Absolutely, its the hatred and vitriol he spews that I object to. There are ways of getting one’s point across without spouting hate, or anger.
Many replies to the OP have (apparently) attempted to minimize the ramifications of the murder of Theo van Gogh by pointing out that there have been many different terrorist groups in different countries, and that it is unfair to single out Islamic terrorists for special attention.
So I did a little research:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism (scroll down to “List of Terrorist Incidents”
The list is indeed long and depressing.
Belgium (CCC)
Canada (Squamish Five)
Germany (Bader-Meinhof Gang / Red Army faction)
Ireland and Britain (IRA)
Israel (Irgun / Stern Gang)
Italy (Red Brigades)
Japan (Japanese Red Army)
Netherlands (RMS)
Palestine (too many to list)
Spain (Basque separatists)
The USA has had various Anarchists, the KKK, the Weathermen, anti-abortionists, eco-terrorists, and the Unabomber.
Clearly, no nation (or religion) has a monopoly on terrorism.
Some observations and conclusions:
(1) The typical (non-Islamic) terrorist group is usually a local phenomenon. It operates within the borders of a specific nation, and it has a specific agenda peculiar to that nation. Sometimes, of course, the terrorists may go abroad to kill an ambassador, for example. In contrast, Islamic terrorists have cells and branches in almost every country (including Finland!) and their shared agenda is global in scope.
(2) Most European terrorist groups of the 20th Century were Marxist-Leninist entities. Most of them are no longer active. Their leaders were caught or killed, and their followers simply gave up the fight. But while they were active, most of these groups were given support by Islamic terrorists or by Islamic nations which supported terrorism.
(3) In the last 30 years of the 20th Century, most terrorist acts were committed by the IRA, the ETA or various Islamic groups. But in 1993, Islamic groups began to dominate the action.
(4) In terms of political theater (high body-counts or spectacular high-profile incidents), Islamic terrorists have outdone all others. Some highlights:
The Munich Massacre of the Israeli Olympic athletes in 1972.
The murder of Leon Klinghofer aboard the *Achille Lauro * in October 1985. This was a particularly brutal act in that the terrorists carefully selected an old American Jew in a wheelchair, shot him in the head, and then pitched him overboard, chair and all - in front of Mrs. Klinghofer.
The failed attempt to destroy the WTC in 1993. This would have killed at least 8-10,000 people, with some casualty estimates going as high as 25,000.
The successful attempt to destroy the WTC on 9-11-2001. They never gave up.
(5) At this point in history, it is fair to say that Islamic terrorists are more active, more numerous, more conspicuous and much more dangerous than those of any non-Islamic group. In short, they deserve special attention because they have earned it.
When did the War on (Islamic) Terror actually start? At the risk of hijacking my own thread, I believe that it began on June 5, 1968. On that day, Sirhan Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy because Bobby supported Israel. The murder was deliberately committed exactly one year after the start of the Six-Day War in 1967, in which Israel beat the snot out of the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. My opinion is based on 36 years of historical hindsight, of course. At the time, Bobby’s murder was shrugged off as a symptom of national turmoil, coming as it did only two months after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.
Not that it matters or anything, but I will say I disagree with Angua on this small matter.
There is nothing wrong with the phrase “Muslim terrorist” or “Islamic terrorist” IMO. It is accurate and descriptive. The term jihadist is just more concise ( and as a more precise term conveys more information IMO ). To deny that one of the faces of Islam is expressed as violent extremism would be to deny reality. Just as it would be to deny that Christianity has violent faces of its own or for that matter any other faith has one, up to and including Buddhism ( Japan in particular has spawned some bizarrely violent Buddhist sects over the centuries ). I have never bought the argument that “true Muslims” and “true Christians” can’t be involved in such acts by definition, because if they did they ipso facto cease to be members of that faith. That’s a “No True Scotsman” fallacy. Members of the Christian Identity Movement are still Christian, no matter how strangled and racist their theology. Osama bin Laden is still a Muslim. A really bad Muslim maybe, but still a Muslim.
