...
He was one of the "Aceh School Project contributers" and was a donor of "The United States-Indonesia Society" and more see...
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:NuESr_pQUswJ:www.usindo.org/pdf/Final%2520summer%2520newsletter%25202005.pdf+%22Ken+Ballen%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=22&gl=us
It explains why the poll was so "favorable" in Indonesia....
Lame Cherry
I found this during the google search...
It also appears Mr. Ballen was a aide to Lee Hamilton.
see: http://realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-11_12_05_MK.html
Check it out if found a picture of him at...
http://pakistan-embassy.org/kashmir-day2006.php
Kashmir Day!!!!!
Hahahahahahahahaahahahahaha!
EVERYBODY,,,,,
Just do a google search on this guy he is beyond dirty. He has so many links to Pakistan and Indonesia it is beyond the pale. Worst yet he appears to have gotten the ear of the President and many others....
This poll I can assume is faked (like we all did not know) but this cat is on the level of Norquist. A total traitor!
GreatComet; Wonderful pictures of a great group. Mr. Ballan, Shiela Jackson Lee, and the Pakistan lobby.
Dollars to doughnuts he gets a cut of the aid package.
Ballen deliberately misuses and abuses language to attain the scewed results he desired. I remember reading a poll done in Pakistan indicating a 50% plus approval rating for obl. muslims do not define words like innocent and civilian the same way we do. No doubt that had they been asked "Is violent jihad waged against infidels totally justified?" the percentages would have exceeded 50%.
"The United States reaped huge political benefits from its generous response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami."
Let us count the ways, as in the sentence reduction and early release of Bali Bomber Atrocity conspirator Abu Bakar Ba'asyir (Bashir).
F&%k off and die.
The point that is missed is that of equating military actions with terrorist actions. Military actions are sanctioned by a government and it's agents (soldiers) are accountable for their actions. Terrorists on the other hand are not accountable to anybody, do not wear uniforms to identify themselves, and kill indiscriminately with absolutely no purpose or objective. A military bombing might be strategic and have a goal of putting an end to an enclave of insurgents for example, killing of innocents isn't the objective of this action. With terrorist acts, killing of innocents is the objective and the goal.
It is wrong to equate terrorism with military action. I don't condone war, but then sometimes there is no alternative, and remember that Hitler and Stalin could not be reasoned with.
Is not violent jihad both blessed and commanded by Koran?
"but even those who are sympathetic to radical ideology can be won over by positive American actions that promote goodwill and offer real hope"
Arabic translation: Shut up, put your wife in a bag, pay the jizya and hand over your third-grade daughter, and we might not kill you. Today.
I always wonder about groups who want to effect positive social change.
Globalist, Multicultural Media fed indoctrination.
Or they could have been polling, say, Detroit.
Unbelief that this could be happening to us, that it could be in the name of a supposed "religion," and that there masses of people here among us and streaming into our country that subscribe to these teachings and the horrendous acts committed by Moslems, make the uninstructed come up with all sorts of excuses and explanations.