The Math:
Radical leaders like Anwar al-Awlaki have advocated for and allegedly inspired attacks against the U.S. in the name of Islamic jihad. Events like last years attempted Christmas Day bomb plot, the Fort Hood shooting and plans to attack Times Square, all tied to Muslim suspects, have caused many Americans to accuse Muslims as a whole as being affiliated with terrorists, though only a tiny minority are involved with these activities.
But just how small is that number?
On his radio program last week, Glenn Beck estimated 10 percent. If you do the math, with 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, that comes out to 160 million Islamic terrorists.
Fareed Zakaria, international journalist and CNN host, called Beck out on his gross overestimation during his show Sunday.
Zakaria noted that, according to the State Department, there were around 11,000 terrorist attacks committed in the world in 2009. He said he would be generous to Beck and assume that a hundred people carried out each attack even though, in reality, most involved from one to three people.
One hundred people times 11,000 terror attacks equals 1,100,000 people, Zakaria said. But Glenn Becks figure is 157 times higher than that. If in fact there are 157 million Muslim terrorists in the world, what would the other 155,900,000 of them doing last year?
