Where do most terrorist murders occur?
In three countries: Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Excluding those countries, the daily death toll from terrorism peaked at just over 20 per day. The 2010 figure for terrorist deaths outside those three countries is 13 per day. The figure for the U.S. is even more striking””since 9/11, terrorists have killed only 33 Americans.
Let me stress that each of these deaths is a terrible tragedy. By putting these numbers in context I don’t want to minimize them. But people are disproportionately focused on what is a relatively small factor globally and in the U.S.
How do you explain the relative rarity of terrorism?
Most Muslims do not want an Islamic government imposed by force….
This is a complete and total crock: or it is a strategically placed propaganda effort. So few terrorist events? There have been over 17,000 muslim led terrorist events around the world since 9/11. Do the math, about 5 per day.
Radical Islamists not making much headway in America? Ha! Cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, etc are nearly Muslim enclaves in America. The Muslim Brotherhood are not only active in American life, they are infiltrating the US Govt. Code Pink in this country are linked with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. CAIR in this country are linked with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Khilafa Group have been holding a yearly conference in Chicago to plan the establishment of muslim rule in America. More details are available in Andrew McCarthy’s book “The Grand Jihad”.
Mr. Kurzman cannot be blind to these developments, all of which have been reported in the press. One can only conclude he is running a disinformation campaign for someone.
Another piece of evidence showing to us how academics can overlook the blindingly obvious. In this case, what is missed is the fact that terrorism causes terror by being unpredictable. A relatively few, scattered acts can leave whole populations anxious and scare governments. In the last decade I can recall Islamic terrorist bombs in: London (twice), Paris, Madrid, Morocco, Nairobi Kenya, Stockholm, Kampala Uganda, and New York. Most of these incidents had terrible death tolls. The spread of them, and the sheer unpredictability of where next, show us that terrorism by Islamic extremists is indeed a poisonous element in our times, whatever the good professor may say.
“[W]hat is missed is the fact that terrorism causes terror by being unpredictable.”
You’re overshooting, Terry Tee.
What is missed is the fact that terrorism [i]causes terror[/i].
The unnamed Christian Century writer and Kurzman cooperate in obscuring the facts in a clear effort to sell books. The title of the book, [u]The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists[/u], is intentionally blase in a radical way to grab the attention of people with a certain mindset.
The title nevertheless has to pass the red-face test, which the author does by first setting up the bogus equation of categories terrorism = murder = death = violence. Then, by noting how ubiquitous violence is, he is able to say ‘gee, for things that are really in the same category, terrorism is awfully rare considering that violence is awfully common.’
Academics compromise themselves this way a lot when they want to sell books. I’ll even bet his editor is behind the idea.
With the opening safely supporting the book sales pitch, look down further in the article to see where the real lede is safely buried:
[blockquote]Those countries have active revolutionary movements that have a territorial base from which to launch attacks. Their strategy is to create polarization through violence. They want to do things that are so outrageous that people will either join them or oppose them. They feel that this polarization will hasten the revolution.[/blockquote]
Now we’re finally talking about terrorism, not “murder”. The issue is not the prevalence of some sort of anti-Muslim bigotry among Americans. The author himself admits that.
But nor is the issue whether Muslim terrorists are many or few. Here the author is dishonest.
The issue is the radical success of Muslim terrorists in achieving their stated goal.
Ever hear of “lulling the unsuspecting victim to sleep before slitting his throat?” I have. It’s one of their favorite tactics.