Tag Archives: Terrorism

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What percentage of Muslims approve of radical Islam and terrorism?

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Muslim populations in Europe
Muslim populations in Europe

Normally, when people ask me about this question, I go straight to the 2013 Pew Research survey which I blogged about before. But now I have something even better.

Here’s a post from Ben Shapiro at Breitbart News which looks at several polls from several different countries.

Shapiro writes: (links to polls removed)

So, here is the evidence that the enemy we face is not a “tiny minority” of Muslims, let alone a rootless philosophy unconnected to Islam entirely. It’s not just the thousands of westerners now attempting to join ISIS. It’s millions of Muslims who support their general goals, even if they don’t support the group itself.

France. A new, widely-covered poll shows that a full 16% of French people have positive attitudes toward ISIS. That includes 27% of French between the ages of 18-24. Anne-Elizabeth Moutet of Newsweek wrote, “This is the ideology of young French Muslims from immigrant backgrounds…these are the same people who torch synagogues.”

Britain. In 2006, a poll for the Sunday Telegraph found that 40% of British Muslims wanted shariah law in the United Kingdom, and that 20% backed the 7/7 bombers.Another poll from that year showed that 45% of British Muslims said that 9/11 was an American/Israeli conspiracy; that poll showed that one-quarter of British Muslims believed that the 7/7 bombings were justified.

Palestinian Areas. A poll in 2011 showed that 32% of Palestinians supported the brutal murder of five Israeli family members, including a three-month-old baby. In 2009, a poll showed that 78% of Palestinians had positive or mixed feelings about Osama Bin Laden. A 2013 poll showed 40% of Palestinians supporting suicide bombings and attacks against civilians. 89% favored sharia law. Currently, 89% of Palestinians support terror attacks on Israel.

Pakistan. After the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Gilani Foundation did a poll of Pakistanis and found that 51% of them grieved for the terrorist mastermind, with 44% of them stating that he was a martyr. In 2009, 26% of Pakistanis approved of attacks on US troops in Iraq. That number was 29% for troops in Afghanistan. Overall, 76% of Pakistanis wanted strict shariah law in every Islamic country.

Morocco. A 2009 poll showed that 68% of Moroccans approved of terrorist attacks on US troops in Iraq; 61% backed attacks on American troops in Afghanistan as of 2006. 76% said they wanted strict sharia law in every Islamic country.

Jordan. 72% of Jordanians backed terror attacks against US troops in Iraq as of 2009. In 2010, the terrorist group Hezbollah had a 55% approval rating; Hamas had a 60% approval rating.

Indonesia: In 2009, a poll demonstrated that 26% of Indonesians approved of attacks on US troops in Iraq; 22% backed attacks on American troops in Afghanistan. 65% said they agreed with Al Qaeda on pushing US troops out of the Middle East. 49% said they supported strict sharia law in every Islamic country. 70% of Indonesians blamed 9/11 on the United States, Israel, someone else, or didn’t know. Just 30% said Al Qaeda was responsible.

Egypt. As of 2009, 87% of Egyptians said they agreed with the goals of Al Qaeda in forcing the US to withdraw forces from the Middle East. 65% said they wanted strict sharia law in every Islamic country. As of that same date, 69% of Egyptians said they had either positive or mixed feelings about Osama Bin Laden. In 2010, 95% of Egyptians said it was good that Islam is playing a major role in politics.

United States. A 2013 poll from Pew showed that 13% of American Muslims said that violence against civilians is often, sometimes or rarely justified to defend Islam. A 2011 poll from Pew showed that 21 percent of Muslims are concerned about extremism among Muslim Americans. 19 percent of American Muslims as of 2011 said they were either favorable toward Al Qaeda or didn’t know.

In short, tens of millions of Muslims all over the world sympathize with the goals or tactics of terrorist groups – or both. That support is stronger outside the West, but it is present even in the West. Islamist extremism is not a passing or fading phenomenon – it is shockingly consistent over time. And the West’s attempts to brush off the ideology of fanaticism has been an overwhelming failure.

A more recent poll says that 13% of Syrian refugees support Islamic State:

A first-of-its-kind survey of the hordes of Syrian refugees entering Europe found 13% support the Islamic State. The poll should raise alarms about the risks posed by the resettlement of 10,000 refugees in the U.S.

The poll of 900 Syrian refugees by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies also found that another 10% of the displaced Syrians have a lukewarm, but not entirely negative, view of the terror group. That means 23% — or almost 1 in 4 — could be susceptible to ISIS recruitment.

It also means as many 2,500 of the 10,000 Syrian refugees that the Obama administration is resettling inside American cities are potential terrorist threats.

