As Goes Britain…

16pc of UK Muslims back 7/7 cause

LONDON, England (AP) — One in six British Muslims believes the London Tube and bus bombers were motivated by a just cause, according to an opinion poll.

Sixteen percent of respondents to the poll conducted for The Times newspaper and ITV News felt the July 7 bombers’ cause — although not their actions — was just.

Thirteen percent said the bombers should be regarded as martyrs, and 7 percent felt suicide attacks on British civilians were justified in some circumstances.

ITV said the poll showed that “a vast majority” of British Muslims did not sympathize with the bombings of last July 7, which killed 52 commuters and the four bombers.

yeah, but…16% of them did?

This raises many questions about nationality, allegiances, and beliefs. From a Western mindset, my first question is:

How can you be a citizen of a nation, and support attacks against it in any fashion?

I suppose the answer is that the 16% of the Muslim population in Britain have loyalties that lie outside the realm of traditional nation-state membership. A logical assumption from this is that this 16% buys in to the Al Qaeda idea of establishing a world-wide global caliphate, under Sharia law –and the best way to accomplish this is to kill some commuters in downtown London. This is a paradox for a free society: are people free to plot and support its overthrow and subversion by violent means?

Next, can you imagine the American reaction to such a poll taken on September 12th, 2001?

That 16% of a particular religious group supported the cause of the attackers, that 13% thought that they were martyrs, and that 7% thought that further attacks would be justified? Yeah, the majority of Muslims in London rejected these ideas in the poll, but the fact that there is a minority this size belies the traditional notions of terrorism (a few extremists/ one lone wolf).

Scary stuff…