British muslims protest Bin ladens death

[//\/\/]

...which is why efforts get focussed at cutting off their supply of willing cannon-fodder. It takes an awful lot for somebody to be willing to give up their life - but a short life of constant propaganda and indoctrination can sway people of any argument. If all you've ever hear *ever* is that X hates you, Y is the correct way to act and Z will be your eternal reward, then matrydom suddenly becomes a viable life-choice.

This is applicable globally. Unless people get to see more sides, those who control the information flow will always be able to exploit it. From a radical mullah through to Glen Beck...

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by human151

But I am intelligent enough to believe (and admit) that even though the number of muslims which act in a ill manner are statistically minute, it still equals a significant amount of people.

A statistically minute yet significant amount of people?

Define 'significant'.

Let's say the security services uncovered a terror group of 500 British Muslims actively plotting to attack the UK. Would 500 such people count as a significant number to you?

[human151]

Originally Posted by Deckard

A statistically minute yet significant amount of people?

Define 'significant'.

Let's say the security services uncovered a terror group of 500 British Muslims actively plotting to attack the UK. Would 500 such people count as a significant number to you?

"in Lebanon, just 34 percent of Muslims surveyed said that suicide bombings are often or sometimes justified, compared to 74 percent who expressed the same view in 2002. Only eight percent of those polled in Egypt believed suicide bombing was justified, as did 11 percent in Morocco.

In contrast, 41 percent of Palestinians said such attacks are often justified while another 29 percent said it can sometimes be justified. The poll was conducted between April and May, before Hamas took over the Gaza Strip following violent clashes with Fatah.

The survey also reflected declining support - identified as "Muslim confidence" - for Osama bin Laden. The percentage of Jordanian Muslims who support bin Laden dropped from 56 percent in 2003 to just 20 percent in 2007. "

this does not exactly answer the question, but is the only stats I could easily find.

There are over a billion muslims world wide. If only %5 are extremist or share their views, then that is 50,000,000 muslims who are extremists or sympathize with their views.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by human151

"in Lebanon, just 34 percent of Muslims surveyed said that suicide bombings are often or sometimes justified, compared to 74 percent who expressed the same view in 2002. Only eight percent of those polled in Egypt believed suicide bombing was justified, as did 11 percent in Morocco.

In contrast, 41 percent of Palestinians said such attacks are often justified while another 29 percent said it can sometimes be justified. The poll was conducted between April and May, before Hamas took over the Gaza Strip following violent clashes with Fatah.

The survey also reflected declining support - identified as "Muslim confidence" - for Osama bin Laden. The percentage of Jordanian Muslims who support bin Laden dropped from 56 percent in 2003 to just 20 percent in 2007. "

this does not exactly answer the question, but is the only stats I could easily find.[

There are over a billion muslims world wide. If only %5 are extremist or share their views, then that is 50,000,000 muslims who are extremists or sympathize with their views.

5% of ANY big number can be classed a significant amount. So assuming there are 1.5 billion people in the world who would identify as Muslim, that would mean 75 million feeling suicide bombing is sometimes justified - which is a significant and worrying amount to me too... until we look at the much larger figure presumably thinking it's not justified.

Do you know how large that figure would be?

1,425,000,000.

That's close enough to be an approximation of the original sample size of 1.5 billion!! Such is the misleading power of big numbers, and such is the way our difficulty to envisage them can be exploited for propagandist purposes.

My point to all this being that coming out with remarks like 'wow muslims are nice' is pretty damn ignorant. There's enough tribal hate in the world without you contributing to it.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by human151

But, the muslims you people hold so dear and say have only minimal support, are able to wage war against the most powerful nations on earth

Who of us here holds dear those particular Muslims?

Oh I see... at this point, you're back to talking about all Muslims in a very general sense, are you?

Tell me, what use is that?

I guess this falls into the 50% of your purpose here that's classed as "getting everyone going", right?

(I wonder if that's what the BNP, the tea party and all the far right groups are doing when they do the same and casually switch the focus between Muslims in general and extremist Muslims in particular without making an explicit distinction? Maybe they're all just injecting a bit of life into the debate too, eh?)

[human151]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Who of us here holds dear those particular Muslims?

Oh I see... at this point, you're back to talking about all Muslims in a very general sense, are you?

Tell me, what use is that?

I guess this falls into the 50% of your purpose here that's classed as "getting everyone going", right?

