Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
This report is a few months old but important to note in the wake of the Norway bombings. Americans, especially conservative Americans, tend to believe that terrorism is virtually synonymous with Islam, but only a minority of what could fairly be called terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11 have been committed by Muslims.
Since the attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, Muslims have been involved in 45 domestic terrorist plots. Meanwhile, non-Muslims have been involved in 80 terrorist plots.In fact, right-wing extremist and white supremacist attacks plots alone outnumber plots by Muslims, with both groups being involved in 63 terror plots, 18 more plots than Muslim Americans have been involved in.
Bear in mind that Muslims only make up one percent of the population in this country, so let's not pretend that there isn't a serious problem with terrorism among a subset of Islam. There clearly is and it is clearly an enormous threat to our safety and security. But let's also not pretend that this makes all Muslims into a threat because it doesn't. Also bear in mind that in a full 70% of the terrorist plots by Muslims in the U.S. since 9/11, the perpetrators were stopped with help from Muslim Americans.
And as Matthew Yglesias points out, in Europe there are more terrorist attacks from nationalist and separatist groups than from Muslim extremists. The point of this is not to downplay the threat of Islamic terrorism, which is very real.
Muslims, just like Christians, show staggering diversity in their actual beliefs and actions. There are many Islams and many Christianities with enormous differences between them. The Christianity of RJ Rushdoony is not the same as the Christianity of Jim Wallis or John Shelby Spong, not by a longshot. Merely applying that label as a convenient shortcut tells us very little.
There are reactionary Muslims who preach violence and hatred. There are also Muslims -- and my boss is one of them -- who fight tirelessly for freedom and equality for women, gays and everyone else. To conflate the two is, ironically, to think exactly like those reactionary religionists who casually demonize their enemies to the point where it becomes okay to kill them.
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And to add to that, not only do people think that Muslims are all the same, they think only Arabs are Islamic, and all Arabs as Islamic, and do not see the cultural differences between them all. An "Arab" from Egypt is not the same as an "Arab" from Iraq. Well, I should say some people, as most of the people here do realize...
Posted by: Shikaze | July 27, 2011 11:19 AM
I might point out something I have brought up before: power.
Was terrorism on the part of black militants a possible threat in the 70s? Sure it was. But the problem is the difference in what happens to you.
A white, Christian-identified terrorist -- think Timothy McVeigh -- has friends. He looks like an American as far as many people are concerned (using the normative for American-ness conservatives like). He's white so no cop is going to randomly stop him without a reason. He's hetero, so nobody is suspicious of his "lifestyle." He's outwardly patriotic.
McVeigh, when he blew up a building, could have driven to Michigan, Idaho, Montana to name a few and found sympathizers who would hide him from the cops. He had people who supported him. He could have gone on the run and might have eluded capture for years.
Muslims may make up a small percentage of the population relative to the number of terror plots, but they haven't got any of that support. A dark-skinned guy walks down the street after an explosion and what do you think is likely to happen to him? (Assuming the cops don't just shoot him on sight, something that people who have a bit too much melanin have to deal with far too often, see Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell as exhibits A and B).
McVeigh was caught because he was driving a car without a license plate. If he had had a plate he would have kept going. Seriously, if he were an Arab, how far would he have gotten?
Even after Oklahoma City, I remember the first reports coming in -- "A Middle Eastern man was seen at the site, driving away." (I worked at the AP at the time). Witnesses will see what they want to see, sometimes.
This means that the threat a white supremacist group can mount in the U.S. is much, much greater. Because unlike Muslim terrorists, people in the U.S. might help them out, and they do -- that's why militia groups can operate at all. And even when they do kill someone it isn't like the full force of the law comes crashing on them (see: Brisenia Flores). The Minutemen are still operating, while CAIR is called a terrorist organization.
Posted by: Jesse | July 27, 2011 12:02 PM
I was screaming reading an earlier report (MSN, CNN) that said, and I paraphrase, "It is too early to determine if the bombing was terrorist related..." Of course it was terrorist related, a building was bombed. The implication was whether Al-qaida was involved or not. Thus, a terrorist act by a domestic terrorist is a "bombing", but by a Muslim it is a "terrorist act".
