Skyhook just in case clicking on the links is too much, here is an excellent section from the second one:
".. it is an act of egregious ignorance for a human being to actually verbalize the words: "Do Muslims condemn terror?" Here is a suggestion from a lowly immigrant: try this thing called "googling." Start with using the search terms "Muslims condemn terror."
Finally, the reality is that condemnations of terrorism have been pouring in for years. The reasons that so many Americans are still ignorant about them are because they have willfully chosen not to pay attention....I can confidently say that our media has one of the lowest IQs about Islam anywhere in the world. It is - and should be - downright shameful that....six years since 9/11 and in the US I am still clarifying the simple point that Muslims soundly oppose terrorism. With awareness about Muslims at such a shameful nadir, it should be no surprise that our beloved President was able to convince us that Saddam was behind 9/11 and take us to war against "Islamofascism."
Naturally, media ignorance has diffused to the public. In the US we don't have an idea who the Muslim leaders around the world are, much less how to access their opinion on terror. Bereft of such information we have latched onto a simple slogan fed to us by the far right, namely, why don't we see parades and public demonstrations?
Did we ever stop and think that asking Muslims to get together in a big public setting, unarmed, with women and children in tow, making loud gesticulations against suicide bombers and cold hearted murderers (who in their cowardice are not against cloaking themselves in veils), might be a rather stupid thing to demand? Did Americans forget how empty our streets were after 9/11 or how desolate Bethesda, Maryland, was during the days of DC sniper? Now try living in a society where suicide bombers are in every city and township and regularly attack group events like the Friday congregational prayers. In the US we have not had a suicide bombing since 9/11. Yet in Pakistan, 65 people - Muslims all of them - died in an attack by extremists yesterday. During the week before, there were two other suicide bombings. Is it reasonable to keep demanding that Muslims keep thronging out into the street at the whim of far away American masters? Then, when despite all these dangers, Muslims do gather to speak out against violence in their countries, it goes ignored by our media.
On September 12, 2001, one of the most learned Islamic scholars in the UK said the terrorists are "not Muslim." A month later he called terrorism a "heresy" against Islam in a pre-eminent British paper. A Pakistani Islamic scholar whose followers are active in 81 countries called Bin Laden a "false prophet" and "coward" barely a week after 9/11. Another major Islamic scholar issued a pamphlet (in many languages) attacking the Islamic legal arguments that the terrorists used so that future recruits might not be so easily led astray. One of the eldest traditionalist scholar in Sunni Islam issued a fatwa against the extremist group Al Muhajiroun. Muslims in Spain issued a fatwa against Bin Laden.....Just the other day Bin Laden's former mentor condemned him for his violence. Nevermind the fact that before 9/11 it was a Muslim who warned our State department about monitoring certain mosques, or that it was a Muslim who tipped off the British authorities and helped prevent the 20 airliner hijacking in 2006."
So skyhook, some well earned respect?