The Non-Muslim Terrorists Are Going To Get You If You Don't Watch Out!

[Formaldehyde]

Homegrown Extremists Tied to Deadlier Toll Than Jihadists in U.S. Since 9/11

WASHINGTON — In the 14 years since Al Qaeda carried out attacks on New York and the Pentagon, extremists have regularly executed smaller lethal assaults in the United States, explaining their motives in online manifestoes or social media rants.

But the breakdown of extremist ideologies behind those attacks may come as a surprise. Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, including the recent mass killing in Charleston, S.C., compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center.

The slaying of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church last week, with an avowed white supremacist charged with their murders, was a particularly savage case.

But it is only the latest in a string of lethal attacks by people espousing racial hatred, hostility to government and theories such as those of the “sovereign citizen” movement, which denies the legitimacy of most statutory law. The assaults have taken the lives of police officers, members of racial or religious minorities and random civilians.

Non-Muslim extremists have carried out 19 such attacks since Sept. 11, according to the latest count, compiled by David Sterman, a New America program associate, and overseen by Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert. By comparison, seven lethal attacks by Islamic militants have taken place in the same period.

If such numbers are new to the public, they are familiar to police officers. A survey to be published this week asked 382 police and sheriff’s departments nationwide to rank the three biggest threats from violent extremism in their jurisdiction. About 74 percent listed antigovernment violence, while 39 percent listed “Al Qaeda-inspired” violence, according to the researchers, Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina and David Schanzer of Duke University.

“Law enforcement agencies around the country have told us the threat from Muslim extremists is not as great as the threat from right-wing extremists,” said Dr. Kurzman, whose study is to be published by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security and the Police Executive Research Forum.

John G. Horgan, who studies terrorism at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, said the mismatch between public perceptions and actual cases had become steadily more obvious to scholars.

“There’s an acceptance now of the idea that the threat from jihadi terrorism in the United States has been overblown,” Dr. Horgan said. “And there’s a belief that the threat of right-wing, antigovernment violence has been underestimated.”

Some Muslim advocates complain that when the perpetrator of an attack is not Muslim, news media commentators quickly focus on the question of mental illness. “With non-Muslims, the media bends over backward to identify some psychological traits that may have pushed them over the edge,” said Abdul Cader Asmal, a retired physician and a longtime spokesman for Muslims in Boston. “Whereas if it’s a Muslim, the assumption is that they must have done it because of their religion.”

On several occasions since President Obama took office, efforts by government agencies to conduct research on right-wing extremism have run into resistance from Republicans, who suspected an attempt to smear conservatives.

A 2009 report by the Department of Homeland Security, which warned that an ailing economy and the election of the first black president might prompt a violent reaction from white supremacists, was withdrawn in the face of conservative criticism. Its main author, Daryl Johnson, later accused the department of “gutting” its staffing for such research.

William Braniff, the executive director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, said the outsize fear of jihadist violence reflected memories of Sept. 11, the daunting scale of sectarian conflict overseas and wariness of a strain of Islam that seems alien to many Americans.

“We understand white supremacists,” he said. “We don’t really feel like we understand Al Qaeda, which seems too complex and foreign to grasp.”

The contentious question of biased perceptions of terrorist threats dates back at least two decades, to the truck bombing that tore apart the federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995. Some early news media speculation about the attack assumed that it had been carried out by Muslim militants. The arrest of Timothy J. McVeigh, an antigovernment extremist, quickly put an end to such theories.

The bombing, which killed 168 people, including 19 children, remains the second-deadliest terrorist attack in American history, though its toll was dwarfed by the roughly 3,000 killed on Sept 11.

“If there’s one lesson we seem to have forgotten 20 years after Oklahoma City, it’s that extremist violence comes in all shapes and sizes,” said Dr. Horgan, the University of Massachusetts scholar. “And very often, it comes from someplace you’re least suspecting.”

Since 9/11, 48 people have been killed by non-Muslim extremists, while 26 were killed by "self-proclaimed jihadists".

To help put that into perspective: During a 14 year period, approximately 868 children age 14 and under died from accidental gun deaths, 168 high school and college football players died playing football, 350 people died from lightning strikes. Thirteen Little League players even died from baseball injuries during a 10 year period in the 80s and 90s.

I think it is fair to say that there shouldn't be any terrorism-related deaths in the US.

But why are we dwelling on extremist Muslim terrorism while largely ignoring other forms?

Why are many conservatives in Congress trying to derail attempts to watch the non-Muslim extremists, because they think it makes conservatives look bad without causing public uproar?

