Some on the Military Police in the film mentioned that they had to kill these people before they killed Americans. Little did they know but while 9-11 maybe have been the worst case of terrorism in this nation's history and though it was perpetrated by Muslim men, mainly from Saudi Arabia, this was truly an anomaly even among US terrorism.
From the above article I found that indeed Islamic terrorism has occurred, but it only accounts for 6%. The data is based on the FBI database of terrorism, so it includes eco-terrorists, narco-terrorists, religious terrorists and political terrorists. Still it was surprising to find out that the Latinos account for 42%, while this is surely an exaggerated number. Overall this should make us (America) rethink the supposed common sense that it is Muslims and Muslim-Americans who pose the biggest threat. Look at the chart below to see who actually attacked US soil between 1980 and 2005. It puts things in perspective. What if instead of Muslims we scapegoated all Latinos, incarcerated them and profiled them?
Wouldnt we find a handful of bad guys, drug terrorists, maybe a youth who made few friends and wanted to seek revenge on a nation who did not accept his Latino people? YES we would, just like we have found maybe 50 suspected Muslim terrorists, we have to realist about how we profile and fight terrorism.
Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Soil by Group, From 1980 to 2005, According to FBI Database
While I fundamentally disagree the idea of racial (or any other form for that matter) profiling, I’d like to play devil’s advocate. While your pie chart looks convincing, a slightly different story comes out if you look at the numbers. First of all, the most devastating attack on the United States was indeed organized and executed by Muslim extremists. Of the seventeen thousand or so people who have been wounded or died because of terrorist attacks from 1985-2005, fifteen thousand were due to the attack on 9/11. Statistically speaking, this means that Muslim extremists account for almost 90% of the people wounded or killed by terrorists. This does seem like an overwhelming majority.
ReplyDeleteWell the source I found said 3000 killed and about 6000 were injured in 9/11, still the point is well noted that the magnitude of that terrorist attack definitely overshadows most. Even so 9000 is half of your 18,000 estimate so sure Muslims should be scrutinized, but I just mean we are not as critical of Hispanic and Jewish people as suspected terrorists, it shows that maybe we are scapegoating Muslim people too far in this terrorist witch hunt.
ReplyDeleteThe numbers I quoted were from the FBI website which was a link from the article you quoted. I'd post the image, but I'm not to skilled at all this new technology. The chart is here.
ReplyDeleteOf course we are scapegoating Muslim people. But perhaps more importantly, what does a 'Muslim' look like? Not all Muslims are Arabs. There are lots of North African Muslims who aren't Arabic. Do they deserve to be racially profiled too?