Turkey Polls Poorly
Turkey seems to have the same mentality as so many others do when it comes to acts of terrorism and what causes it. In a report (see web address below) from Turkish Weekly, it appears that, "Sixty-six percent of participants blamed US Middle Eastern policies as the cause of global terrorism, yet 20 percent pointed to inequality in income distribution and economic problems as the reason for terror."
Global Terrorism is a nifty and possibly meaningless term if it is to include the Bali bombing since the US did not have anything to do with that at all, nor would it go very well for the bombings in Egypt or Turkey itself since Turkey did not let the US send troops into Iraq, and while Egypt is not nearly the same as Iran, Egypt is still not quite in bed with US policy either. But somehow the US is still to blame.
It is also sad to see that one in five Turks still think that poor people are the ones blowing up stuff. Osama bin Laden isn't poor (or we wouldn't be freezing al Quaida's assets), and most of the terrorists we see from 9/11, and London are / were educated, have / had jobs, and know / knew how to use soap too!
By far the saddest survey question found the following: "Only four percent of the Turkish public link terror with religion."
Only four percent, but two-thirds can blame the US for it all. According to a video with ObL in it from December 26, 2001, he said, "After three months passed since the blessed attacks against the global infidelity, against America, the head of infidelity, and after almost two months passed since the beginning of the vicious crusade campaign against Islam, we would like to talk about some of the meanings of these events. These events revealed many issues that are significant to Muslims."
Let's count religious words: blessed, infidelity, infidelity, crusade, Islam, Muslims
That's six in fifty-seven words. Since one is a duplicate, and adds only emphasis, we can take out the " against America, the head of infidelity" and we have five out of a total of 51 words. Almost ten percent - and only four percent of Turkey thinks that religion plays a role in terror.
The US has not run a very good PR campaign in a very long time and it shows. To me, this is the weakest link in our ability to fight terror because we are not doing a good enough job of explaining why this needs to be done. While it seems obvious to me and many others in the US, much of the rest of the world is far more isolated from our ideas and since we are not communicating effectively there is indeed a growing lack of sympathy and understanding.
Full Article: http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=16971URL of ObL quote: http://www.adl.org/terrorism_america/bin_l.asp
Global Terrorism is a nifty and possibly meaningless term if it is to include the Bali bombing since the US did not have anything to do with that at all, nor would it go very well for the bombings in Egypt or Turkey itself since Turkey did not let the US send troops into Iraq, and while Egypt is not nearly the same as Iran, Egypt is still not quite in bed with US policy either. But somehow the US is still to blame.
It is also sad to see that one in five Turks still think that poor people are the ones blowing up stuff. Osama bin Laden isn't poor (or we wouldn't be freezing al Quaida's assets), and most of the terrorists we see from 9/11, and London are / were educated, have / had jobs, and know / knew how to use soap too!
By far the saddest survey question found the following: "Only four percent of the Turkish public link terror with religion."
Only four percent, but two-thirds can blame the US for it all. According to a video with ObL in it from December 26, 2001, he said, "After three months passed since the blessed attacks against the global infidelity, against America, the head of infidelity, and after almost two months passed since the beginning of the vicious crusade campaign against Islam, we would like to talk about some of the meanings of these events. These events revealed many issues that are significant to Muslims."
Let's count religious words: blessed, infidelity, infidelity, crusade, Islam, Muslims
That's six in fifty-seven words. Since one is a duplicate, and adds only emphasis, we can take out the " against America, the head of infidelity" and we have five out of a total of 51 words. Almost ten percent - and only four percent of Turkey thinks that religion plays a role in terror.
The US has not run a very good PR campaign in a very long time and it shows. To me, this is the weakest link in our ability to fight terror because we are not doing a good enough job of explaining why this needs to be done. While it seems obvious to me and many others in the US, much of the rest of the world is far more isolated from our ideas and since we are not communicating effectively there is indeed a growing lack of sympathy and understanding.
Full Article: http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=16971URL of ObL quote: http://www.adl.org/terrorism_america/bin_l.asp
posted by Edward W. Prather at 08:55
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