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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 10-Feb-2015
10-Feb-15 World View -- Bill O'Reilly's statistics on Islamic terrorism are nonsense

Web Log - February, 2015

10-Feb-15 World View -- Bill O'Reilly's statistics on Islamic terrorism are nonsense

Nigeria and Boko Haram declare war after election postponement

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Bill O'Reilly's statistics on Islamic terrorism are nonsense
Nigeria and Boko Haram declare war after election postponement

Bill O'Reilly's statistics on Islamic terrorism are nonsense

Bill O'Reilly's facts that prove that Islam is at war with the West

Bill O'Reilly's facts that prove that Islam is at war with the West

Islam is not at war with the West. Islam is at war with itself, as I've written several times. There is a massive, historic war of Muslims versus Muslims that is growing every week. Things like the Charlie Hebdo attack are only for recruiting and fund raising. Countries include: Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria-Niger-Cameroon-Chad, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh. ISIS armies are not attacking the West; they're slaughtering tens of thousands of Muslims. It's the most important development going on today.

On Friday, I watched Bill O'Reilly's show on the Fox News Channel, where the subject under discussion was Islam's war on the West, and that Islamic extremism is an existential threat to America. O'Reilly said that it was, and he promised that he "had the facts." I was quite curious to know what "facts" he had, so I stayed tuned.

The "facts" are summarized in the graphic shown above, based on a Pew Research poll. He said that this graphic showed that "a significant minority of Muslims do support violent terrorism." He read off the stats, and ended with: "and in Bangladesh a whopping 47% of Muslims support suicide bombing against CIVILIANs."

Are you kidding me? Does O'Reilly or anyone else believe that Bangladeshis care about a suicide bombing in the West, or that they'd even pay attention if one occurred? These people struggle every day just to feed their kids, and couldn't care less what happens in the West.

Now, I doubt that anyone on O'Reilly's staff knows even a single fact about Bangladesh, including how to find it on a map, and that would explain their silly conclusion. To illustrate, here's a two-day-old news story:

"Nine killed in Bangladesh fire bomb attacks on bus, truck
DHAKA Sat Feb 7, 2015 1:36am EST
(Reuters) - At least nine people, including two children, were burned alive in Bangladesh when opposition activists hurled petrol bombs at a packed bus and a truck in the latest spasm of worsening political violence, police said on Saturday. ...
At least 70 people have been killed and hundreds injured in violence over the past month, including the latest deaths in arson attacks overnight."

This is day to day life in Dhaka. In 2009, I wrote a lengthy article about violence in Bangladesh, that began:

"76 Bangladesh army officers were mutilated and killed last week by men under their command. The massacre, which occurred over a 33 hour period on February 25-26, has shocked the country for its brutality. Bodies of officers and their wives were mutilated and piled into mass graves. Security forces have arrested hundreds of guards, including many who fled to towns and cities across the country."

In 1971, Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) fought an extremely bloody and genocidal civil war between two Muslim ethnic groups -- the Urdu-speaking Biharis from the upper castes of Indian society, versus the indigenous Bengali-speaking Bengalis, from the "untouchable" castes of India.

Although the war ended, the hatred continues between these two ethnic groups, and today there are still calls for violence by one side against the other. That ALWAYS happens after a civil war.

In fact, it sometimes happens in countries where there's been no civil war. I remember America in the 1960s, I remember the "long hot summers" of violent riots, and I remember the bombings and calls for violence from groups like the Weather Underground. During "the Troubles" in Ireland, both Catholics and Protestants were calling for violence. Today in Mexico, you have drug cartels slaughtering civilians and calling for violence, and we needn't be reminded that these people are Christians, not Muslims.

The point is that if you take a bunch of poll results, as O'Reilly did, and claim to have the "facts" about something, then you're talking nonsense. When a person's wife and children are slaughtered by someone else, that person will want revenge. That's a human emotion, whether the person is a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Jew or a Christian.

I'll discuss one more item on O'Reilly's list: "Muslims in Palestinian territories -- 46%." Here we have to be reminded about some facts that a lot of people don't want to hear. The Gaza Palestinians believe themselves to be Israeli's prisoners, and in last summer's Gaza war, thousands of Palestinian women and children were killed by Israeli airstrikes. These airstrikes may have been completely justified by the tunnels and weapons stores, but that doesn't matter to the people whose family members were killed, and who now seek revenge. But it doesn't mean that Islam is at war with the West. It means that the Palestinians are at war with the Israelis, and there's little doubt that that's true, and that explains the Pew poll statistic.

Islam is NOT at war with the West. ISIS armies are fighting Muslims, not Westerners. In country after country, Muslims are at war, almost always with other Muslims. That's a completely different thing, and it's extremely dangerous because sooner or later we'll be pulled into it, whether we like it or not. We should try to understand that, instead of referencing irrelevant poll statistics. Reuters and Pew Report (PDF)

Nigeria and Boko Haram declare war after election postponement

Nigeria's government has caused an international uproar by Saturday's announcement to postpone the February 14 presidential elections for six weeks, until March 28. The reason given was threats by Boko Haram to disrupt the election with terror attacks. However, the Muslim opposition candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, is accusing the government of using the Boko Haram threat as an excuse to gain time in order to keep the Christian president, Goodluck Jonathan, in office for another term.

Nigeria had an extremely bloody civil war between 1967 and 1970, that pitted Christians versus Muslims and ethnic groups against each other. In order to avoid further violence, officials in 1979 adopted an informal rule that the office of president would alternate between a Christian and a Muslim, with two 4-year terms each. This rule was followed until 2010, when Jonathan took over as head of state after the death of the Muslim president Umaru Yar'Adua, who was part way through his first term. Jonathan then won the next election in 2011, and so a Christian has been president almost continually since 1999.

So the Muslim opposition now suspects that the purpose of the election postponement is to give Jonathan a way to gain time to win the election, possibly through fraudulent means.

Indeed, many people are wondering what good the six-week extension will be at all. Nigeria's army has totally failed to bring Boko Haram under control for six years, so what good will another six weeks do?

The army responds that things have changed recently, and that they're now getting plenty of international help from Cameroon, Niger, Benin and Chad, and that the combined effort of 7,000 troops could bring violence "to a level that will allow for a free and fair election."

However, Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, issued a video on Monday, effectively declaring war on the international coalition.

"Your alliance will not achieve anything. Amass all your weapons and face us. We welcome you. ... You send 7,000 troops? Why don't you send 70 million? This is small. Only 7,000? By Allah, it is small. We can seize them one-by-one. We can seize them one-by-one."

The fear is that the next six weeks will see increased violence in Nigeria's northeast, forcing another election delay and, in the worst scenario, bringing about a new military coup. BBC and Deutsche Welle and AFP

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Feb-15 World View -- Bill O'Reilly's statistics on Islamic terrorism are nonsense thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (10-Feb-2015) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 10-Feb-2015 10-Feb-15 World View -- Bill O'Reilly's statistics on Islamic terrorism are nonsense

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Nigeria and Boko Haram declare war after election postponement

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