or terrorist sympathisers with information

That should of course read “people suspected of being terrorist sympathisers with information”. Countries like the US and Saudi Arabia do not, of course, convict people in a fair trial of being terrorist sympathisers before taking them away to be tortured. That’s just not how it works.

(Saudi Arabia does not have fair trials, period, and the US has often not bothered with trials at all for people they suspect of having information relevant to terrorism or insurgency.) So it is in fact quite likely that some people who were thought to be terrorist sympathisers by these outlaw regimes, were in fact completely innocent.

How many American Republicans (or, hell, even Democrats) have come around to the idea that torture of suspected terrorists, or terrorist sympathisers with information, is acceptable in some circumstances?

I would argue that supporting torture of potentially innocent people is actually morally equivalent to supporting bombing innocent people. Where is the outrage about this?

It seems that it is not OK to have a rational debate about the morality of Islamist terrorism, but it is OK to have a rational debate about the morality of torture. I don’t really understand why there is this difference.

It is, of course, human nature to react more sympathetically to member of your perceived “tribe” (in this context I mean non-terrorist white Westerners [if torture is not classified as terrorism, which is in itself debatable]) than to members of another perceived “tribe” (in this context, meaning e.g. Muslims). This to some extent explains it. But still. It does not make it logical.

Some people, evidently, don’t.

soru

Re-interviewing people from a previous survey isn’t that objectionable, IMO, though the 45 “referrals” to boost the sample size to 500 puts a dent in ICM’s methodology. I would have stuck with the original 455 respondents.

“Thank you for participating in our survey. Do you know any other Muslims who might be willing to answer our survey, the results of which may fuel right-wing Islamophobia?”

It appears ICM took their sample from previous respondees where the individual has said they were Muslim, see here.

Well, Aberystwyth is a typical university town with (a) a left-wing student body and (b) a considerable number of international students, especially in its large Department of International Politics, some of them Muslim.

Also, Aberystwyth is well known for its radical activism—just ask the Queen!

But then again, if Aberystwyth produces any terrorists, they are more likely to be Welsh nationalists…

http://www.salaam.co.uk/mosques/searchmosque.php?orgcode=635

That’s really a dressed-up sample of convenience, nothing more. As a sampling strategy that would give a Muslim living in, say, Aberystwyth a zero probability of being polled.

Guessing by where people live means introducing a lot of non-randomness, and consequently dodgy poll results.

“So Mr Akram, since the London bombings do you feel more or less likely to blow up the Houses of Parliament? Answer on a sliding scale, with 5 if dead keen, 3 if not sure, or 1 if you’d haven’t got the time this week and you’re busy with your children…”

This leads me to wonder what exactly one uses as a sampling frame for British Muslims, anyway—all the names in the telephone directory that “sound like a Muslim name” by some pollster’s definition? There’s potentially a lot of non-randomness in this poll that casts doubt on the findings irrespective of the actual results.

Actually the question was whether any further attacks are justified. Different question, scarier answer.

What caught my eye was the fact that 14 of the 26 were female, which I didn’t expect.