Islamism

The American Public Understand Islamic Supremacism Better Than Their Leaders, Doesn’t Want It Here

Center for Security Policy June 2, 2015

Today, the Center for Security Policy released a second installment of the results of a national poll conducted in the last two weeks on various topics relevant to U.S. national and homeland security. The attached questions and answers offer insights into what Americans know about the supremacist traditions, teachings and tenets of Islam and their views on whether such practices should be accommodated in this country.

Taken as a whole, the poll suggests a situational awareness on the public’s part about the threat posed by Islamic supremacism that is far more realistic than that embraced and promoted by many of their elected representatives and appointed leaders. Evidence of the latter abounds in a just-published expose from the Center for Security Policy Press entitled Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad, written by the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s former duty expert on the enemy’s ideology, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, U.S. Army Reserves (Ret.)

The opinion research being released this week was performed by The Polling Company. It establishes that, while a majority of those surveyed (54%) believe that Islam is “a religion like Christianity and Judaism” and that “Islam is a religion of peace” (52%) more than half (52%) said they were familiar with the authoritative and supremacist Islamic doctrine its adherents call “shariah.” A plurality of 44% correctly identified shariah as either “the Muslim god Allah’s law that Muslims must follow and impose worldwide via jihad” (25%) or as “a comprehensive program governing all aspects of the faithful Muslim’s life” (19%).

Whatever they think shariah is, overwhelming majorities of Americans do not want it to be considered supreme over the U.S. Constitution (86% to 2%) or to have separate shariah tribunals for Muslims to use instead of being subject to American laws and U.S. courts (92% to 2%).

Other questions explored public attitudes towards jihad, which 63% believe is “violent holy war,” not “peaceful, personal struggle to be a better Muslim” (14%). Moreover, by a margin of 84 to 8%, those polled say there are “violent jihadists in the United States.”

Center for Security Policy President, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. observed:

In these data, we see the common sense of the American people at work. To be sure, some responses seem to reflect what leaders of both parties have insistently claimed and what we all would like to be true – namely, that Islam is a religion of peace and one like Christianity and Judaism. Still, on question after question, the public is not buying many of the illogical assertions and policy directions that their government has been promoting under successive administrations.

The challenge now is to ensure that the American people are properly informed about all aspects of Islamic supremacism – from its wellspring in authoritative Islam’s shariah to the stealthy kind of “civilization jihad” the Muslim Brotherhood has long practiced in this country. With Steve Coughlin’s masterful new book, Catastrophic Failure, and a raft of monographs on different facets of the civilization jihadists’ agenda, the Center for Security Policy is determined to ensure that those who represent us – as well as those who are their constituents – get squared away about the dangers we are facing at home and abroad.

Other revealing insights into public sentiment from the Center’s new survey will be released each day this week.

CSP SURVEY ON ISLAMIC SUPREMACISM 6215