Right-Wing Extremists Commit the Most Terror Attacks in the U.S.

In his speech last night Der Trumpenführer stated more than a dozen untruths according to Fact Check.org.  Sadly, such is the norm with the liar-in-chief.  One of his most vicious lies was the representation of immigrants as a major source of terrorism to America.  Yes, there have been a handful of large terror attacks - the World Trade Center attack on 9-11-2001 being the most spectacular.  But of the countries covered by Trump's poorly drawn immigrant ban, none were the country of origin of the mass terrorists.  The largest number to date have come from Saudi Arabia which in my view is anything but a reliable ally given its exporting of Islamic fundamentalism all over the world.  Worse yet, Trump ignored the reality that the largest number of terror attacks in America are committed by right wing extremists.  A piece in Think Progress looks at the real story on terror in America and who the terrorists are.  Here are excerpts:

During his first speech to Congress on Tuesday, President Trump falsely claimed that foreigners have committed the “vast majority” of terrorism-related offenses in the United States since the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. He used that claim to defend his support for stricter border controls.

In his speech, Trump vowed to protect the United States by demolishing the militant group ISIS. The president pointed to both domestic and international attacks as reasons for having a stringent vetting process for people entering the United States. He did not explicitly mention a “Muslim ban” on travel, but he signaled that his administration would “take new steps to keep our nation safe.”

Trump inaccurately depicted the domestic attacks as committed by people from the countries included in the Muslim ban. The Boston Marathon bombing suspects were brothers born in Kyrgyzstan and Russia who were resettled in the United States as refugees in 2001. The man involved in the San Bernardino shooting was born in Illinois, while his wife was born in Pakistan. And the September 11 hijackers were born in places not on the Trump administration’s banned countries list.

But more importantly, foreigners pose less of a threat to Americans than right-wing extremists on domestic soil. In a 2015 New York Times article, University of North Carolina Professor Charles Kurzman and Duke Professor David Schanzer found that Islam-inspired terror attacks accounted for 50 deaths since 9/11, but that “right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities.”

Still, Trump’s administration has promised less scrutiny on white supremacy and extremism. A revised Muslim ban is also expected in the coming days.