Why are we taking so many measures to protect ourselves from one group while largely ignoring the other? Should the TSA have a no-fly list of known white supremacists, Christian extremists, and members of anti-government groups? Should the police be harassing them as they so frequently do Muslims? Should we have paid informants in fundamentalist Christian churches reporting anybody who might possibly commit an abortion bombing or murder a doctor who performs abortions? Should they be infiltrated by undercover FBI agents and local police?

Or is it all being overblown? Was 9/11 just a fluke that moderate safety precautions, like having armored cockpit doors, more air marshals, and more sophisticated airline reservation systems, would largely assure it couldn't happen again?

Discuss.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you include multiple other categories, it's not surprising that any one category can't compete.

When push comes to shove, if someone finds their way through the door where I work with a gun and starts shooting people, their reason for doing is only relevant insofar as knowledge of that keeps people alive.

But I'm more likely to get crushed by tons of metal because someone is momentarily negligent than even your "accidental gun death" metric above. Media attention creates an annoying bias, but at least we have the capacity to recognize it as such.

From a marginal utility perspective, my suspicion based on what I know is that mass shootings are overblown, and that if I'm shot it's more likely that someone was robbing me than a crazy person decided to shoot some place up.

Should the TSA have a no-fly list of known white supremacists, Christian extremists, and members of anti-government groups?

Even if public perception is overblown, it is still useful to no-fly tag people you have evidence will commit violent crimes or join forces with hostile foreign groups.

 

[Samson]

Hmm. I am sure you are right that there is a certain amount of exaggeration going on, but if you think a bit more globally then the problem is not minor. For example the total death toll is significant:



And a lot of that is religious extremism:

Religious extremism has become the main driver of terrorism in recent years, according to this year’s Global Terrorism Index.

The report recorded 18,000 deaths in 2013, a rise of 60% on the previous year. The majority (66%) of these were attributable to just four groups: Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Taliban in Afghanistan and al-Qaida.

 

[Antilogic]

Note that report likely undercounts the non-Muslim extremist deaths, because unless there was an unambiguous motive (i.e. a manifesto) they excluded it from the count.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Hmm. I am sure you are right that there is a certain amount of exaggeration going on, but if you think a bit more globally then the problem is not minor.

Ironically, a substantial amount of it is directly due to two wars that the US instigated after 9/11:

Countries with the highest number of deaths by terrorism in 2013, by percentage of total deaths

How much of it would not have occurred if GWB hadn't invaded Iraq on a pretext of lies and deceit, and if he had at least tried to properly negotiate with Afghanistan to turn over bin Laden? Much less, why are we still killing the Taliban long after bin Laden has been captured and executed?

Note that report likely undercounts the non-Muslim extremist deaths, because unless there was an unambiguous motive (i.e. a manifesto) they excluded it from the count.

Indeed. The number is likely much higher.

 

[Oruc]

Note that report likely undercounts the non-Muslim extremist deaths, because unless there was an unambiguous motive (i.e. a manifesto) they excluded it from the count.

This is entirely based on your gut feeling, it can be discarded completely

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This is entirely based on your gut feeling, it can be discarded completely

If the inclusion criteria is too rigid, then positing a conservative estimate is reasonable. It's not like he's making a guess as to how off it is. His statement is true as long as it undercounts by at least one incident, and I would argue that if the criteria required a manifesto, it is more likely than not that there was at least one terrorist action that happened without one.

What can be discarded is language like "likely much higher", which is based on no evidence, where is antilogic's position is based on the evidence of the inclusion criteria.

 

[Antilogic]

This is entirely based on your gut feeling, it can be discarded completely

Nope, it's in their methodology that they use court documents to determine this, and to prove that someone is motivated by ideological extremism to commit a crime you generally need documentation that withstands judicial scrutiny (such as but not limited to a manifesto or other written statements). They also use wire service and news reports, but you often see news coverage attribute the mass killings to mental illness as a mitigating factor, at least in the US.

 

[JollyRoger]

Terrorism - An act committed by a non-white or a Muslim that would be considered a manifestation of mental illness if committed by a white or a non-Muslim.

 

[Kozmos]

So what you are saying is you need more surveillance on American citizens?

 

[Formaldehyde]

What can be discarded is language like "likely much higher", which is based on no evidence, where is antilogic's position is based on the evidence of the inclusion criteria.

You can "discard" it all you want. But it is still quite likely true.

So what you are saying is you need more surveillance on American citizens?

Or far less. If we are actually in greater danger from the non_Muslim terrorists by a factor of 2:1 or greater, why should we spend tens of billions spying on a few million Muslims, the vast majority of which are completely innocent, peace-loving, and loyal Americans?

But either way, don't you think the US government should be at least concerned about the vocal ones who publicly claim they want to commit violent acts and even overthrow the government?

