Is the West Threatened More by Islamist Fact or by Right-Wing Fiction?

Why are progressives so quick to disparage traditional Jews or conservative Christians who question the liberal agenda, yet so reluctant to criticize Islamists who oppress minorities and women, persecute those of other faiths, stifle free speech, and promote religious supremacism through jihad and genocide?  Not only do they downplay the terrorist threat at home and abroad, but they deflect attention away from Islamic radicalism by focusing on a supposed right-wing terror menace that has been defined into existence more by questionable statistics than objective analysis.

The New York Times recently reported that fewer people have been killed in the US by jihadists than by right-wing extremists since 9/11, citing among other things data from the International Security Program at the New America Foundation (“NAF”), which according to critics uses the term “right-wing” so broadly as to dilute its meaning.  The NAF claims that jihadists have killed twenty-six people, while “homegrown non-jihadists” have killed forty-eight since September 11, 2001.  The implication is that Islamist extremism is the lesser threat.

The problem with this narrative is that it fails to factor in the growing number of homegrown jihadist plots that have been foiled by law enforcement.  Moreover, it excludes the 9/11 terror attacks themselves, which although perpetrated by foreign nationals, nonetheless killed three-thousand people on US soil.  It also makes no mention of honor killings of Muslim women and girls who are condemned for adopting western culture or refusing to submit to prearranged marriages. 

The message of the story is used to tarnish Republicans, conservatives, and pro-Israel advocates, who are often described by progressives as fascists and loons.  The left has a penchant for characterizing non-liberals as extremists whether they are truly right-wingers or are instead centrist conservatives, libertarians, independents, people of faith, or simply neutral critics of liberal social policy.  This tactic is used to provide cover for Islamists – whom progressives often regard sympathetically as victims of European and American oppression – at the expense of domestic political opponents, whose expression of dissenting viewpoints is actually more in keeping with America’s constitutional and electoral tradition.

Despite their obsession with proving that the right is more dangerous than radical Islam, progressive partisans and their mainstream media flunkies have identified no monolithic dogmas or institutions that endorse global right-wing terrorism for the purpose of destroying western civilization.  Neither have they exposed reactionary ideologies comparable to jihad that sanction the killing of innocents for doctrinal gratification, or rightist organizations analogous to ISIS, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. . .

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