[Strategy Page] - A recent opinion poll of American Moslems indicated they are getting less enthusiastic about Islamic terrorism.
| Or at least that they're willing to admit to pollsters. Still, good to know that they're at least seeing it as socially unacceptable... |
In a recent poll, five percent of American Moslems had a favorable attitude towards Islamic terrorism. Four years ago, it was seven percent. Currently, 81 percent are hostile to Islamic terrorism, versus 68 percent four years ago.
| Do we have a definition of terrorism yet? How about Islamic terrorism? |
Of those favorable to Islamic terrorism, 40 percent of them (two percent of all U.S. Moslems) were very favorable. That's nearly 50,000 people. But less than one percent of those were found involved, to one degree or another, in Islamic terrorism.
| Eh? That isn't the kind of thing people usually confess to total strangers... |
That's under 500 people, and only about a quarter of those have been arrested, or identified as going overseas to engage in Islamic terrorism. Currently, eight percent of American Moslems believe suicide bombing, and similar violence against civilians can sometimes be justified to defend Islam. Worse yet, 21 percent of American Moslems have witnessed other Moslems expressing, or calling for, support of Islamic radicalism. Some 60 percent of American Moslems (and 67 percent of Americans in general) are concerned about the rise of Islamic radicalism among American Moslems.
These polls are useful for other reasons. One poll four years ago finally answered the question of how many Moslem there are in the United States. There were no reliable statistics on this before, as the government did not collect data on religion, and there was no Moslem organization doing an accurate count. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll found there were 2.35 million Moslems in the United States,
| Not six million, as CAIR, et al were so fond of claiming before that came out. |
and 36 percent of them were children.
| In other words, not voters. |
Moreover, two thirds of the adult Moslems were born in another country. African-Americans made up twenty percent of Moslems, and tend to be more radical than the foreign born. Many of these are men who converted while in prison, and have long been seen as a major threat because of their criminal background and history of impulsive and violent behavior. |