What makes these beliefs myths are the fact that the stats (i.e. reality) don't support these views.
Now, we've had threads showing FBI stats for terrorist acts in the USA and the fact that there were more terrorist acts by Jewish terrorists than there were by Muslim, and that both were dwarfed by terrorist acts carried out by non-Muslims and non-Jews. (And indeed, the last terrorist suicide bomber in the US was Joe Stack in Feb 2010 - flying a plane into a federal building in Texas.) Threads on the Europols stats for Europe show that the terrorist acts by Muslims are less than 1% in Europe - so even fewer Islamic acts of terror there than in the US.
But tackling the second myth that Muslims don't oppose terrorism and don't act to stop it, this list of Muslim actions to prevent terrorism acts should provide ample evidence to debunk this silly belief. (Courtesy of SpencerWatch). The latest revelation is that the US teen from Oregon who was entrapped by the FBI was 'shopped' by his own dad. (Salon has a good piece on the entrapment bit of the story: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn ... index.html )
What “Scholar” Robert Spencer Will Never Tell You
“Police Blotter Scholar” Robert Spencer, of course, was all over the arrest of the Somali-American man in Oregon as another piece of evidence that Islam is really violent and it only inspires violence and “jihad.” But, like I said before, there are very important things he won’t tell you.
In this latest episode, Spencer did not (and will probably never) tell you that the FBI was tipped off to the young Somali-American by his own father:
However, a prominent member of the Somali community in Portland (estimated to number 8,000) says a relative played some role in helping to put the FBI on the young man’s trail — though that relative was almost certainly unaware of the scale it would assume. “Before this happened, the father informed Homeland Security and the FBI that something was going on with his son,” claims Isgow Mohamed, executive director of the Northwest Somali Community Organization, who says he knows Mohamud’s family well and had been in touch with them.
In fact, Adam Serwer at the American Prospect elucidates how many terrorist plots have been foiled with the help of the Muslim community:
October 2001: The conviction of “Portland 7” case was substantially helped after a local police officer encountered the suspects engaged in target practice. The police officer had been sent to the area after a local citizen notified police that he heard gunfire.
September 2002:Members of the “Lackawanna 6” are arrested. FBI first becomes aware of their activities in June 2001 when a local Muslim community member tips off the FBI.
March 2002: FBI become aware of a possible terror plot by Imran Mandhai (and later Shueyb Jokhan) after they are notified by an American Muslim named “Saif Allah” who attended Mandhai and Jokhan’s same mosque provides a tip.
June 2003: FBI receive two tips from community members notifying them “military-style training” was being conducted suspect by Ali Al-Tamimi. The tip set in motion an
investigation later leading to the arrest of the so-called “Paintball 11” in Northern Virginia.
August 2004: James Elshafay and Shahwar Matin Sirajare arrested largely based on the controversial use of an informant in the investigation. However, NYPD were first notified of Siraj after a Muslim community member anonymously notifies New York police about consistently troubling rhetoric coming from the suspect.
February 2006: Muslim community members in Ohio provide information helping to arrest and eventually convict 3 suspects planning attacks in Iraq.
July 2009: Mosque leaders in Raleigh, North Carolina, contact law enforcement to notify them of “violent, threatening action … considered to be dangerous” leading to the arrest of Daniel Boyd and 6 other individuals.
November 2009: Five Virginia Muslim youth are arrested in Pakistan, allegedly seeking to join a terror group, after family members told American federal authorities they went
missing.
April 2010: Senegalese Muslim Alioune Niass first spots the suspicious vehicle used as a bomb to attack Times Square in New York City. Clues from the vehicle and defused explosive immediately led to the suspect, Faisal Shahzad’s, arrest.
June 2010: Suspects Mohammed Mahmoud Alessa and Carlos Eduardo Almonte are arrested, after the FBI first receives an anonymous report in 2006 from one of the suspects’ family members. News reports indicate one of Alessa’s family members provided the tip.
But, of course, this goes against the narrative that Spencer wants to put forward. Thus, he will not tell you anything that will put the Muslim community in a positive light. Now, I really don’t expect anything else from the likes of Spencer, but it is important that you, the reader, know the truth.
http://spencerwatch.com/2010/12/02/what ... -tell-you/