I hate to sound like a broken record or beat a dead horse, but once in a while it becomes apparent the horse isn’t dead. So I’ll start by quoting myself – as though I’m important enough to quote – and then look at some recent news to highlight the continuing problem. In my post about terrorism I stated, “The use of the word ‘terrorism’ has become very liberal in our day, a phenomenon I believe to be extremely dangerous.” In another post about multiculturalism, I remarked, “We cannot isolate, marginalize, or alienate the Muslim world either locally or internationally. Such efforts toward any other people or religion would be seen as outrageously in violation of American principles, yet they are being condoned and called for against Muslims. I don’t know how to say it more clearly, Muslims are not our enemies!” Recently Glenn Beck, who clearly doesn’t agree with me, stated, “What is the number of Islamic terrorists? 1 percent? I think it’s closer to 10%, but the rest of the P.C. world will tell you, ‘Oh no, it’s miniscule.’” This follows a previous quote from his book The Real America, “Ninety percent of Islam is peaceful. Ten percent of Islam wants us dead.” Normally I wouldn’t pay credibility to Glenn Beck’s exaggerations by repeating his words, but I had to take a stand this time for two reasons. 1) According to the current issue of Newsweek, Glenn Beck is the #2 highest paid political figure in our nation receiving $33 million a year, which means that lots of people are listening to him or he wouldn’t be getting paid so much. 2) Some ignorant comments can and ought to be ignored, but some are reckless and dangerous – especially when so many people are listening. I firmly believe Beck’s comment is the dangerous kind, the kind that necessitates educated voices sharing a different message. Fareed Zakaria (#23 on the list with $3.1m a year) obviously shares my opinion on the matter and took serious issue with Beck’s comment, you can see his argument here.

So what’s wrong with Beck’s comment? Beck’s website has a response to Zakaria’s attack which gives valid statistics from a World Public Opinion survey. It can probably be inferred from those statistics that a large number of Muslim people aren’t big fans of America, maybe even as many as 150 million (10% of the world’s Muslims) don’t really like us. Beck’s defense is that those polls show large numbers of Muslims who support attacks against Americans, and the statement is made that anyone who supports attacks on Americans is a terrorist. The problem that Zakaria brought up is that stating on a survey that you support attacks on Americans doesn’t make you a terrorist. He’s right, and that’s why Beck’s comment is fundamentally inaccurate. But there’s a bigger issue here that we need to see. Here are a few statistics from those polls. 24% of those polled in Palestinian territories approve of attacks on civilians in the US. 21% in Egypt support al Qaeda’s attack on Americans. 27% in Jordan have positive feelings toward bin Laden. 55% in Morocco have some level of supportive feelings about groups that attack Americans. Glenn Beck wants you to look and these numbers and be scared of Islam. I’m not going to downplay the numbers like Zakaria does, I want you to be scared too – but not of Islam. Beck says 10% of Islam wants us dead – that’s a baseless exaggeration, but it is true that many people in certain Islamic nations see us as an enemy. Why? Is it because they’re evil and we’re righteous? Is it because they’re ignorant and we’re educated? Is it because they’re backward and we’re modern? Is it because two monotheistic religions with similar teachings and shared histories are completely incompatible? Or is there a chance that many people feel like we’re exerting our excessive power to threaten their way of life?

Interpreting statistics is a dangerous thing. I might see a statistic that 80% of rich people wear ties, and conclude that ties make people rich. That conclusion might ignore that many poor people wear ties, or that there’s actually no correlation between ties and wealth at all. If we tried to solve world poverty by giving out ties we might be disappointed in the result. That all seems pretty simple right? Well Glenn Beck’s comments are the intellectual equivalent of claiming ties make people rich. It takes about two seconds of analyzing the World Public Opinion surveys to see that discontent with America has a lot more to do with what country a person lives in than the religion they practice. When I see 80% of people in some Islamic countries don’t like America as opposed to 4% in other Islamic countries I don’t need a regression analysis to show that being Muslim isn’t the cause of disliking America. A lot of people in certain countries have negative feelings towards the West, but the fact that those people happen to be Muslim doesn’t tell us anything about the religion. Ties don’t make people rich, and being Muslim doesn’t make people hate America. I take issue with Mr. Beck’s comments not because he explicitly stated that Islam causes people to hate America, but because he is recklessly creating animosity by inferring that religion is the root of this problem. Religion isn’t the problem – national policy choices are the problem. We can’t praise ties for creating wealth and we can’t blame Islam for creating terrorism, so let’s try to find the true cause of the discontent with America.

