The hysteria over the Pew poll about American Muslims continues unabated, with the focus now on the finding that while 80% of American Muslims oppose attacks on civilians in all cases, 13% said they could be justified in some circumstances. The “discussion” illustrates some standard failings of our political discourse.
Michelle Malkin went to National Review to proclaim that the poll “should be a wake-up call, not another excuse for the mainstream media to downplay the threat of homegrown jihad.” Mark Steyn said it demonstrates the existence in America of “a huge comfort zone for the jihad to operate in,” and Jonah Goldberg warned how “significant” this is. On CNN last night, Anderson Cooper was horrified — just horrified — that “so many” American Muslims would support such violence.
The reality, though, is that it is almost impossible to conduct a poll and not have a sizable portion of the respondents agree to almost everything. And in particular, with regard to the specific question of whether it is justifiable to launch violent attacks aimed deliberately at civilians, the percentage of American Muslims who believe in such attacks pales in comparison to the percentage of Americans generally who believe that such attacks are justifiable.
Twenty years ago, in an episode of the classic BBC comedy, Yes, Prime Minister, (The Ministerial Broadcast), that expert of official trickery, Sir Humphrey Appleby, gave us a priceless insight into these polls which illustrates Greenwald’s point. (click play on the control below to listen.)
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Technorati Tags: US, Islamophobia, Islam, Muslims, Surveys, Polls, Michelle Malkin, Mark Steyn, Jonah Goldberg, Anderson Cooper
0 Responses to “Large number of Americans favor violent attacks against civilians”