It is often difficult to side with outsiders even on otherwise
clear-cut moral issues. Even in the US there's some pressure on people
who (for example) speak out against the war, a la "why do you hate
America." I'd imagine this is even harder in cultures where freedom or
expression and disagreement is not valued quite so highly.



It is very easy for most Muslims to condemn terrorism when it looks like this or this. But speaking out against this or this
can give one the appearance of siding with the West, Zionists,
whatever. Because it's hard to condemn one of "us" when he's acting on
"our" behalf and is killing "them" ... One of the awesomest thing about
the US and the western world in general is that right or wrong, many
people find themselves able to speak against what they percieve as
unjust, especially when "we" are wronging "them."




You're counting on Muslims to stand up and shout "not in our name!"
or "no blood for the Quaran" but somehow we don't see too much of that.
One of my earliest post-9/11 memories is talking to my RA who was a
Sudanese Muslim, and she was sure that 9/11 wouln't have happened if
the US had signed some thing condemning Zionism as a form of racism...
I would guess she doesn't hold that particular opinion anymore, but
I've heard things like that enough times (19 Muslim Arabs killed 3,000
Americans? Blame Mossad) that it seems that the reaction to these
things is to rationalize rather than condemn.



Like I said, we're not immune to this kind of logic. A lot of
people think "we bombed Iraq, it MUST have been the right thing to do"
but at least we have a vocal minority/majority(?) who say otherwise. No
strong voice like that from the Muslim world.