Tag Archives: terrorism

White Supremacists, Islamic Terrorists, Trumpers

Random Blogging, ,

I know that sane Americans are all holding our breath until January 20th, when most of us are anticipating being able to breathe a sigh of relief.  We foresee a return to normal concerns– policy debates based at least partially on logic and evidence, an actual national response to the COVID pandemic, and an end to waking up each day to news of the President’s latest lunacy and/or his administration’s latest, ever-more-blatant corruption.

Apparently, however, we won’t be clear of existential threats when Trump and his mobsters depart.

The Washington Post recently carried a column on the results of a study done by Jigsaw, the research arm of Google.The research looked into violent white-supremacist groups, and found that they had formed a connected global movement even before Trump’s presidency gave them oxygen here in the U.S., and that movement will almost certainly continue long after he leaves office.

These white-supremacist groups have used the Internet to recruit and train followers, much as Islamist extremists did a decade ago, argues a major new study by Jigsaw, a research arm of Google. The study, described here for the first time, is being published Tuesday by Jigsaw’s digital journal, the Current.

The study shatters the image that many analysts have of white supremacist attackers as “lone wolf” extremists. Jared Cohen, the chief executive of Jigsaw, argues that “this myth obscures the vast underlying infrastructure of white supremacist online communities around the world.”

These groups “move fluidly between mainstream and fringe platforms,” Cohen warns. They recruit followers on Facebook or YouTube, among other venues, and then direct them to protected “alt-tech” sites where they can privately share propaganda and boast about operations.

The report describes a movement that is much larger, much more violent and much better organized than most of us have realized. Information from the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database  suggest the existence of a global network that has been steadily growing since 2010.

A chilling factoid: that network has expanded “in tandem with Islamist extremism, its twin in using online media to spread hate.”

Consider these comparisons: In 2009, white supremacists were responsible for six deaths in 19 incidents, while Islamist extremists were responsible for 14 deaths in 12 incidents. Those numbers kept climbing steadily through the decade. By 2019, white supremacists were linked to 165 deaths in 336 incidents, while Islamist extremists were tied to 193 deaths in 82 incidents.

In three “hot spots” for white supremacists — Germany, Britain and the United States — the number of incidents seemed to spike because of special factors: in Germany, the influx of Syrian migrants in 2015; in Britain, the angry debate over Brexit in 2016; in the United States, Trump’s presidency in 2017.

When we look at the evidence all around us–it is hard not to conclude that we live at a time when huge numbers of people are simply crazy. Not just wrong about this or that, not just uninformed or unpleasant (although most also fall into those categories), but off the charts deranged.

It isn’t just the “soldiers” of these horrifying, radicalized terrorist threats.

It’s also the huge numbers of Republicans who believe that Donald Trump was mentally and emotionally fit to occupy the Oval Office. It’s the millions who insist that an election that delivered victories to their party’s down-ballot candidates, was supervised in many states by their own party, and was lost by over seven million votes, was somehow “stolen.” It’s the huge numbers who believe in “QAnon” and its conspiratorial allegations that Democrats are trafficking and  killing children and drinking their blood. It’s the inconceivable numbers who continue to dismiss the pandemic as a “hoax” while their friends and relatives die.

I know rational folks are supposed to “reach out” to those on “the other side”–but how do you reach out to people who are on the other side of sanity?

Whom Should We Fear?

Random Blogging, ,

Among the piles of literature I get, both via snail-mail and online (one of the perks–or perhaps the banes–of being an academic) are the periodic Policy Analysis publications issued by the Cato Institute. Cato, as most of you know, is a libertarian think-tank headquartered in Washington, D.C.

I have my disagreements with their economic policy perspective, but they tend to be very good on civil liberties and their scholars, by and large, are intellectually honest.

The most recent issue I received was fascinating. Titled “Terrorists by Immigration Status and Nationality: A Risk Analysis, 1975-2017, it was a thorough compendium showing which terrorists did what and why during those years. (It appears that people who enter on different visa categories pose different risks, which was something I wouldn’t have guessed.)

Terrorism, for purposes of the study, was defined as “the threatened use or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious or social goal through fear, coercion or intimidation.”

Here are some illuminating calculations from the Executive Summary:

  •  Including those murdered on 9/11, the chances of perishing in a terrorist attack committed by a foreigner on American soil is 1 in 3.8 million per year.
  • The chance of an American being murdered by a refugee is 1 in 3.86 billion.
  • Despite the rantings of our bigot-in-chief, the chance of an American being murdered by a terrorist who is an illegal immigrant is zero. You read that right: zero.
  • But watch out for tourists on B visas (the most common tourist visa). The odds of being killed by one of those guys is 1 in 4.1 million per year.
  • The chance of being murdered by one of our very own, home-grown wackos is 1 in 28 million.

No matter what the category, we really don’t have to fear that terrorists are lurking around every corner. We’re far more likely to be killed by a texting driver or even falling furniture.

Per the Executive Summary:

There were 192 foreign-born terrorists who planned, attempted or carried out attacks on U.S. soil from 1975 through 2017. Of those, 65 percent were Islamists, 18 percent were foreign nationalists, 6 percent were non-Islamic religious terrorists, 3 percent were left-wingers and the rest were separatists or adherents of other or unknown ideologies. By comparison, there were 788 native-born terrorists who planned, attempted or carried out attacks on U.S. soil from 1975 through 2017. Of those, 24 percent were right-wingers, 22 percent were white supremacists, 16 percent were left-wingers, 14 percent were Islamists, 11 percent were anti-abortion, and 6 percent were other.

What really impressed me about the analysis–which contained much more information than I have shared here–were the appendices: Table 12, which listed foreign-born terrorists, fatalities and injuries by the nation of origin, and Appendix 1, which listed every person–foreign or native born– who attempted or committed terrorism on U.S. soil between 1975-2017, and their ideologies.

A scan of those ideologies strongly supports Cato’s conclusion that religion, white supremacy and nationalism drive a hugely disproportionate number of these attacks.

Color me unsurprised.

And watch out for falling furniture.

Domestic Terrorists? What Domestic Terrorists?

Random Blogging, ,

One of the biggest problems facing sane Americans living through the Trump disaster is that the President’s bizarre behaviors continue to suck all the oxygen out of the room–the one thing he is demonstrably good at is grabbing media attention. As a result, we can easily miss the day-to-day mayhem being wreaked on the federal government, and the persistent undermining of that government’s capacity to discharge its responsibilities.

It’s like a roof leak that goes undiscovered until the damage causes your ceiling to collapse.

Not long ago, I came across this particular leak in America’s roof.

With the frequency of domestic terrorism rising, Trump has apparently decided that the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t need its primary intelligence unit that investigates and analyzes that problem and has disbanded it. Virtually all domestic terrorism in recent years has been committed by right-wing extremists.

The Department of Homeland Security has disbanded a group of intelligence analysts who focused on domestic terrorism, The Daily Beast has learned. Numerous current and former DHS officials say they find the development concerning, as the threat of homegrown terrorism—including white supremacist terrorism—is growing.

There have been a growing number of articles focused upon the growing threat posed by white nationalists, and reports have documented that rightwing extremists have been responsible for the majority of terrorist attacks in the U.S.

According to Bloomberg,

Right-wing extremist violence is a major domestic threat. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s database, it has accounted for about 73 percent of terrorist-related murders in the U.S. in the last 10 years.

 An article in the New York Times in the wake of the New Zealand mosque attack traced the connections between white supremacists  around the globe, and the growth of their movement.

Given the reality of the threat, and the obvious need to confront it, why would the Trump administration disband the effort to understand and contain these dangerous radicals?  Why is Trump so unwilling to call them out, even in the wake of horrific attacks? Why does he encourage them by minimizing the harm done by white supremacists and focusing instead on Muslims?

I think we all know–or can guess– the answers to those questions.

Let’s face it; these particular terrorists are a significant–and clearly welcome– part of Trump’s base. They are also increasingly open about the connection: Recently, a couple sporting both swastikas and a MAGA hat were spotted taking photos in front of a Holocaust Memorial in Rhode Island.

Even more troubling, large numbers of neo-Nazis and other White Supremacists–who already have several apologists among the Republican members of Congress–are running for office.

According to an article in Vox,

In 2018, an astonishing number of self-described white nationalists (including a former president of the American Nazi Party) ran for local, state, and national office in states from California to North Carolina — with the vast majority running as Republicans.

Most who candidly described themselves as Nazis or neo-Nazis lost–but several candidates with ties to white nationalists, including but not limited to Steve King (R-IA) and Matt Gaetz, won their races. A number of avowed white supremacists have declared their intent to take over the GOP, and even a superficial review of Republican officeholders makes it clear that they have already made significant inroads.

No wonder Trump disbanded the DHS unit.

 

Struggling Against Impotence

Public Policy and Governance, , , ,

A friend of mine who lives in Wisconsin sent me a link to a story in his local paper, reporting on a study about hormone levels in the waterways. 

“All over the country, chemicals known to disrupt or act like hormones seem to have permeated the waters and may be harming wildlife — or people.

‘The more you know, the more scared you are,’ said Kimberlee Wright, executive director of the Wisconsin-based nonprofit law center Midwest Environmental Advocates.”

Just one more example of our human interdependence and individual powerlessness–an example to join with random terrorist attacks like the most recent example from Boston, industrial accidents like the one that leveled much of a small Texas town last week, the periodic outbreaks of e coli caused by contaminated foodstuffs….the list goes on.

In a country and culture that has always emphasized individual responsibility and self-determination, the increasing evidence of our individual impotence is particularly disorienting and destabilizing. We are forcibly reminded that we have few alternative to collective measures–government measures–to protect us. We have to trust that those we entrust with responsibility for public health and safety are doing their jobs properly–that police and OSHA investigators and FDA inspectors are well-trained and honest, and that there are enough of them.  In our complex modern world, the only alternative to that trust is withdrawal from the human “grid”–retreat into the woods somewhere, and a life without modern amenities.

No one likes feeling impotent. I have a hunch that much of the “crazy” we see around us–the anti-government “patriots,” the conspiracy theory wackos, the stereotypical angry old white guys–is a response to those feelings of impotence. The notion that we actually have to rely upon our common institutions, the constant reminders that our common lives are complicated and interwoven, and that we require a social infrastructure upon which to “stand on our own two feet” is particularly galling to people who grew up in a less interdependent time. It’s one more element of the dizzying change that confuses and infuriates them.

The reality is, in today’s world, we can’t afford to make government small enough to drown in a bathtub. As unwelcome as that truth is, we need agencies with the authority to require safe factories, to prevent harmful discharges in our waterways, to ensure the food at the supermarket is uncontaminated…Instead of starving government, we need to make sure that it is doing what it is supposed to do–and only those things–and doing them well.

 

 

Words are Inadequate

Random Blogging, ,

We still have no answer to the questions who and why…..no way of getting our heads around the fact that some (presumably) human being or beings planned and executed a devastating, vicious attack on people they didn’t know, people who had come to Boston simply to run a marathon.

This is the horror of terrorism: it’s random. It reminds us all that life is tenuous, and that any belief that we are in control our destinies is illusory.  It reminds us–as if we had any doubt after Sandy Hook and Gabrielle Giffords and 9-11– that there are sick people in this world, people whose rage or pain or zealotry trumps their humanity.

There really aren’t any words for what most of us are feeling right now.