Posted on 04/28/2017 10:51:12 AM PDT by mac_truck
The ongoing controversy and litigation over the Trump administration’s “Muslim ban” has reignited a debate that has raged since the 9/11 attacks: Who commits more domestic terrorism–violent Salafists or traditional “right wing” extremists? According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, it’s the latter and by a very wide margin. From p. 4 of GAO’s report:
Of the 85 violent extremist incidents that resulted in death since September 12, 2001, far right wing violent extremist groups were responsible for 62 (73 percent) while radical Islamist violent extremists were responsible for 23 (27 percent).
But as researchers at the Georgia State recently reported, media coverage of terrorist incidents makes it seem as if terrorism is almost exclusively perpetrated by Muslims:
We examined news coverage from LexisNexis Academic and CNN.com for all terrorist attacks in the United States between 2011 and 2015. Controlling for target type, fatalities, and being arrested, attacks by Muslim perpetrators received, on average, 449% more coverage than other attacks. Given the disproportionate quantity of news coverage for these attacks, it is no wonder that people are afraid of the Muslim terrorist. More representative media coverage could help to bring public perception of terrorism in line with reality.
That incident-media reporting disconnect is matched by another: the notion that Arab/Muslim-Americans are more susceptible to radicalization, and thus to becoming terrorists, and that there are a discreet set of reliable indicators that will tell authorities who is or is not more likely to become a terrorist.
(Excerpt) Read more at cato.org ...
For example the Umpqua Community College murders in which 9 people died are cited in the statistics for far right extremists but the shooter had no ties to any extremist groups and was documented as being mentally ill since childhood.
Everyone who commits any crime and is not a certifiable Moslem is ipso facto a right wing extremist. That is the official definitions aat work. The world of lawbreaking is neatly divided into two groups, Radicalized Moslem Lone Wolves and Right Wing Extremists. There is no other category.
GAO report includes the Lafeyette LA murder of two movie goers and the wounding of nine others as right wing extremism, even though the local media reported ‘No Clear Motive Seen’ in a 40 page journal the shooter left in his motel room. Shooter also had a history of mental illness.
That is Muzzie extremism that must get reflected in the state.
Cato - YOU SUCK!
I expect the GAO to lie.
Article conclusion:
“Members of Congress who want to win the war of “hearts and minds” vis a vis ISIS need to remember that our greatest weapon is a strict adherence to constitutional norms of free association and speech, and that targeting fellow citizens of Arab descent or the Muslim faith for evidence-free surveillance and political repression only validates the ISIS narrative that America is at war with the Muslim and Arab world.”
Talk about not seeing the forest through the trees... EVERYONE is subject to “evidence-free surveillance”.
This is the biggest liberal bs imaginable...fire whoever did this study as it is nothing but liberal propaganda designed to help dems.
No mention of “far left wing violent extremist groups”. I guess they don’t exist.
They count incidences rather than deaths and equate an explosion in a mailbox and an attack on a mink farm with 9-11.
Only TWO to select from?
Why aren't America's serial killers in play?
The CHOICE providers who kill; on average; about 3,300 future American citizens EVERY DAY!
This won’t stand up to a detailed spread sheet analysis. All they do is count the incidents? So 9/11 with thousands killed is the same as two doofuses with shotgun shooting up a mall and killing maybe fives?
Good point. How many police officers and other law enforcement workers have been killed over the years by “assassins” whose identities have not been determined?
How about prison officials/guards who have been killed? Does the press identity members of the National Of Islam in any of the killings? How about black gangs (Crips/Bloods), Hispanic gangs (MS-13, LL, MS 18, etc) etc. both inside prisons and outside of them?
The figures for right wing extremism listed about 119 killings (some may have been only mentally ill persons, not aligned with any organized ideology such as the Sandy Hook school killer, his mother was a liberal nut, The figures of Islamic extremists was about 129 (The Beltway Killers/Shooters actual number of incidents were merged for 6 into 1, not six countable acts for reasons that make no sense).
I lived three blocks from the FBI agent who was shot at the Home Depot at Seven Corners shopping center (where I was last night). This was a “single incident”, not one to be included with others together as a total single incident.