Posted by: DPSisler | July 27, 2011 12:14 PM
The irony is that it is the internecine struggles caused by the confrontations between larger groups that often causes the most casualties. Osama Bin Laden, and the Taliban, have killed, maimed, generally oppressed, and terrified far more Muslims than Christians. Anders Behring Breivik was a Christian, despite what Bill'o says, and he murdered and terrorized Christians.
A popular theme is for people to look at Islam, and OBL, and to suggest that they 'clean their own house' and police the 'religion of peace' to eliminate the radicals. There is something to this but it has to be pointed out it is not the wider respective religious communities, Muslim and Christian, we see reforming their extremists. Rather it is the extremists, OBL and Anders Behring Breivik, attempting to reform their respective communities through violence and terrorism. Done with the longer term goal of making their own communities more resistant to and effective against the rival religion.
The good news is that the extreme nature of their cause, and violent methods, are a measure of how moderate their respective cultural bases are and how outnumbered the radials are within their own communities. To a certain extent the much more moderate hate speech of talk radio is a measure of how much more violent and radical our society is, and their ability to move the society without resort to bombs and mass killings.
Which tells me that Norway, and Northern Europe, are likely to remain relatively unconcerned about immigrants. That Islam is likely to tend toward peaceful coexistent instead of radicalism. But it also tells me that the USA is inherently more prone to, and sympathetic toward, hate, violence, and terrorism. Even as we claim to deplore violence and terrorism.
Posted by: Art | July 27, 2011 12:25 PM
"who fight tirelessly for freedom and equality for women,"
He may have hated Islam, he may have hated Christianity, but one thing you can bank on, he hated women. That's the one thing that all these terrorists, and all their supporters, have in common.
Posted by: Uzza | July 27, 2011 1:13 PM
90% of al-Qaeda's victims have been other Moslems. It is higher for the Taliban.
The vast majority of victims of Islamic terrorists are Moslems.
Posted by: raven | July 27, 2011 2:02 PM
DPSisler #3 wrote:
A small point, but I don't necessarily see this statement as differentiating between Muslim 'terrorists' and domestic 'bombers.' Maybe ... but there is another significant category of people who might place a bomb in a building: those with a personal grudge against an individual or individuals. An ex-husband or wife, a disgruntled employee, an outraged customer, etc.
No, it's not as likely, and it's certainly overkill -- but it can't be ruled out upfront. Had the perpetrator turned out to be someone seeking revenge for being dumped by the receptionist they probably wouldn't be labeled a "terrorist" -- despite the fact that they terrorized a lot of people.
Posted by: Sastra | July 27, 2011 2:22 PM
They'll do the same for Christians as well. Look at Anders Breivik talking about "western European Christian culture" as if that was one simple monolithic thing, as though a jetsetting Berliner lives a life similar to a rural Polish farmer, even if they might both claim to be Christian. It's not surprising someone who thinks this way would see Muslims as all One Thing as well.
Posted by: AL | July 27, 2011 2:27 PM
What makes Breivik a terrorist, whatever right-wing pundits or cranks may suggest, is the political aim of his violence.
He espoused a set of political beliefs which required, as a prerequisite to 'taking on Islam', the abolition (even violent abolition) of the 'cultural Marxist' apparatus of post-1945 European societies.
This stands in marked contrast to, say, the Columbine shooters or (in my own hometown) the OC Transpo shooter. Although I perceive these two sets of murderers as having differing motives from one another (despite some common elements), it is clear IMO that they did not have political aims when they set out to perpetrate violence.
Posted by: Composer99 | July 27, 2011 3:49 PM
Posted by: Modusoperandi | July 27, 2011 3:56 PM
Modus, I could say the same about militia groups in the U.S.
After all, they have said quite clearly that they want me and people like me dead. Am I not an American? Or am I the wrong color, perhaps? Wrong religion? Do tell. Again I am only taking them at their word. The Minutemen have made it crystal clear who they think is a real American and who deserves freedom.