My father often asks me what all my travels have taught me about the world. My response is that I’ve found that the majority of people in this world, regardless of their nationality, faith, or economic circumstances, are pretty similar. Most of them want to live in peace, have an opportunity to provide for the needs of their family, and live according to their values. Most of them have no interest in confrontation until they feel challenged, and no desire for animosity until they feel threatened. So, you can listen to Glenn Beck and assume that 150 million Muslims want you dead because they’re evil, ignorant, or otherwise inferior – or you can be scared for another reason. You can worry that something about the choices we’ve made as a country have made 150 million people – people not much different than you and me – think we’re an enemy. You can be worried that millions of fathers, mothers, and children in this world think the United States is more of a threat to their way of life than al Qaeda. Being scared of Islam isn’t the answer, being scared of our own foreign policy is. Is it any wonder that 87% of those surveyed in Palestinian territories approve of attacks on US troops in the Persian Gulf when America is supplying arms and support to Israel – a nation that is brutally oppressing them? 87% of people in Palestine aren’t terrorists, they aren’t ignorant and backward – they are people who are tired of living under foreign military occupation. We fought a war against Britain because they put taxes on tea without asking for our vote. What do you think we would do if Egypt stationed troops in North America and blockaded our country? What if Iran supplied them advanced military supplies to do so? I bet at least 87% of Americans would support attacks on Iran: would that make us terrorists or would it just highlight the fact that Iran and Egypt ought to change the course of their foreign policy? If Jordan had military dominance in the U.K. and started building new settlements on their island do you think we might feel a need to stand up for a people we share our heritage with? If a hundred people think America is an enemy we can probably get away with calling them terrorists, if a hundred thousand think we’re the enemy we could probably call it a difference in values, but when a hundred million think we’re the enemy we probably ought to at least wonder if there’s a reason for it.

I’m not trying to denigrate America – I believe strongly in our values and nation. I have pledged my life to defend the Constitution of the United States and my family has made and is currently making sacrifices to fulfill that oath. I don’t think our government is corrupt or our foreign policy is immoral. I simply think we’ve made some poor choices, though most of them well intentioned. I think that years of wars and threats of wars have erroneously instilled in us the idea that there are allies and enemies – and that those who don’t share our particular political ideas are on the wrong side of that line. I think we’ve failed to do what this blog intends to help us do – see things from a different perspective. Seeing things from a different perspective means honestly asking yourself what you would do if you had someone else’s experience. What would you do, think, feel, or believe if you grew up in an Eastern nation where your freedom was inhibited by people with Western ideas and Western weapons? What would your response on a poll be if your country’s borders were drawn up as an afterthought when the West decided to de-colonize your land? How would you feel about democracy when the leaders of your nation were in power because of support from foreign lands trying to keep their economy (oil) secure? How would you respond if you believed it was important not to separate public life from your religious faith, but someone else’s culture dictated that you couldn’t live according to those values? And what would you think if a superior military force from a nation with morals and ideas you didn’t support was a ubiquitous presence on the lands your people have lived on for centuries? No matter how noble their ideas or well-intentioned their plans, you might not have positive feelings toward that presence.
We have to rethink our foreign policy. I believe in national defense, I’m spending my Christmas in Afghanistan because I’ve committed my career to that cause. But I believe our military presence in the Islamic world is not making our country more secure. In fact I don’t think our regular military presence anywhere outside our borders makes our country more secure. The evidence is clear that people in this world feel threatened by us, and will continue to attack that threat any way they can. We don’t need to attack back; we just need to stop being the threat. And we must not come to the false conclusion that being Muslim has anything to do with being our enemy.