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As King Targets Muslims, There Have Been Almost Twice As Many Plots Since 9/11 From Non-Muslim Terrorists

Tomorrow, Rep. Peter King (R-NY), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, will hold hearings singling out the Muslim American community for supposedly aiding and abetting domestic radicalization and terrorism.

When asked why he is singling out the Muslim American community and refusing to investigate other forms of terrorism, King has responded by saying that “it makes no sense to talk about other types of extremism, when the main threat to the United States today is talking about al Qaida.”

Yet as a January 2011 terrorism statistics report — compiled using publicly available data from the FBI and other crime agencies — from the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) shows, terrorism by Muslim Americans has only accounted for a minority of terror plots since 9/11. 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. Here is a breakdown of attacks by group, along with a few examples of plots by some of these groups:

Anti-Government/Anti-Tax Extremists: There have been 36 plots by right-wing extremists since 9/11. These attacks include Joseph Stack’s suicide attack on a Texas IRS building and Joshua Cartwright, who became enraged after the election of Barack Obama and “believed that the US Government was conspiring against him.”

KKK/NeoNazi/White Supremacist: There have been 27 plots by white supremacists since 9/11. These attacks include a 2004 letter bombing of the Arizona Office of Diversity and Dialogue that injured three employees.

Unknown/Miscellaneous: There were five attacks that federal crime officials did not categorize.

Christian Extremists/Anti-Abortion: There were three attacks by anti-abortion extremists and Christian extremists. The killing of abortion provider George Tiller is the most prominent of these attacks.

Black Supremacist Cults: There were two plots by black supremacist cults.

Jewish Extremists: There were two plots by Jewish extremists. The most prominent of these was a plot by Robert Goldstein to attack a local Islamic center with home made C4 and other explosives.

Extreme Anti-Immigrant: There were two plots by anti-immigrant extremists. One of these was the attack by Shawn Forde, who murdered a Queens deli clerk and was motivated by racist and anti-immigrant feelings.

Anti-Jewish: There was one plot by an anti-Semitic extremist. Norman Leboon made anti-Semitic threats against Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA).

Anarchist: There was a single plot by an anarchist. Joseph D. Konopka “wreaked havoc in 13 counties by setting fires, disrupting radio and television broadcasts, disabling an air traffic control system, selling counterfeit software, and damaging the computer system of an Internet service provider.”

Given the fact that non-Muslim terrorists account for almost twice as many plots as Muslim terrorists in the United States since 9/11, King’s justification that he is targeting Muslims because they represent the primary threat seems hollow. Additionally, King’s hearings come at a time when Muslim American terrorism and involvement in extremism has actually plummeted in the past couple years, according to a Duke University study put out last month. Moreover, nearly 4 in 10 Al-Qaida related plots in the United States have been broken up thanks to intelligence provided by the Muslim community themselves and 70 percent of recent terror plots in the United States have been foiled by help from Muslim Americans.

Update

On the eve of King’s hearings, authorities have named a white supremacist as the suspect in the case of an attempted bombing of an MLK rally in Spokane, Washington.

TX Department Of Agriculture Launches Border Vigilante Website

Cindy Casares over at Guanabee reported today on a website launched last week by the Texas Department of Agriculture for border ranchers and farmers. The site, ProtectYourTexasBorder.com, aims to “document the true stories of those who supply our food under the constant danger of criminals who have crossed our border illegally.” In the “About” section, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples elaborates on the impetus behind the new project:

Through this website, I implore the federal government to enforce our laws and secure our nation’s borders. We are at war and our federal government must answer its call of duty to protect its citizens and our national security.

Until Washington stands beside us, Texas is prepared to take matters into its own hands to the fullest extent possible. Texas will fight and protect to the best of our ability, but a successful campaign to stop border violence will require Washington to acknowledge this threat as a national security issue and assign the appropriate resources to combat and defeat our enemies. I can assure you a threat to our citizens and food supply is a threat to our national security.

The website also includes a message board where users can register and post their proposed solutions. As Julian Aguilar of the Texas Tribune points out, proposals include calls for violence. “The most well known fighters of our Revolutionary war were not trained, they used hide and shot tactics that would work great today… If we — Americans — start shooting the bad guys, they will get the message!,” wrote one user — jcarrott. Other comments range from “Killem all!!!! They are destroying or great country,” to suggestions that the U.S. deploy “watch groups, community patrols, land mines, tiger traps and roving packs of rabid [weasels]” at the border.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), who referred to the site as a “propaganda campaign,” noted that the anecdotal information it contains doesn’t reflect actual crime statistics at the border. “The website leaves the impression that Texas border communities are dangerous, when, in fact, cities such as El Paso, McAllen, and Brownsville are safer than most other cities in Texas, including Austin,” he said. “Our state is facing a $27 billion budget crisis, and our state leaders are wasting scarce tax dollars to support a platform that portrays rural Texas like rural Afghanistan.”

Counties along the southwest border have some of the lowest rates of violent crime per capita in the nation and those rates have dropped by more than 30 percent since the 1990s while immigration has soared. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano, along with a coalition of border city mayors, recently called on politicians to stop exaggerating the levels of violence occurring on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico.

Meanwhile, there is some speculation that Staples may have his sights on higher office in 2014.

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