More and more Muslims around the world are voicing their rejection of the hate, violence, and intolerance of radicals and terrorists that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network promote and support. One reason, says President George W. Bush, is that the majority of victims since September 11, 2001, have been "innocent Muslims":
"After terrorists bombed a Palestinian wedding at a hotel in Amman last November, thousands of Jordanians took to the street and rallied against al-Qaida. One protester carried a sign that read, 'Jordan's Nine-Eleven.' Others chanted, 'This is not Islamic, this is terrorism!' The outrage even reached the Jordanian town of Zarqa - birthplace of the terrorist [Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi, who heads al-Qaida in Iraq and who was the mastermind of the Jordan bombing. A cousin standing outside the al-Qaida leader family home said this: 'We hate him even more than other people do now.' Zarqawi was even expelled by his own tribesmen, hundreds of whom declared in a letter to a Jordanian newspaper: quote, 'we renounce his actions, pronouncements or whatever he approves of. We disown him until judgment day.'"
The people of Iraq, says Mr. Bush, have also rejected the terrorists:
"Before the January 2005 elections, the terrorists threatened anybody who voted with death. The Iraqi people defied the threats, and went to the polls in that election and two other elections last year, each with larger and broader participation than the one that came before. Iraqis are rejecting terror, they're rejecting the violence; and they want to replace terror and violence with openness and democracy. They have made their decision, and the world saw their decision."
The people of Iraq, said President Bush, are "showing the world that the terrorists' ideology cannot compete on a level playing field with the ideology of freedom."
The preceding was an editorial reflecting the views of the United States Government.
