Peter Bergen and David Sterman at CNN write:
…since 9/11 extremists affiliated with a variety of far-right wing ideologies, including white supremacists, anti-abortion extremists and anti-government militants, have killed more people in the United States than have extremists motivated by al Qaeda’s ideology. According to a count by the New America Foundation, right wing extremists have killed 34 people in the United States for political reasons since 9/11. (The total includes the latest shootings in Kansas, which are being classified as a hate crime).
By contrast, terrorists motivated by al Qaeda’s ideology have killed 21 people in the United States since 9/11.
I don’t know about you, but when I’m on a plane and a white guy with short hair gets on, I start to get nervous. Shouldn’t they be screening people like that or something?
I don’t even know where to start with how jaw-droppingly stupid this cherry-picking is.
“Oh sure, terror in the name of Islam has killed a bunch of people IF you count 9/11 and IF you count people killed outside the US.”
Right-wing US terrorists, with very, very few exceptions, kill in tiny numbers, usually with guns. The stated goal of much Islamic terrorism is to kill on a mass basis, using bombs and teams of killers.
Right-wing US terrorists target people they believe to be personally culpable. Islamic terrorists kill nearly indiscriminately as a tactical choice.
Right-wing US terrorists kill within the US because they live here, they are nuts and we are awash in guns. For Islamic terrorists, a successful, large-scale strike in the US is the gold standard and requires years of sophisticated planning.
Islamic terrorism is simply and obviously more dangerous than the unstable nuts milling around outside the nation’s Planned Parenthoods.
I’m sure the dead care about who’s a “real terrorist” as much as we care who is a “real American”. It’ not some divisive, finger-pointing political-undertone competition. It is incredibly petty to act as such.
I don’t know about them white folk but I’ll bet the communications of Twitter Terrorists by the name of Paul Constant are being screened and monitored.