Trump to focus counter-extremism program solely on Islam

Yeah, you had trouble following, but the marlin represents the terrorist or criminal, while fish at large represent the set of all people. You are wasting time catching catfish after catfish in the river, when the goal is to catch the marlin. Yes there are right leaning terrorists, but they are less prevalent among the right leaning than muslim terrorists are among muslims. Again, it is about efficient use of limited resources.

 

So there are over 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. What % of them are terrorists?

And what number of deaths in the United States since 9/11 were the result of Muslim terrorists, versus all terrorists? Less than 50? And when you look at the number that have been caused by refugees? I think that number is zero.

Seems smarter (and safer) to prevent any terrorist attack against us, not just narrowing the focus on Muslims, or Muslim refugees.

 

I couldn't give you an exact number, but it is higher than any other religion. According to the 2011 terrorism report from the National Counter Terrorism Center (PDF here), Sunni extremists accounted for well more than half of all deaths from terrorism in 2011, and that was the third year in a row for that trend. You might also notice that neo-Nazi/facist/white supremecist groups or individuals were responsible for less than 1% as many deaths at Sunni extremists.

That's an arbitrary cutoff. What number of deaths in the United States since 9/10/01 were the result of Muslim terrorists, versus all terrorists?
According to a study by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and the Responses to Terrorism (START, PDF here ) there were 3264 terrorism fatalities in the United States from 1995 to 2014. 2902 of those fatalities were as a result of the September 11th attacks. That means for that period muslim terrorists accounted for at least 88.9% of terrorism deaths in the United States (that assumes no other muslim terrorist attacks in that time period).

I haven't said anything about refugees, so I don't know why you mention them.
Seems smarter (and safer) to prevent any terrorist attack against us, not just narrowing the focus on Muslims, or Muslim refugees.[/QUOTE]
If there were unlimited resources, you would obviously want to devote enough resources to everything to prevent all attacks. When you have limited resources, you have to choose how they are spent, and each expenditure on one area is less that can be expended in another.

Overall, terrorism is really just not that big of an issue in the United States. I would be fine if the US government didn't specifically devote any money to fighting terrorism, I would just as soon have a tax cut. Whatever money they do choose to spend, I would hope they would do it as efficiently as possible.

 

If there were unlimited resources, you would obviously want to devote enough resources to everything to prevent all attacks. When you have limited resources, you have to choose how they are spent, and each expenditure on one area is less that can be expended in another.

Overall, terrorism is really just not that big of an issue in the United States. I would be fine if the US government didn't specifically devote any money to fighting terrorism, I would just as soon have a tax cut. Whatever money they do choose to spend, I would hope they would do it as efficiently as possible.[/QUOTE]

I chose since 9/11 since the one event would completely overwhelm any other number. Statistically its an outlier. And since 911 the United States (as well as other countries I'd suspect) have significantly changed their approach to counter-terrorism.

And I mentioned refugees since countering terrorism is supposed to be the justification for Trump's immigration ban, targeting Muslim-majority countries.

Your last comment is something I too wonder about. But the current President and administration along with the congress seems determined to act. I'd also rather they focus on more pressing issues that directly impact us Americans.

 

Was it not an act of Islamic extremism that spawned the entire Department of Homeland Security?

 

You do know that most Muslim terrorist attacks occur within the borders of war torn Muslim nations?

Maybe in the scheme of the entire planet, white nationalists commiting signficantly fewer explicit violent acts has a lot to do with them being in signficantly more stable countries?

In the United States, you would have to be blind to not realize the uptick in white nationalist type make shift militias and groups recently to not have ANY concern .