Just a personal note: I had been in the hospital with a heart attack when the killings started and when I got out, after analyzing the killing patterns (random locations but not random timing), I when to the State Police substation near me and told them my observations - one on how to check on bullet sales if the killers had bought locally - my daughter had worked at a Gun Store/Shooting Range while going to college and explained to me how they worked). Seems the killers bought their ammo in other states far away, but I also mentioned that the killings stopped on Friday’s before sunset (i.e. the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath and the Moslem equivalent). This pattern held for weeks with only one weekend shooting on a Sunday that I can recall.
Thus I told the police that the killings could have a religious basis or motive. I was right. I have an Associate Of Arts Certificate (equal to a degree) in Police Science and I listened to my law enforcement veteran professors because of their working insights into motivations and the criminal mind.
I also studied under some leading figures in psychological warfare. Applying their observations on motivational factors as to why people become criminals, terrorists, etc., it became apparent that there was a definite motivational reason/incitement to the Beltway Shootings. Not rocket science. Just plain deductive and observational thinking.
There are many acts of terrorism in the US that have not been identified as such. I saw this happen during the late 60’s and 1970’s when not only the Weathermen and the Black Panthers waged war on the United States and its military/law enforcement personnel, but there were also environmental terrorists who destroyed powerlines and stations, tried to sabotage dams, set forest fires, burned down government buildings, sabotaged roads and tried to do it to railroads, etc. The Earth Liberation Front was only one of many small environment-based terrorist organizations.
You also later had the Animal Liberation Front or something of that kind of name.
There were also ideological/political killings that most people never heard of, from the killing of at least 2 Palestinian students (I think in Colorado) reportedly by PLO operatives, IRA killings or attempted killings on the East Coast, possibly Libyan attacks on dissenters, and mixed possible organizations attacks on the established Vietnamese and refugee communities.
When you play with statistics, you can manipulate them anyway you want, esp. if the media has no idea on how to interpret them> The average reader knows nothing about the subject and the players, and if the research team(s) are biased (i.e. the foolish Kerner Commission report on student unrest in the 1960’s), then the whole exercise is slanted.
Neo-Nazi/white extremist/KKK violence is real and dangerous. No doubt about it. It is often used as an excuse by the mentally ill, esp. loners, alcoholics, etc. Some of the same can be said for black extremists but there is a documented history of black armed extremists since the 1960s who openly declared war on the United States (Black Panther Party, Revolutionary Action Movement, Republic of New Africa; several Harlem black/Marxist organizations, and the Black Liberation Army, among others).
All of them pose a clear and present, as well as a long-range threat to the safety of all Americans and must be watched by law enforcement. While the Southern Poverty Law Center makes a career out of watching white extremists, it conveniently largely ignores communist/Marxist and black extremists right under their own nose.
The rise of the anarchist Black Bloc (mainly white youths) and its parallel Marxist Red Bloc ( commie wackos) also pose a new threat to our safety, yet law enforcement under the Obama administration (Holder and Lynch) was almost non-existent. Wonder why?
It is time for a national investigative task force to explore the extent of extremism and extremism organizations in the U.S. As a reporter who covered the Senate hearings on extremists in 1970, I saw professional researchers and counsels take a very deep look into radical extremism and expose in in 26 volumes of testimonies with documents, charts, etc.
The old House Committee on Un-American Activities did it with both communist organizations and the KKK (almost 10 volumes of hearings and documents which got media attention and led to the beginning of the end for the national KKK movement). The House Internal Security Committee followed up with more investigations until the Democrat House Caucus defunded them in a closed meeting in 1975 (Rep. John Rodino (D-NJ) and commie Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich) were the main movers in this.
After that, the Senate’s SISS was defunded and destroyed, the SACB was abolished, the Internal Security Division at Justice was abolished, and the Church Committee severely damaged the CIA and the FBI (which led to 9/11 over the long term).
Forget the CATO Institute. It was once a rational, respected libertarian organization. Now it is a joke, run by jokesters and near anarchist libertarians.
What we need are real professional groups to run the investigations into extremism, not political organizations with an axe to grind or a government to destroy.
A complete distortion and deception. I didn’t see anything citing the number of people murdered. Not a single figure. Close to 3000 died from a single Muslim mass murder in 2001 alone.
I don't think it's that tidy. What about the Radicalized Moslem Lone Wolves who are also Right Wing Extremists? Easy problem to solve, camp them with the right-wingers.
Crime reporting along racial or political or "hate" lines is a political activity - expect dishonesty in the reports, in order to create misleading statistics. In short, the government is in the business of misleading the public. So is the press. It's a winning strategy, because the public is capital-G gullible.
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