Where I have an objection is when someone baldly says Muslims without qualifiers. Islamist is a more precise term to refer to a particular group of politically militant zealots. Islamic terrorist is a more precise phrase. Islamist terrorist or jihadist is even more precise yet.
But just referring to something along the lines of “those murdering mad dog Muslims” ( invented quote ) is offensive, because you are tarring with too wide a brush.
- Tamerlane
Tamerlane – that’s more or less what I was trying to say. Unfortunately, I think I got the phrasing slightly wrong. I do object to someone saying Muslim terrorist, when they imply that they believe all Muslims are either terrorists or condone this sort of thing. I think I just wasn’t expressing myself clearly enough - I don’t like the term ‘Muslim terrorist’ when someone uses it to tar the entire community, as some have done.
Ok, it going to be quite easy to prove my point:
Let me begin my little tally:
(1) Almost 2/3 of Pakistanis have a favorable view of Bin Laden. Source = http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/16/world/main606651.shtml
Using the CIA worldbook for Population figures, that translates to approximately: 104,940,000
Alrighty, so now that we’ve already broken the magical hundred million figure, let us continue with our little tally in counting evil people on this globe.
(2) Almost 50% of Saudis have a favorable view of Bin Laden. Source = http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/08/poll.binladen/index.html
That would translate to approximately: 12,000,000
(3) 55% of Jordanians and 45% of Morrocans have a favorable view of the cave-dwelling Bin Laden.
This translates to: 3,080,000 (Jordan) and 14,494,095 (Morocco)
I’m not really going to bother to tally every Islamic country in the word, as there are far too many of them, and I do not need them as I have already proven my point.
So far the figures add up to: 134,514,095 MILLION, and that’s just from 4 countries.
Pretty scary, and pretty pathetic, IMO.
The world is infested with evil people.
So, let’s do a bit of basic mathematics here then. If you take the numbers from this Google search, which gives the number of Muslims in the world. As of 2000 that number was approximately 1,902,095,000, so, we’re looking at approximately 7% of the total Muslim population of the world.
Sorry, no dice. 7%, whilst not insignificant, does not really imply that all Muslims are evil and ardent supporters of Osama bin Laden.
There are lies, damned lies, then there are statistics, and badly worded polls. Who did the asking for these polls? How were the questions phrased? Where was the sample taken from? How big was the sample? I could go on…
Oh, and for the record, the number of Muslims you’ve counted is approximately 134 million, not 134 million million, as you’d like to think.
My tally was based on only 4 countries, and if that is already 7%, then imagine what the figures would be if every single one was counted.
I estimate at least a half a billion.
This source, which is fairly new (October) has total Muslims in the world as 1.4 Billion, not 2 Billion.
OK, so we’ve got approximately 10-15% rather than 7%, still, no dice.
Now, please, elaborate, or provide cites as to your estimate of half a billion. You’ve got the major Islamic countries there, in particular, the ones known to be particularly unsympathetic to the US. Please, elaborate on your half a billion.
10-15% ? Sorry, that is faulty math. I have only compiled the Pro-Bin Laden people from 4 countries, and you are getting your percentage by comparing this small sampling to the total number of Muslims in the world.
The percentages for the four countries I cited are 66%, 55%, 50% and 45%. The average of this = 54 %
Apply that figure to your total number of Muslims in the world, and you’ll see that my 500,000,000 estimate is very likely.
Well, hang on, you extrapolated your figures from small scale surveys, and now you’re questioning my logic and mathmatics?
Ah, so the polls/surveys are wrong, is that your claim ?
(from the first poll I cited: The polls were conducted between Feb. 19 and March 3. They have margins of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points in Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey and the United States. Polls in Britain, France and Germany have a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.)
Your math is most certainly flawed, since the percentage you reach only includes pro-Bin Laden people from the 4 countries I cited so far. What about the other scores of countries with many pro-Bin Laden people? For everysingle one you add, the percentage will creep up.
