According to a recent poll, less than 1/5th of all Americans have a favorable view of Islam, a sharp increase over the past few years. In 2002, with the September 11th attacks fresh in most minds fully 1/3rd of Americans had a favorable impression of Islam. Since that time however, views of Muslims has been on a downward spiral. According to the poll, Americans are more apt to believe that Islam encourages and condones violence, particularly when compared to other faiths.

What the poll does not answer is why? But then again that’s why there’s the Phalanx. Understandably a few generations ago, most Americans were distinctly unfamiliar with Islam. That began to change in the 1970s. In the name of Islam, radicals poured in to the West spreading violence and mayhem. While terrorism has existed for as long as man, Islamic terrorism has been particularly brutal.

Indeed, since its inception Islamic radicals have called for global domination of Islam, a plan put into action centuries ago as Islam expanded beyond its routes in Arabia to engulf the entire Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Europe. Only stiff resistance in Europe prevented Islam’s continued violent encroachment.

For centuries, Islam lived in relative peace with its neighbors. Today, however, radical Islam has reemerged more committed than ever to enforce its radical credo: submit, convert or die. This credo is not propagated by anti-Islamic Westerners but by the radicals themselves. And not just renowned terrorists like Ben Laden and Al Zarqawi but respected clerics in the Arab world and the West.

In the name of Islam, radicals have advanced this mantra and while detractors of the war on terror may argue that Islamic terrorism is directed against the US and its allies fighting in Iraq, history and contemporary reality conflict with this statement. Since the 1970s there have been countless acts of terror in every corner of the globe, the bulk of which have been caused by radicals in the name of Islam. Countless hijackings and airport killings in the 1970s from Rome to Athens were followed by hotel, night club and embassy bombings in the 1980s as well as a rash of hijackings, including the Achille Lauro. Not to mention numerous terror strikes during the 1990s, including the first World Trade Center attacks and countless attacks in the Middle East. Islamic terror has not been restricted to Americans, since the early 1990s radicals have repeatedly attacked and killed hundreds upon hundreds of tourists in Egypt, many of whom were European. Islamists have slaughtered Buddhists in Thailand, killed women and children in the Philippines, beheaded Christian school children in Indonesia, bombed the Indian Parliament, brutalized non-Muslims in Sudan and Nigeria, gunned down school kids in Russia, flattened Apartment buildings in Moscow, killed hundreds in Kenya and Tanzania, not to mention the slaughter of hundreds, if not thousands of their fellow Muslims.

In reality the low opinion of Islam is well deserved as radicals in the name of this supposedly peaceful religion have declared it their duty and goal to establish Islamic rule on a global scale.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/12/national/main1494697.shtml?source=RSS&attr=U.S._1494697