Now contrast those facts with the views of Barack Obama and his allies in the mainstream media.

That video is from The Weekly Standard, here’s the text:

President Obama told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that 99.9 percent of Muslims reject radical Islam. He made the comments in response to a question about the White House avoiding using the phrase “Islamic terrorists.”

“You know, I think that the way to understand this is there is an element growing out of Muslim communities in certain parts of the world that have perverted the religion, have embraced a nihilistic, violent, almost medieval interpretation of Islam, and they’re doing damage in a lot of countries around the world,” said Obama.

“But it is absolutely true that I reject a notion that somehow that creates a religious war because the overwhelming majority of Muslims reject that interpretation of Islam. They don’t even recognize it as being Islam, and I think that for us to be successful in fighting this scourge, it’s very important for us to align ourselves with the 99.9 percent of Muslims who are looking for the same thing we’re looking for–order, peace, prosperity.”

So Obama denies all of these surveys, and instead invents a view of the world that is consistent with his feelings. A true man of the secular left.

This gap between belief and reality explains why he is now bringing 200,000 Syrian Muslim refugees into America, keeping Syrian Christian refugees out of America, and generally underestimating Islamic State (ISIS / ISIL) because he cannot believe that radical Islam is anything for us to be concerned about.

Is the government capable of vetting Syrian refugees to find threats?

Not so much:

The administration argues that it’s conducting interviews with Syrians at camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. But without security forces on the ground in Syria who can verify details, there is no way to back-check a refugee’s story to see if he is telling the truth and is, in fact, not a security threat.

Even when we had people on the ground in Iraq to screen refugees, terrorists got through the safety net.

In 2011, for instance, two Kentucky immigrants who had been resettled as Iraqi refugees were busted for trying to buy stinger missiles for al-Qaida.

It turned out that their fingerprints matched those linked to roadside bombs in Iraq. It was a major red flag that should have barred their entry, but U.S. screeners failed to take note. And the terrorists slipped into the U.S.

The administration’s vetting process for the massive influx of Syrian refugees is completely unreliable, admits the FBI official in charge of such security background checks.

“It’s not even close to being under control,” warned assistant FBI director Michael Steinbach.

We should not be believing the man who promised us that we could keep our doctor, keep our health plans, and that our health insurance premiums would go down $2,500. He is either lying, or he likes to speak on matters where he is not competent to know the truth of the matter.

UPDATE: ECM sends me this video from Ben Shapiro:

Awesome!

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Democrats admit 10,000 Syrian refugees to USA, with 200,000 more on the way

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On Saturday night, we heard from one of the Democrats that global warming causes terrorist attacks like the one in Paris. Although France is a world leader in letting in unskilled immigrants from Muslim countries, according to the Democrats, this could not have been the source of the terrorist attack. It had to be the global warming that caused it.

This strategy of blaming weather for terrorism is a bit different than their normal habit of calling terrorist attacks “senseless violence“, “workplace violence“, “random violence“, and shooting up Jews in France as“random“. Challenged to speak the phrase “radical Islam” in the debate, the Democrats declined to do so. How is that showing seriousness about national security?

Meanwhile, Democrats are already paving the way for the next terrorist attack on American soil, welcoming in Syrian refugees, most of which fit the profile of Islamic terrorists (male, age 18-45).

The first 10,000

Many of the Syrian refugees are being send to Governor Bobby Jindal’s state, Louisiana.

Here’s part of Jindals letter to Obama:

Dear President Obama,

In the wake of another round of appalling terrorist attacks, I write to express great sadness at the events in Paris, as well as my grave concern about the unreported diffusion of Syrian refugees in the United States.

Last week, the city of New Orleans began receiving its first wave of Syrian refugees. As with former immigration crises and federal relocation policy, Louisiana has been kept in the dark about those seeking refuge in the state. It is irresponsible and severely disconcerting to place individuals, who may have ties to ISIS, in a state without the state’s knowledge or involvement.

As Governor of Louisiana, I demand information about the Syrian refugees being placed in Louisiana in hopes that the night of horror in Paris is not duplicated here. In the wake of these atrocities, I also ask for details on the below:

What level of background screening was conducted prior to entry in the United States?
In light of the fact that some of those responsible for last night’s attacks held Syrian passports, what additional protections and screenings will be put in place?

Will all Syrian refugees seeking relocation in the United States now be cleared by the Terrorist Screening Center?
What degree of monitoring will be sustained after initial placement in Louisiana?

As Americans, we embolden freedom and opportunity to the rest of the world, but by opening up our borders and refusing to collaborate or share information with states, you are threatening that reality.

