Wild Claims on Terrorism

For John, BLUF:  A wrong emphasis on who are the terrorists will just get in the way of reducing terrorism.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Who Commits Most of the World’s Extremist Violence?

Here is the sub-headline:

Evil as they are, white supremacists aren’t even close to the top of the list.

From City Journal, by Associate Editor Seth Barron, 8 April 2019.

Here is the lede plus two:

Last week, the New York Times featured an illustrated timeline of “white extremist” killings over the last nine years, with lines demonstrating citation and affiliation among the killers.  According to the Times, the record shows “an informal global network of white extremists whose violent attacks are occurring with greater frequency in the West.”

The idea that white supremacist violence is a growing global threat has gained more currency recently, notably in the wake of the ghastly Christchurch mosque massacre, when an avowed white nationalist murdered 50 Muslims.  New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for instance, asserted that “White supremacists committed the largest # of extremist killings in 2017.”  No one will deny that racial hatred is an evil ideology, and that people who kill in the name of white supremacy commit evil—but are the New York Times and Ocasio-Cortez correct that “white extremists” are increasingly sowing worldwide mayhem?

The evidence suggests otherwise.  Even a superficial glance at the record indicates that of the nearly 20,000 people killed in thousands of extremist killings in 2017, white supremacists were responsible for very few.  The worst terrorist event of 2017, according to the State Department, was the explosion of a truck bomb outside the Safari Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, which killed more than 580 people.  This violent act is believed to have been the work of Al-Shabaab, which was responsible for 97 percent of the 370 instances of extremist killings in Somalia in 2017, accounting for about 1,400 deaths—mostly civilian.  The remaining violent acts were carried out by Jabha East Africa (ISIS-Somalia), a dissident Al-Shabaab splinter group.

And on it goes.  They don't even get to the 150 Christians killed recently in Niger.

And, if Egyptians or Turks aren't Caucasian, what are they?  Are they Asian?  I don't think so.  They are not African in the sense we here in the US understand the term.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff