Support for Bin Laden in Muslim Countries Declining

For those that have read about the storied history between the West and the Middle East, depending on your own personal philosophy, one might make the argument that this "War on Terror" is the result of years of bad, seemingly inhumane policies toward Arabs/Muslims. I don't want to have that debate today. Even if in some skewed sense of logic there's a clear justification for killing civilians with bombs, at some point one has to take a good hard look at their strategy in the world they occupy and ask, "Is this trip really necessarry?" The sooner the greater Arab/Muslim community realizes that murder is not the way to redress their greivences the sooner the whole region will rise from the muck and mire. Of course I realize life is a bit more complicated than that when you consider that those in power now are trying to use extremism to maintain the status quo but as I've learned being a citizen of the US, the average people have a way of throwing conventional wisdom to the wind, elites be damned. I hope the following article is a sign of growth and not an aberration. We shall see.

Here's the story:

Osama bin Laden is losing public confidence in several key Islamic countries, while growing numbers of Muslims are sharing Western concerns over extremism, a new survey found.

Support for suicide bombings and other acts of violence also declined significantly in most Muslim-majority countries surveyed in the 17-nation report by the Washington-based Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"There's declining support for terrorism in the Muslim countries and support for Osama bin Laden is declining. There's also less support for suicide bombings," said Pew Center director Andrew Kohut, reports Reuters news agency.

"This is good news, but still there are substantial numbers who support bin Laden in some of these countries," he told a news conference.

In Morocco, 26 percent of people have confidence in bin Laden, according to the survey, down from 49 percent two years ago. The latest survey was conducted in May, before last week's bombings in London.

The al-Qaeda leader's rating also dipped sharply in the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, Indonesia, where only 35 percent said they had a lot or some confidence in him, down from 58 percent two years ago.

In Lebanon, where both Muslims and Christians took part in the survey, only 2 percent expressed some confidence in the Saudi-born al-Qaeda leader, down from 14 percent in 2003, reports Reuters.

In Turkey, bin Laden's support has fallen to 7 percent from 15 percent in the past two years, the news agency reports. (More)