A Year After Iraq War (Pew Research Poll on Muslim attitudes shows high percentage favor terrorism)

The Pew Research Center ^ | March 16, 2004 | Pew Research Center

[SauronOfMordor]

Justifying Suicide Bombings

Generally, people in the largely Muslim nations surveyed are divided over whether suicide bombings and other violence against civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam against its enemies. Fully three-quarters of those interviewed in Turkey (76%) say such attacks are rarely or never justified. But more people in Pakistan and Morocco say suicide attacks in the defense of Islam are justifiable: roughly four-in-ten in each country say these attacks are often or sometimes justified (41% Pakistan, 40% Morocco).

There is broader agreement that suicide attacks in specific circumstances – against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq, and by Palestinians against Israeli citizens – are justified. Large majorities in Jordan (70%) and Morocco (66%) believe suicide bombings carried out against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq are justifiable. Nearly half of those in Pakistan agree (46%), while 36% say such attacks are not justifiable. In Turkey, most respondents (59%) feel attacks against Americans in Iraq are not justified, but about three-in-ten (31%) say that they are.

A similar pattern is evident in opinion on the question of whether suicide bombings by Palestinians against Israelis are justified. Support for this idea is especially widespread in Jordan and Morocco, where 86% and 74%, respectively, condone Palestinian suicide attacks. As with attacks against Americans in Iraq, Pakistanis are more divided, with 47% saying Palestinian bombings are justifiable, and 36% saying they are not. In Turkey, the weight of public opinion is against Palestinian violence – 24% say Palestinian suicide bombings are justifiable, while two-thirds say they are not.

There is little evidence of a generational divide among Muslims in opinion about the U.S. or the use of violence against Americans. In Turkey, Pakistan, Jordan and Morocco, older people are just as likely as the young to view America unfavorably, and are just as likely to say that suicide bombings against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq are justifiable. In Pakistan, people age 50 and older express somewhat greater hostility toward American than those under age 50. Six-in-ten older Pakistanis say suicide attacks against Americans in Iraq are justifiable, compared with just 44% of those who are younger.

In Turkey and Pakistan, there is a significant gender gap in attitudes toward suicide attacks. In both countries, men are roughly twice as likely as women to say such violence against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq is justifiable. Four-in-ten Turkish men take this view, compared with 22% of Turkish women, and 61% of Pakistani men vs. 29% of Pakistani women. But in Jordan and Morocco, both men and women agree, in equal parts, that suicide bombing is justifiable.

[SauronOfMordor]

A gentleman compiled the data into an interesting table

  THINK-ISRAEL
 

HOME

May-Jun.2004 Featured Stories

May 2004 blog-eds

Background Information

News On The Web

 

270 MILLION SUICIDE BOMBERS

by Puddle Pirate

  

"Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy and forgiveness that should not be associated with acts of violence against the innocent."
   - Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

After 9/11 and two wars, I'm skeptical of that claim, but until recently I had nothing but anecdotal evidence to lean on. This week, I went looking for facts to help me evaluate CAIR's assertion. I originally thought that in the worst case, as many as 10% of Muslims might support suicide bombing. It turns out I'm a starry-eyed optimist. Over 270 million Muslims (that's consistent with the over one third of all Muslims surveyed) approve of suicide bombings, if the data's accurate.

I hope I'm overestimating, but unfortunately I think I'm right.

First, my sources. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press recently conducted two surveys of Muslim attitudes, one called "What the World Thinks in 2002" (http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=165, 12/4/2002) and the other called "A Year After Iraq War" (http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206, 3/16/2004). Both reports listed the percentage of Muslim respondents who thought suicide bombings were acceptable. The pertinent part of the 2002 report covered Bangladesh, Ghana, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Lebanon, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, and Uzbekistan. The pertinent part of the 2004 report covered Turkey, Pakistan, Morocco, and Jordan. I also looked through the CIA's World Factbook (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/) to get demographic information on each country.

Next, my assumptions and biases. I'm assuming that the folks at The Pew Center and the CIA have published accurate information. I pray the Pew folks got wildly overstated results ... but the pessimist in me doubts that. My bias has long been decidedly unfavorable toward Islam, and it's been worse since 9/11. I'm an evangelical Christian conservative, a registered Republican, and a military veteran. I judge individual Muslims on their own behavior, and have known several quite nice ones. Nevertheless I consider Islam in general to be a threat to the Judeo-Christian culture and liberties that we enjoy here in America.

That said, let's crunch the numbers. Approval rates for suicide bombing range from Uzbekistan's 7% up to Jordan's 86%. With 710,884,350 Muslims in these sixteen countries, an average of 38.3% approve of suicide bombings. That comes to 272,564,884 potential Muslim suicide bombers.

How many suicide bombers are there?

