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error Free Tomorrow finds out why people support or oppose extremism. By determining the facts first, we help create effective policies to counter extremism worldwide.
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Accomplishments:
• Terrorists in Love: True Life Stories of Islamic Radicals—“Groundbreaking” Terror Free Tomorrow Book Released in New Paperback Version (6/5/12)
TFT President Ken Ballen’s book has been hailed by the Washington Post as a “riveting, behind-the-scenes” account and by Foreign Policy as “likely [to help] hasten the demise of the terrorist movement.” The paperback version also features a new Reading Group Guide. To view the book’s website, click here.
• Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals—New Terror Free Tomorrow Book (10/04/11)
TFT President Ken Ballen’s new book has been chosen by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the top ten politics books that will be released in the Fall (2011), calling it “an unprecedented and unusual look at Islamic radicalism.” To view the book’s website, click here.
• IN PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN, SAUDI ARABIA and INDONESIA, from 2008 through 2011, Terror Free Tomorrow has conducted first-hand, unprecedented interviews with Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, as well as Al Qaeda terrorists. We have interviewed more than a hundred radicals, particularly Afghan and Pakistani Taliban leaders and foot soldiers behind the lines. Terror Free Tomorrow also gained rare access to conduct interviews of Al Qaeda terrorists. Some initial, preliminary and partial results of TFT’s unique research have been reported in the Financial Times and on CNN.
• IN PAKISTAN, Terror Free Tomorrow’s nationwide survey before the February 18, 2008 elections is front page news and the subject of editorials in every major newspaper. Denounced by government spokesmen and official state television, even President Musharraf responded by claiming that TFT and other polling “have value in developed nations but not here in Pakistan.”
A feature article from one of Pakistan’s leading newspapers (Daily News) found that the Pakistani government had a plan to rig the Feb.18th vote, but that TFT’s public opinion poll helped to “definitely prevent the government from massive rigging.” According to the article, a senior government official with ties to Pakistani intelligence confirmed that “a plan to rig the elections was in the works,” but that the polling “created an atmosphere where there was no choice but to have free and fair elections.” The article also quotes one of the highest officials in President Musharraf’s own political party, who admitted that the polling “deter[ed] any state-sponsored manipulation.”
• IN SAUDI ARABIA, Terror Free Tomorrow’s unprecedented survey is hailed by the major reform-minded Arabic press as “a survey of profound importance” (Al-Watan; Asharq Al-Awsat), extensively reported in front page coverage throughout Saudi and Arabic media. According to Al-Watan, the leading reform newspaper in Saudi Arabia, our survey is: “a rare and remarkable in-depth study of Saudi society” that can help “bear witness to a new consciousness in the Arab and Muslim world.” For the U.S., the poll is relied on in commentary from the Christian Science Monitor to the San Francisco Chronicle, with news coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, AP, Reuters, CNN and more.
• IN IRAN, TFT’s surveys are the first uncensored polls of the Iranian people in five years, headlined by the leading student organization in Iran, throughout Iranian blogs and by the leaders of the pro-democracy movement. Called “an act of bravery by ordinary citizens,” our surveys “after so many years of isolation, and despite the risk,” are at last giving the Iranian people themselves a voice (International Herald Tribune).
For the American and international policy debate, our surveys have been featured in a lead news story by the Washington Post and in editorials in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Economist, Guardian, Washington Times, New York Post, etc. One editorial concludes that TFT findings provide “the most complete and nuanced understanding of one of the most important foreign-policy challenges we face in the 21st century.”
• IN PAKISTAN, TFT’s August 2007 nationwide survey is the “oft-quoted standard” for the democracy debate inside Pakistan (The Pakistan News). In the American foreign policy debate, the survey is relied on in editorials from the Washington Post to the Los Angeles Times, with front page coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post, and a feature story on CNN.
• IN INDONESIA and BANGLADESH, Admiral Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs, states that TFT surveys are a “critical factor” in launching the U.S. Navy’s humanitarian medical missions. Our surveys showed that the Navy’s hospital ship, treating 61,000 needy patients, changed public opinion favorably toward the United States and against terrorism—resulting, according to Admiral Mullen, in even more medical missions by the Navy. Admiral Mullen has written that TFT’s findings provide proof to “one of the defining moments of this new century.”
• IN PAKISTAN, our nationwide survey—the first after the October 2005 earthquake—serves as a principal finding by the U.S. Senate for the United States to gain vital goodwill against extremism by “taking the lead” in relief efforts to Pakistani earthquake victims (Senate Resolution #356).
• IN INDONESIA, former Presidents Clinton and Bush rely on our survey—the first after the tsunami—as proof of the power of continued humanitarian aid to counter extremism in the world’s largest Muslim country.
• IN THE U.S.CONGRESS and GOVERNMENT, TFT surveys are the subject of hearings before the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees, the National Security Subcommittee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a key finding behind new legislation introduced by Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Norm Coleman (R-MN). TFT’s work has also been relied on by the State Department as an independent benchmark in evaluating the success of American foreign policy (State Dept Performance and Accountability Report), and by the Department of Defense in the National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism.
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