What would happen if a Muslim publicly stated anything of the sort? What would the Republicans and Fox News say if a number of Democrat congressmen wanted to stifle it because they thought it makes Democrats look bad?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You can "discard" it all you want. But it is still quite likely true.

I can throw it out on these grounds:

1. That "likely much higher" is based on an intuitive anecdotal interpretation of whatever limited statistics you can recall at present, prone to bias, but even more importantly

2. That "likely much higher" is non descriptive and vague unto itself. How much higher is "much higher"? Depending on your frame of reference, one might consider 5% higher to be much higher (especially in a model where typical variance is less than 1%). It might require 50% more instead, by your interpretation.

"Much higher" as you wrote that statement depends on your own frame of reference, which you didn't communicate to us. It carries no more predictive value than what Antilogic said in terms of what the final result would be if we could turn over a note card and see it.

As for the rest of your point, yes it makes sense to pay some attention to threats of violence regardless of source (even better if sources of bias can be removed in advance, such that any further profiling is based solely on de-identified observed historical evidence).

You do run into diminishing marginal utility on doing this. For an extreme example: lowering the chance of a terrorist strike from one in a million per day to one in a billion per day would create a large cost burden, while you could go many lifetimes with the "larger" chance and still see zero strikes. Ideally, one allocates funds against this at a rate comparable to its threat relative to other threats.

 

[Formaldehyde]

All one has to do is look at the latest white supremacist terrorist attack which killed 9 people, and how the FBI Director is trying to ignore their own definition of "terrorism" to turn it into something else.

Furthermore, there are untold numbers of violent attacks and murders of Muslims, and even suspected Muslims, which are not considered as being domestic terrorism. The article I cited stated there may be as many as 150,000 Muslims who have been victims of hate crimes since 9/11. Yet when someone is killed by a Muslim who has even professed extremist views in the past, it is almost impossible for it to not be classified as terrorism.

The number of domestic terror attacks by non-Muslims is obviously way under-reported for various political reasons, including conservative congressmen doing all they can to stop the investigations because they think it might make conservatives look bad. This was also cited in the article I posted.

 

[civvver]

The reason there are more domestic terrorist attacks and deaths could very well be because all that spending and effort to stifle foreign terrorists is working. There's really no way to know.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't investigate groups here as well though, but doesn't the FBI already keep tabs on a lot of these groups like neo nazis and kkk organizations?

And I wouldn't say the US caused the terrorists, what our wars did was create a power vacuum and upset the equation over there, giving the terrorists room to seize power, but they were always there. Why do you say GWB invaded Iraq when he had nearly unanimous congressional approval? I don't get why we would let all the rest off the hook. Hillary Clinton voted for the war as well.

Pretty much every threat like that in the US is overblown though, in general it's pretty safe here, and when you consider the most dangerous thing you can do on a daily basis is drive a car it makes a lot of other ways of dying look very non-threatening. The top disease killers are cancer and heart disease yet most people don't bother to eat right or exercise.

 

[Formaldehyde]

You can say all sorts of bad things about Saddam Hussein. But what you can't say is that terrorism was any sort of real problem while he was in power.

That the rampant terrorism in Iraq wasn't directly caused by the sheer incompetence of the Bush administration when they deliberately disbanded the Baathist Party and left all the military and police without jobs, instead of using them all to maintain law and order. Not only was there no security anymore, many of them became the "terrorists" themselves.

And they became "terrorists" once again when ISIS started fighting in northern Iraq. Instead of opposing them, they joined ISIS to fight the Shia.

 

[Borachio]

I don't know. Just don't go around killing people. Is that too much to ask? How hard can it be to not kill someone? Why, even today I didn't kill one solitary person and I found it quite easy to not do it.

 

[civvver]

You can say all sorts of bad things about Saddam Hussein. But what you can't say is that terrorism was any sort of real problem while he was in power.

That the rampant terrorism in Iraq wasn't directly caused by the sheer incompetence of the Bush administration when they deliberately disbanded the Baathist Party and left all the military and police without jobs, instead of using them all to maintain law and order. Not only was there no security anymore, many of them became the "terrorists" themselves.

And they became "terrorists" once again when ISIS started fighting in northern Iraq. Instead of opposing them, they joined ISIS to fight the Shia.

Well yeah, in hindsight we should've just left things alone.

 

[warpus]

Wahhabism is one of the major reasons behind the rise of Islamic terrorism over the last little while.

Thanks a lot Saudi Arabia, America, and friends..

 

[JollyRoger]

Well yeah, in hindsight we should've just left things alone.

Foresight for some of us.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Foresight for some of us.

This one is pretty glaring in both directions. The stated goal was what again exactly? How many people actually bought that stated actions would lead to said goal? I was younger and more naive back then but that one had surface stank.