White Supremecists Slay 49 in NZ Mosques

[Dill]

(03-20-2019, 11:38 AM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: 2) Right wing terrorism has taken a sharp upturn in the U.S. 

Sure. Lets say right wing terrorism has taken a sharp upturn in the U.S. 

What does that mean? Are you saying that this "upturn" proves that white supremacy is more dangerous than Islamic extremism? Again, I have to disagree here.

What I find interesting about the statistical argument about how there have been more attacks by white supremacists in the US than Islamic extremists is that the argument completely ignores the fact that Islamic extremists have killed more people in the US than white extremists from the studies done from 2001 to 2017, but with fewer attacks and this is excluding the 9/11 terror attacks which would make the Islamic extremist numbers catastrophically higher.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that between Sept 12, 2001 - December 31st 2016 (They excluded Sept 11th to make the numbers a little more comparable), there had been 85 terrorist attacks committed by violent extremists. 

Of the 85 attacks, 62 were from far-right extremists and 23 were from Islamic extremists.

These 85 attacks resulted in 225 total deaths. 

Out of the 225 deaths, 106 deaths were attributed to white extremists and 119 deaths were attributed to Islamic extremists.

Now, if you take the statistics from 2017 and include them in these numbers the results become....

129 total terror attacks - 99 attributed to white extremists and 30 attributed to Islamic extremists.
253 total deaths - 126 deaths for white extremists and 127 for Islamic extremists.

What's important about this? Well a couple of things.

Firstly, while the statistics may show that white supremacists are on average committing more attacks, Islamic extremists are actually killing more people per attack.

Secondly, because Islamic extremists are causing more deaths per attack, this means that they are actually more efficient with the terrorism they are causing and are therefore more destructive. If you were to flip the numbers around and say that Islamic extremists committed 99 terrorist attacks and white extremists committed only 30, I believe the number of deaths caused by Islamic extremists would be catastrophically higher than deaths caused by white extremists because the statistics currently show that Islamic extremists have been more efficient with there attacks.

I believe people are having the wrong conversation. This shouldn't be about who is causing more attacks. It should be about who is actually more destructive with their attacks. This kind of goes back to my whole comparison argument and why I have such a problem with them. Not all terrorist attacks are equal....

Don't you find it a little strange that the media (and a lot of people in general) have been complaining that we don't take the threat of white supremacy seriously enough and that we need to contribute as many resources to fighting it that we're contributing to fighting radical Islamic terror, but then go on to point out that white supremacy is showing that it is more of a problem with increasing attacks over the years?

It's as if they've basically answered their own question. White supremacy is experiencing more successful attacks because they are being investigated and targeted less often than Islamic extremism which by comparison is having more resources being poured into stopping it.

In your earlier post, you were speaking of the last five years, not all the way back to 2001. And yes, Al Qaeda/ISIS attacks have been deadlier.

But the question is whether right wing terrorism is more of a threat NOW--2019-20) than AQ/ISIS and like groups.  If AQ has killed none or less than 10 since 2001, I don't think it is a greater threat now because it killed 2,900 in 2001, causing more deaths per attack.

If the rate of attacks and total incidents from the former is going up and the rate and total incidents by the latter going down, I don't see why we would conclude otherwise, if the question is limited to the US.  So it still seems to me recent rate of attack, coupled with rise in numbers of right wing groups, is more important than the body counts at the moment, particularly if the count includes 9/11, if we want to judge risk.  

another point--An attack in in NZ which produces 50 deaths by a neo-Nazi who praises Trump, and is reported widely in the U.S., is likely to have more influence on potential terrorists in the U.S. than six coordinated car bombings in Baghdad which kill 198 people but don't make the news here.

I think people Homeland Security and law enforcement are unlikely to see this issue as an either/or, but are likely to see it as a both/and. Resources need to be devoted to both, based on past experience and predictors of risk (like growth in numbers and organizational ties).  They would not find it "laughable" to compare the danger of white supremacy to the global threat of groups like AQ and ISIS because their focus is on reducing threats/actions in the U.S. from whomever seems likely to perpetrate them. 

They likely don't expect white supremacists to fly jets into skyscrapers, but as Timothy McVeigh demonstrated, right wing terrorists are indeed capable of inflicting mass urban casualties with truck bombs and the like.  Who presents the greatest risk of an attack at the moment?