<font color=blue>It is obvious that essentially all the terrorists of modern times are Muslims.</font color=blue>
Really?
Contrary to popular perceptions, most terrorist attacks against American targets do not emanate from the Middle East or South Asia. Of the 169 specifically anti-American attacks on foreign soil in 1999, 96 were in Latin America, 30 were in Western Europe (many of these committed by groups opposed to the war in Kosovo), nine in the countries of the former Soviet Union and 16 in Africa. Only 11 were in the Middle East, and just 6 in Asia.
The proportions have been similar since at least 1996.
Much of the terrorism in Latin America, which includes bombings and kidnappings, is committed in Colombia and Peru by leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary groups. American citizens and commercial interests have been attacked partly for ransom money to help finance insurgencies and partly to undermine national economies.
But these groups, which commit most of the attacks against Americans and their property abroad, get less attention than groups with Arab or Muslim orientations.
In the Middle East and South Asia, the terrorist attacks against Americans that do take place usually arise from a perception that the United States has taken sides in local political conflicts, like those between Turkey's government and the Kurds or between Israel and the Palestinians. Most terrorism in South Asia is linked to conflicts in Kashmir and Sri Lanka. The United States continues to list some countries in these regions -- most notably Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria -- as "state sponsors" of terrorism, but acknowledges that they are generally far less active today than in the past.
We must not be complacent about terrorism and should continue trying to identify dangerous groups. But we must also be conscious of overreacting and harming totally innocent people.
Arab-Americans and Muslims living in the United States have too often borne the brunt of government suspicion and media stereotyping. After many in the media rushed to blame Middle Eastern terror groups for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 -- erroneously, as they soon learned -- several Arab-American groups reported an increase in hate crimes and harassment.
Last December, there were reports of increased and sometimes abusive scrutiny of Arab-American travelers after the State Department linked a threat of terrorism around New Year's Day with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, without giving any specific grounds for such a connection.
Arabs and Muslims, almost exclusively among immigrant groups, have also been subjected to the use of secret evidence in deportation proceedings -- which, in opposition to American traditions of open justice, has been legal since 1996.
If American Muslims are "oversensitive at times," it is because of their own actual experience.
In the first few days after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, a Muslim organization recorded more that 200 incidents of threats, assaults and harassment targeting American Muslims.
A Muslim mother lost her near-term baby when unknown assailants attacked her house.
CAIR's 1998 report on the status of American Muslim civil rights showed an 18 percent increase in total cases and a 60 percent rise in reports of discrimination, particularly in the workplace.
SO FAR, since the WTC tragedy on Tuesday, there have been 210 attacks reported upon totally innocent Muslims in the USA, including two murders...
An Unbiased Observer
P.S. Terrorist figures are all readily available on the State
Department's web site.
http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/gt_index.html.