Country	Population	% Muslim	Number of Muslims	% Muslims who agree with Suicide Bombing	Potential Suicide Bombers
Bangladesh	138,448,210	83%	114,912,014	44%		50,561,286
Ghana	20,467,747	16%	3,274,840	30%		982,452
Indonesia	234,893,453	88%	206,706,239	27%		55,810,684
Ivory Coast	16,962,491	35%	5,936,872	56%		3,324,648
Jordan	5,460,265	94%	5,132,649	86%		4,414,078
Lebanon	3,727,703	70%	2,609,392	73%		1,904,856
Mali	11,626,219	90%	10,463,597	32%		3,348,351
Morocco	31,689,265	98.7%	31,277,305	74%		23,145,205
Nigeria	133,881,703	50%	66,940,852	47%		31,462,200
Pakistan	150,694,740	97%	146,173,898	47%		68,701,732
Senegal	10,580,307	94%	9,945,489	28%	2,784,737
Tanzania	35,922,454	35%	12,572,859	18%		2,263,115
Turkey	68,109,469	100%	67,973,250	31%		21,071,708
Uganda	25,632,794	16%	4,101,247	29%		1,189,362
Uzbekistan	25,981,647	88%	22,863,849	7%		1,600,469
16-Country Total	914,078,467	77.8%	710,884,350	38.3%	272,564,884

 

 
 

Country	Population	% Muslim	Number of Muslims	% Muslims who agree with Suicide Bombing	Potential Suicide Bombers
Afghanistan	28,717,213	99%	28,430,041	1%	284,300
Egypt	74,718,797	94%	70,235,669	1%	702,357
Gaza Strip	1,274,868	98.7%	1,258,295	1%	12,583
Iran	68,278,826	99%	67,596,038	1%	675,960
Iraq	24,683,313	97%	23,942,814	1%	239,428
Israel	6,116,533	14.6%	893,014	0.1%	893
Libya	5,499,074	97%	5,334,102	1%	53,341
Saudi Arabia	24,293,844	100%	24,293,844	1%	242,938
Syria	17,585,540	90%	15,826,986	1%	158,270
Turkmenistan	4,775,544	89%	4,250,234	1%	42,502
United States	290,342,554	2.4%	7,000,000		0.1%	7,000
West Bank	2,237,194	75%	1,677,896	1%	16,779
12-Country Estimate	548,523,300	45.7%	250,738,931	1.0%	2,436,352
Combined Total	1,462,601,767	65.7%	961,623,282	28.6%	275,001,236

Anybody got a flak jacket I can borrow?

I can hear the protests already. "But that's not a representative sample!" Alright, point taken. Perhaps the good folks at The Pew Center should ask people in more countries about their attitudes (assuming those dictatorships allow them in to begin with). Ask them about their chosen venues, not me. I just run their numbers. But fine, I'll humor the Muslim apologists. Let's cast a wider net right here and now.

Let's add in twelve more places with significant Muslim populations: Afghanistan, Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, the USA, and the West Bank. We have demographic information from the CIA as before, but the Pew studies didn't cover those countries, so we don't know how many of these Muslims think suicide bombing is acceptable. For the sake of argument I'll be insanely generous and estimate that it's a mere 1%. I'll go even further; in the USA and Israel I'll call it just 0.1%, since Muslims in these two countries are presumably enlightened and moderate. I'll even use CAIR's very optimistic estimate of a U.S. Muslim population of seven million (http://www.cair-net.org/asp/aboutislam.asp), just to show I'm a nice guy. With those estimates, what shakes out for these twelve countries/territories? We have 250,738,931 Muslims ... 2,436,352 of whom are in favor of suicide bombing. Israel has only 893 of its own to watch out for. How many in America, land of the 99.9% peace-loving Muslim? Seven thousand.

Better get crackin', Team Ashcroft.

Merge my incredibly low-ball estimates with the original Pew data, and we get 275,001,236 suicide bombing fans (28.6% of the total). Keep in mind that these figures are drastically skewed toward the low end because of my concession to the "99% peace-loving" meme. Any takers on whether the Saudis, Syrians, Iranians, and Palestinians show a smidgen more than 1% approval?

So, is this The Religion of Peace? You be the judge.

 

Puddle Pirate describes himself as "a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer and graduate of the USCG Academy and recent law school graduate. I'm pro-life, pro-gun, pro-capital punishment, anti-big government, pro-military ... and an Israel-boosting Christian conservative. I blog regularly on the War on Terror, the military, politics, law, bioethics, and pop culture." This essay appeared April 11, 2004 on the Brain Shavings weblog website (http://cga94.com/brainshavings/). It is archived at http://cga94.com/brainshavings/archives/000065.html

_________________________End of Story___________________________

 

HOME

May-Jun.2004 Featured Stories

May 2004 blog-eds

Background Information

News On The Web

[SauronOfMordor]

Pew Research: 270 MILLION SUICIDE BOMB SUPPORTERS ping

[lilylangtree]

Just once again proves that Islam and the relative countries is a breeding ground for terrorists.

[tomahawk]

Savages.

It's them or us.

[ncountylee]

Islam (pig piss be upon it) is a terrorist organization!

[Travis McGee]

Muslims being Muslims.

[BenLurkin]

bttt

[massfreeper]

Don't you mean Team Gonzales, not Team Ashcroft?

[reformedliberal]

I am not complacent nor an apologist at all, but are your numbers adjusted for gender and age? Babies, women (except, as shown in Jordon and Morocco)and the most aged are not going to _commit_ the act, although a percentage of woman and aged are going to be supporters.

Just nitpicking. I am quite concerned, as it is.

[SauronOfMordor]

Babies, women (except, as shown in Jordon and Morocco)and the most aged are not going to _commit_ the act, although a percentage of woman and aged are going to be supporters.

Children and women have been used by the Jihaadists.

[reformedliberal]

That's true. However, I was just wondering if the numbers of jihadis was as large as the stats in the article and your post indicate.

I suppose it really doesn't matter, as even one is a threat and the difference between 3k or 7k is irrelevant to the degree of threat.

[nwrep]

This person forgot to include the world's second largest Muslim country: India, where Muslims constitute 13.5% of the population, or approx. 140 million people.

[SauronOfMordor]

For Jihaadists to survive and operate, they need sanctuaries where they would be among people who are going to give them shelter and moral support. It can otherwise get pretty lonely out there