Mr. President, in light of these attacks on Paris and reports that one of the attackers was a refugee from Syria, it would be prudent to pause the process of refugees coming to the United States. Authorities need to investigate what happened in Europe before this problem comes to the United States.

If I were Jindal, I would just pack them up, and send them straight to Washington, D.C. to live with the Democrats there. But what is striking is that Jindal doesn’t even know who these people are. He’s been “kept in the dark” by the Obama administration.

Obama says: 200,000 more

Here’s Obama tweeting happily about his plan to let in Syrian passport bearers:

Obama says let in 200,00 Syrian refugees
Obama says: give them $4.5 billion in aid, and let in 200,00 Syrian refugees

(Source)

Note that one of the terrorists who blew himself up outside the soccer stadium in Paris was carrying a Syrian passport.

Democrat delusions

Here’s a Wall Street Journal article entitled “Wake Up, Mr. President” that makes the case that our president is delusional about national security threats:

For seven years Mr. Obama has used the unpopularity of the Iraq war as a shield for his retreat from antiterror leadership and the Middle East. His periodic drone strikes and his most notable security success, the Osama bin Laden raid, obscured the jihadist danger growing in the wake of America’s departure from Iraq and abdication in Syria.

Mr. Obama also deposed Moammar Gadhafi in Libya but then did almost nothing to help Libyans restore order. Americans saw a glimpse of the gathering storm in the terror attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, but the White House blamed it on an obscure video.

Now Americans can see clearly the spreading infection from Islamic State and a resurgent al Qaeda. It isn’t merely a regional threat, as Mr. Obama once claimed. Its offshoots have spread into North Africa across the Middle East to Afghanistan. The civil war in Syria has spawned a refugee crisis that has descended on Europe and may have provided cover for at least one of the Paris jihadists.

Islamic State also isn’t the “jayvee” terror team, as Mr. Obama once claimed. Western intelligence believes its sympathizers in Sinai took down a Russian airliner. Its bombs explode day after day against civilian targets, this past week in Beirut and a Christian convent in Iraq.

The Paris attack is in some ways even more alarming than 9/11. Airplane hijackings have largely been stopped through enhanced security. Paris suggests that Islamic State has embarked on a strategy of urban unconventional warfare wherever it is able across the West. And it is far harder to track and prevent suicidal jihadists with assault rifles and grenades who want to blow up a restaurant district or concert hall.

France has been the target three times this year, counting the attack on a train foiled by three Americans, but America’s day is coming. In May FBI Director James Comey said there are “thousands” inside the U.S. who are absorbing Islamic State propaganda on the Internet.

Now, if you try to judge Obama for not taking national security seriously, he will tell you to get off your high horse, stop offending radical Muslims, and to feel guilty about the Crusades. This is because in college, he learned the importance of not making moral judgments about evil, because it offends evil people. But he also learned that making moral judgments against good people is the height of morality. That’s why he defends terrorists and criminals and lawbreakers, and imposes punishments and burdens on good people who are none of those things. That’s why he handed “hundreds of billions of dollars” to help them along with their nuclear weapons program.

Back to the refugees. Every state except Wyoming and Montana is getting Syrian refugees. At what point does Obama’s delusional views on the threat of Islamic terrorism become a concern to his base of low-information voters? Or does MSNBC – which they rely on for news – not tell them about things like Iran nuclear deals, Paris terrorist attacks and Syrian refugees?

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Mark Steyn on Paris terrorist attacks: the barbarians are inside the gates

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Consider this article from Canadian writer Mark Steyn. The article’s title is: “The Barbarians Are Inside, And There Are No Gates”.

Steyn writes:

As I write, Paris is under curfew for the first time since the German occupation, and the death toll from the multiple attacks stands at 158, the vast majority of them slaughtered during a concert at the Bataclan theatre, a delightful bit of 19th century Chinoiserie on the boulevard Voltaire. The last time I was there, if memory serves, was to see Julie Pietri. I’m so bloody sick of these savages shooting and bombing and killing and blowing up everything I like – whether it’s the small Quebec town where my little girl’s favorite fondue restaurant is or my favorite hotel in Amman or the brave freespeecher who hosted me in Copenhagen …or a music hall where I liked to go to hear a little jazz and pop and get away from the cares of the world for a couple of hours. But look at the photographs from Paris: there’s nowhere to get away from it; the barbarians who yell “Allahu Akbar!” are there waiting for you …when you go to a soccer match, you go to a concert, you go for a drink on a Friday night. They’re there on the train… at the magazine office… in the Kosher supermarket… at the museum in Brussels… outside the barracks in Woolwich…

Twenty-four hours ago, I said on the radio apropos the latest campus “safe space” nonsense:

This is what we’re going to be talking about when the mullahs nuke us.
Almost. When the Allahu Akbar boys opened fire, Paris was talking about the climate-change conference due to start later this month, when the world’s leaders will fly in to “solve” a “problem” that doesn’t exist rather than to address the one that does. But don’t worry: we already have a hashtag (#PrayForParis) and doubtless there’ll be another candlelight vigil of weepy tilty-headed wankers. Because as long as we all advertise how sad and sorrowful we are, who needs to do anything?