I’m not even going to bother to look up anymore, since I have already proven that there’s more than 100,000,000, and that’s just from four countries, which is what I set out to do.
Hey, dude! I’m assuming you are Christian (even if not, the argument below still applies). Remember Sunday School? All about how Abraham bickered with God over how many “Righteous people” should be found in Sodom in order that God should spare it?
The final figure was - if there were five (5) Righteous People in Sodom, God would spare it. How big a percentage would that have been? 99.9% “Bad Guys”? Granted, God did balk at sparing Sodom for the sake of a single person (99.99% bad guys or so)
And here you are, condemning an entire population because, say, even 33% of them (your highest estimate of “bad guys” - 500000 - over your lowest etimate of worldwide Muslim population) are “Not Righteous”. God has nothing on you in the harshness department… :rolleyes:. Kinda flies in the face of what the Bible tells you about compassion and tarring entire populations with wide brushes, huh?
Yes, 10% support for “bad guys” is a problem. No, I don’t think 10% of European Muslims support terrorism. And no, Muslims are not the only group in which you will find such numbers (% support for the IRA, in its heyday, in the Catholic world? Anyone? How about the %-age of Americans who were willing to see all kinds of measures against any Arabs and/or Muslims post 9/11? And don’t get me started on the number of Israelis - my own countrymen - perfectly willing to take their anger at the Palestinian terrorists out on any or all Palestinians… :().
And in any case, how about dealing with people on an individual basis for a change?
Dani
No, my claim is that like all polls, the polls and surveys have flaws, and until we know the format of the survey, the demographic of the respondants, the phrasing of the questions, we do not know the flaws of the surveys, and using data without knowing its limitations is a very very dangerous thing to do.
Go and find those statistics for me then.
But, 100,000,000 out of 1,000,000,000 is still only 10%. You’ve got a limit based on two surveys, the exact nature of which is unknown, you’ve extrapolated out from a small sample size, made wild assumptions based on your own beliefs, and you want to present this as proof of fact? Quite frankly, if I did that on any of the scientific papers I write, I’d be laughed out of my head of department’s office, laughed out of my department, and I’d never get a job in a respectable insitution ever again.
What seems obvious to me is that the worse the circumstances of a person’s life the more likely they are to embrace extremism.
This was certainly the case in N Ireland where the most pro-provo estates were total shitholes, where people felt that they had no opportunities (they didn’t) and as such the appeal of someone telling them that it was all the fault of the “Brits” was better than accepting that their lives were self imposed crap.
Surely the same applies to Muslims (especially young men). Whenever I see young men saying outrageous pro bin-laden anti christian and jew nonsense in Britain, these young men are always from shitty northern towns (is there any other kind 
) and they have no future as they come from a broken and backward society.
I would be intrigued to see what angua (cool user name BTW - I am assuming you’re not a real were-wolf) has to say about the class impact on extremism.
But their lives were not ‘self-imposed crap.’ British troops were sent to Northern Ireland to protect Catholiccs and the Civil rights Movement from Protestant mobs.
The Provisional IRA arose from the perception that the mainly peaceful civil rights movement that the Protestants were not going to stop treating Catholics like second class citizens.
People don’t just become terrorists because they’re having a bad hair day. They perceive themselves as part of a community with legitimate grievances. Part of combatting terrorism is addressing grievances to cut the blood supply of sympathy to the terrorist tumour.
Maybe their lives weren’t self imposed crap to start with but once they handed the estates over to the gun men and the gun men’s llicenced smack dealers, then they had to start to accept their own responsibility. (this goes for both sides of the "peace wall)
Well that’s the traditional theory but hasn’t it been shown to be wrong. The terrorists onboard the 9/11 planes weren’t poor. Bin Laden isn’t poor. Arafat wasn’t poor. The sole Dane/Algerian prisoner at Guatenamo nabbed in Afghanistan wasn’t poor, Saudia Arabia isn’t a poor country, the Basque region is one of the most wealthy in Spain – whereas poor Chinese, Indians or Guatemalans don’t become terrorists to any great extend, Etc. When it come to Islamism I think it’s more often young men (and I guess women) unable to cope with the transition from a traditional based society with fixed rules and customs to a modern society with no fixed rules and fluent customs, as well as those people seeing their power and authority based on old customs being eroded by modernity.