(I wonder if that's what the BNP, the tea party and all the far right groups are doing when they do the same and casually switch the focus between Muslims in general and extremist Muslims in particular without making an explicit distinction? Maybe they're all just injecting a bit of life into the debate too, eh?)

yeah, I admit I chose the wrong wording there, no one here has openly been supportive of "those" particular muslims. Just supportive to muslims in general.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by human151

this is a global terrorist organization were talking about here.

I've heard a number of senior police and military officers dispute that - quite senior figures such as Sir Ian Blair who was Met Police Commissioner at the time of the 7/7 London bombings ("Al-Qaeda is not an organization. Al-Qaeda is a way of working") Most intelligence analysts seem to agree that the typical structure of al-Qaeda is more one of networks than of formal terrorist organisation. In that sense, it's closer to the post 1960s feminist movement than it is to the IRA (and no I am NOT likening al-Qaeda to feminists. I'm talking from a purely structural point of view - ie. the shared lack of a common organisational structure or code of conduct.)

Journalist Adam Curtis makes an interesting point on this. He claims that the idea of al-Qaeda as a formal organisation is mainly an American invention that was necessary in order for the US DoJ to be able to charge OBL in absentia under the RICO statutes (for the '98 U.S. embassy bombings). He's not claiming the US is made it all up. He's simply disputing the idea that al-Qaeda is (or at least was - at the time) an actual organisation. He also states that there's no evidence that OBL used the term 'al-Qaeda' to refer to the name of a group until after 9/11, when he realised that was the name the US had given it. It's an interesting idea, and while I haven't heard anyone else make a similar claim, I've yet to see it disputed.

All this might seem somewhat academic - at the end of the day, they're a terror group of some sort. But it's important in the debate about support and funding and what we're up against. Certainly there IS funding and there IS support. But it's not remotely necessary that there need be a steady stream of money continually flowing into it, like a political party, in order for terrorists to carry out atrocities. If you're a single extremist Muslim in Britain looking to cause a devastating amount of carnage, you can do so using simple household products as home-made explosives. At the very least, you can cause an enormous amount of disruption by planning it in a thoughtful way. That requires virtually zero support or funding. It doesn't even require other Muslims to know about it or agree with it.

That's obviously on a different order of magnitude to the Taleban, which is receiving enormous funding and support from -somewhere- in order to keep "the most powerful Nations on earth" on their toes. And the same with a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11, which I believe would have not only required OBL's personal funding, but also funding from other Muslims sympathetic to the cause. *cough*ISI*cough*

But when it comes to car bombs and suicide attacks, it's quite scary to reflect how easy it would be to carry something like that out, at least if you have the will to do it. I've often been astounded that there haven't been many more terrorist attacks in this country. Think about it. That should be the real story you take home about the 1.5 million Muslims living in Britain - the sheer scarcity of such events, given the huge population of Muslims. Yes there are bound to be many attempts - some that we never hear about. But the security services can only thwart so many of them.

[human151]

Originally Posted by Deckard

5% of ANY big number can be classed a significant amount. So assuming there are 1.5 billion people in the world who would identify as Muslim, that would mean 75 million feeling suicide bombing is sometimes justified - which is a significant and worrying amount to me too... until we look at the much larger figure presumably thinking it's not justified.

Do you know how large that figure would be?

1,425,000,000.

That's close enough to be an approximation of the original sample size of 1.5 billion!! Such is the misleading power of big numbers, and such is the way our difficulty to envisage them can be exploited for propagandist purposes.

My point to all this being that coming out with remarks like 'wow muslims are nice' is pretty damn ignorant. There's enough tribal hate in the world without you contributing to it.

Yes I agree that the number which is not part of that %5 is a large number.

That said, why does the small percentage basically control the perception of the muslim world? Why havent they been marginalized? In the united states there are a small percentage of people who are skin heads/rascists. But these people are such a small amount and are so marginalized, no one in their right mond takes them seriously.

could you imagine some skin head group waging war against the unites states? Of course not because no one takes them seriously, they are ridiculed and have virtually no support. now, compare these skin head groups with their muslim equivalent, al qaeda. WHich group has more support? The answer is obvious, more muslims support hate groups such as Al qaeda and taliban than christians/non muslims do.

It is an undeniable fact. What is more telling is the fact that main stream muslims have not marginalized their hate groups, as non muslims have.