As seriously, the recent uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, the Gulf states and Syria give lie to the statement that they hate freedom. The existence of Turkey does as well. And by the way, who was it that supported all of those governments (with the two major exceptions of Syria and Libya, both of which were quite secular)? Why, it was us. You and me, via our tax dollars, or were you not aware that the military equipment the Saudis are using on Bahrainis is American-made?
Modus, if some other country bombed your house, killed your family, and sent an occupying army to kill more of your people, and gave money an support to every corrupt, dictatorial regime it could find -- and one of those regimes was the one you lived under -- what the hell would your reaction be? Would you love them?
"Hey, I just love living in a theocracy supported by American guns! I love that my government won't listen to me -- because the Americans want an ally that hasn't got pesky things like voters to worry about! Man, I just get pleased as punch at being tortured if I speak! Why, I am going to thank an American right now!"
The guy from Al-Jazeera had it right on the documentary "Control Room." He said he might not like the governments in the Arab world much, but when his relatives live under those very same governments and the Americans are bombing people like him repeatedly -- even though they aren't connected to the attacks of 9/11 -- well, he shouldn't be expected to love us for it. Especially when it is American dollars and arms that are directly contributing to the oppression of his own people. Why is this so hard to figure out?
And yes, there is a huge diversity of attitudes. Indonesians are not the same as Yemenis. The former have suffered somewhat less from US policy, though our past near-unconditional support for Suharto has made them a bit wary. (And the West Papuans are none too pleased either). Yemenis have had to deal with America's BFF Saleh.
There is a reason that the guys who pulled off 9/11 attacks were Saudis and Sunnis, not Iranian Shi'ites or Turkish Sufis or Syrian Alawites or Druze.
I could just as well ask why Americans hate freedom, since our government has made a point up to now of stamping it out posthaste whenever brown people might get any. (The Libyan conflict is so far an exception, though it will be very interesting to see whether Obama or a future president is really that interested in democracy there).
So tell me, why do Americans hate freedom?
The dislike of American policy (not Americans, at least not among the Arabs I know) stems from very real things, it isn't some mystical commandment or attitude from nowhere. Again, why is this so hard to get people's heads around?
I just can't figure out why people seem to treat distrust of the U.S. as some kind of weird insanity or something, like a bunch of aliens planted the idea. Like the people elsewhere have no agency. Like they would only form opinions if told to do so, and it's just a matter of getting the right person to do the telling, reality be damned. It's deeply insulting. Yet Americans do it all the time (especially political commentators).
Posted by: Jesse | July 27, 2011 4:35 PM
... and modus' Poe reels one in.
To be fair, Jesse, your post is both eloquent and persuasive.
Posted by: Composer99 | July 27, 2011 5:35 PM
I thought the second "America" in "...them hating America and freedom and America..." would've been a clue as to the relation between my tongue and cheek.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | July 27, 2011 6:18 PM
Was a bit ambiguous as far as Poe's go... but the response was certainly worth it.
Posted by: Joe | July 27, 2011 10:07 PM
re 10 and 11;
Let's not forget all the Turks who told me they would just love to come to America and open a kebab stand. Or does selling food that's high in saturated fat constitute terrorism if it's done by a Muslim?
Posted by: hoary puccoon | July 28, 2011 9:05 AM
Sorry, modus. Didn't catch it. Oh well :-) we can all be fooled, as they say.
Posted by: Jesse | July 28, 2011 10:55 AM
"The Christianity of RJ Rushdoony is not the same as the Christianity of Jim Wallis or John Shelby Spong, not by a longshot."
So true. Amen! Dr. Rushdoony was a REAL Christian who believed the Bible.
John Lofton, Editor, Archive.TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
Posted by: John Lofton, Recovering Republican | July 30, 2011 1:38 PM
Except for verses such as:
and
in his deranged attempts to find a biblical basis for theonomy.
Posted by: heddle | July 30, 2011 2:13 PM