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/11.04/05-terror.html
No Bin Laden isn’t poor - but Saudi Arabia is - unemployment is through the roof, living standards are going down faster than Rebecca Loos, and the only way to improve your position in that society is through contacts that a lot of these people don’t have. Most people in SA have a crap life.
There is a difference between those who carry out the attacks - who are often well educated etc, and those that support them (and give them refuge and practical help). Those people are often holding onto the wrong end of the shitty-stick. They certainly were in N Ireland.
Why aren’t the Indians and Chinese terrorists? Because there ARE opprtunities in those countries.
The point I am trying to make is that there is a difference between the loud mouthed wankers you see on TV blaming the jews/bush/the protocols of the elders of zion etc for all their woes, who are almost always young men from crappy parts of the world without the skills to leave there and the rest of any given society.
To take religion out of this - the equivelent white boys are the burberry chavs that are percieved as the greatest threat to civilisation since Arsenal won the double. Look at the UK government’s agenda - these dole-moles are at the absolute top of it, and will be a major plank in the manifesto. ASBO boys are big news - same people different way of expressing it.
Hey! Leave shitty northern towns alone! I’m from one!
Well, I’m not a real werewolf, but sometimes, I do wish I was. 
Class and extremism: In my own experience, its not so much class that has anything to do with it, more education and the availability of opportunities – the more educated someone is, the less likely they are to embrace extremism. As an undergraduate, I had dealings with the Islamic society at my university, and whilst, at the time, I thought that they were a bit ‘full on’, so to speak, I realised I thought that only because of my own very liberal upbringing. So, yeah, you do see Muslim men and teenagers, particularly in the northern towns, where for whatever reason, they appear to have no opportunities, they’ve squandered their education, and so, are disaffected with the West, and turn to extremism.
So, now, we need to address why some of these teenage, first and second generation British Muslims seem to be unable to lift themselves out. Well, its only a small section of the British Muslim community - the British Indian Muslim community and the British Pakistani Muslim community both seem to do very well for themselves. I myself am first generation British Indian – my parents emigrated here in the 70s, but, unlike some of my peers, I have a good university degree, am doing a PhD, and generally have good career prospects. It doesn’t appear to be the same in the British Bangladeshi Muslim community. There’s actually an interesting article here, which argues that to combat extremism, you need to tackle the social and economic isolation faced by some communities.
And now, to address some points raised last night.
The Truth – those polls you use, there’s been some digging done on them, and well, its interesting reading to say the least.
The Saudi Arabia poll, run by Nawaf Obaid, who appears to be some sort of consultant for the Saudi government. He has his own discussion of the poll here, in the International Herald and Tribune. It makes interesting reading, particularly when you look at the discussion about “do Saudis support bin Laden?” Well, they support his rhetoric certainly, but not his actions – they do not condone terrorism. As one interviewee puts it:
Its one thing approving of rhetoric, its another thing entirely to support his actions. Which even the conservative Saudis obviously do not.
And now for the Pakistan, Morocco, and Jordan poll. From here - warning PDF. Note the first caveat at the top of the report:
So, it admits, that its not a representative sample.
Now, looking at the question from which you’ve gleaned your statistics:
Now, the poll doesn’t ask “favorable opinion with respect to <insert activity here>”, so the respondants could be responding with respect to his opposition to the current Pakistani government for all we know.
Also, I notice you didn’t include Turkey in your ‘statistics’. Why? Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country – 99.8% Muslim according to the CIA World Factbook, and a population that’s larger than Morroco and Jordan put together. Could it be because their responses don’t support your statistics? According to that same survey, only 4% of the Turkish have a favorable opinion of Osama bin Laden. So, not all Muslims support terrorism, and the number that do is certainly no where near the 50% you’d like me to believe.