Shortly after 9/11, I first read about a poll of Muslim countries (at that time, primarily Arabic countries). This poll was designed to find out what sort of support there was for Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and their terrorist activities amongst the ordinary citizens of Muslim nations. Since then, dozens of such polls have been conducted, in a broader range of Muslim countries, with some of them seeking to further clarify the initial findings by sampling not only whether a citizen was Muslim or not, but also what branch of Islam the citizen believed in (Shia, Sunni, Wahabi, etc.).
The results of these polls have been remarkably consistent.
Support for Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and terrorist activity directed at America is always between 80% and 95% of those sampled in the poll.
Some of these polls went further: they sought to understand why this support existed. Their results are also remarkably consistent.
The overwhelming majority of supporters of terrorism directed at America cite one reason for their support. It can be summarized — fairly, I believe — like this:
The Quran (Koran) says that infidels must be coerced to either convert or die, and that it is the duty of all faithful Muslims to coerce them. America is the leader of the infidel nations. America must be coerced. The best weapon the Muslims have to fulfill their religious duty (at least, until Iran gets nuclear weapons) is terrorism. There is no stricture in Islam against killing infidels (in fact, quite the opposite), so engaging in terrorism is completely consistent with their religious beliefs.
These poll results are consistent with another piece of evidence, one not often spoken of in our lamestream media: Al Qaeda and its ilk are quite well funded. They are spending many millions of dollars annually on training, weapons, ammunition, logistics, and so on. Where does this money come from? Well, actually, that’s well known (if little discussed): an interesting fraction comes from terrorist-supporting governments (Iran, Libya, etc.) — but the majority comes from individual donations. The money is solicited from Muslims much as a Christian minister or priest, or a Jewish rabbi, might solicit money from their flock for charity. The Muslim imams — both directly and by endorsement — overtly raise money to help the terrorists kill infidels. Overwhelmingly the target of their rhetoric is American and Jewish (e.g., Israeli) infidels.
So here’s the ponder…
Does anything short of eliminating Islam remove the threat to America?
The contention of the lamestream media, propaganda outlets like CAIR, and most other defenders of Islam — including the imams of many mosques in the U.S. — is that Islamic terrorists are a tiny minority of Muslims, and that most Muslims condemn their actions. These polls show that contention to be false.
If we could somehow wave a magic wand and round up every single Al Qaeda member this instant, what do you suppose would happen next?
If I believe these poll results (and I know of no reason why I shouldn’t), then surely another Al Qaeda would arise very quickly. It would have no trouble either recruiting or obtaining financing. So long as their remained a Muslim base with the beliefs indicated by those polls, this would be true.
So…
Logically, it seems to me, there are only two ways to eliminate the threat to America.
One way would be to change the beliefs of Muslims. How on earth could we do that? Even attempting to induce such a change would be confirmation of our infidel status, and further “proof” of the need to convert or kill us.
The other would be to eliminate Muslims (or better, only the Muslims who believed they had a duty to kill infidels).
Would anyone care to point out the error in my logic?