With his usual killer comedy timing, the “leader of the free world” told George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning, America” this very morning that he’d “contained” ISIS and that they’re not “gaining strength”. A few hours later, a cell whose members claim to have been recruited by ISIS slaughtered over 150 people in the heart of Paris and succeeded in getting two suicide bombers and a third bomb to within a few yards of the French president.

Now why was France attacked? France has been in the lead of all the other “multicultural” European countries at welcoming in unskilled immigrants from countries that do not like Western values very much:

Muslim population in European countries
Muslim population in European countries

Mark Steyn continues:

And then Europe decided to invite millions of Muslims to settle in their countries. Most of those people don’t want to participate actively in bringing about the death of diners and concertgoers and soccer fans, but at a certain level most of them either wish or are indifferent to the death of the societies in which they live – modern, pluralist, western societies and those “universal values” of which Barack Obama bleats. So, if you are either an active ISIS recruit or just a guy who’s been fired up by social media, you have a very large comfort zone in which to swim, and which the authorities find almost impossible to penetrate.

And all Chancellor Merkel and the EU want to do is make that large comfort zone even larger by letting millions more “Syrian” “refugees” walk into the Continent and settle wherever they want. As I wrote after the Copenhagen attacks in February:

I would like to ask Mr Cameron and Miss Thorning-Schmidt what’s their happy ending here? What’s their roadmap for fewer “acts of violence” in the years ahead? Or are they riding on a wing and a prayer that they can manage the situation and hold it down to what cynical British civil servants used to call during the Irish “Troubles” “an acceptable level of violence”? In Pakistan and Nigeria, the citizenry are expected to live with the reality that every so often Boko Haram will kick open the door of the schoolhouse and kidnap your daughters for sex-slavery or the Taliban will gun down your kids and behead their teacher in front of the class. And it’s all entirely “random”, as President Obama would say, so you just have to put up with it once in a while, and it’s tough if it’s your kid, but that’s just the way it is. If we’re being honest here, isn’t that all Mr Cameron and Miss Thorning-Schmidt are offering their citizens? Spasms of violence as a routine feature of life, but don’t worry, we’ll do our best to contain it – and you can help mitigate it by not going to “controversial” art events, or synagogues, or gay bars, or…

…or soccer matches, or concerts, or restaurants…

On Friday night, my Dad messaged me to tell me about the story. The first thing in my mind was Obama’s comments about how we Christians needed to “get off our high horse” when we tried to judge Islamic terrorism, because of the Crusades (which were intended as a defensive reaction to Muslim expansion).

Investors Business Daily explains what Obama said:

In remarks at a prayer meeting Thursday, President Obama implied Christianity, just like Islam, is filled with people who “hijack religion for their own murderous ends.” This is the progressive disease of moral equivalence at its worst.

In recent days and weeks, the world has watched grimly as the horrific barbarity of fundamentalist Islam has been put on full display.

With routine beheadings, crucifixions, tortures, mass killings of civilians, burying children alive, and, most recently, burning a prisoner alive and filming his death agony to the approving yells of onlookers, it’s clear something is horribly wrong within Islam.

And yet, apart from rather routine denunciations of the savagery, Obama used his appearance at a National Prayer Breakfast to upbraid Christians for their sins.

“Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” Obama said. “In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

Remember, the Obama administration describes Islamic terrorism as “senseless violence“. Democrats describe shootings my Muslims at army bases as “workplace violence“. Democrats describe attacks on Israeli civilians as “random violence“. Democrats called shooting at Jews in France “random“. Democrats describe investigations about the Benghazi terrorist attack a “sideshow“, after they lied and tried to say the attack was a spontaneous reaction to a video. And this is the party that more than half of our country votes for at election time.The trouble with the Democrats is that they don’t have the resources in their worldview to call evil evil, and good good. They just want to feel “nice”, and be perceived by others as tolerant and non-judgmental. They want to be generous to enemies with your taxpayer dollars, and risk your lives in pursuit of their goal of watering down American exceptionalism and Western civilization.

If you want to know what Democrats really think of the Paris terrorist attacks, then all you have to do is look at their position on welcoming in Syrian refugees.