Europol tracks terrorist attacks in the European Union and publishes the data in an annual report entitled EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (TE-SAT).  The first such report was for the year 2006 and the most recently released one was for 2010.  Going through the data, I noted in my previous article (Updated Europol Data: Less Than 1% of Terrorist Attacks by Muslims) that less than 1% of terrorist attacks on European soil were committed by Muslims.

Anti-Muslim bigots were naturally very upset with these findings, and offered a couple flimsy counter-responses.  The most popular one was some variation of the following snarky remark:

Perhaps ‘scale’ rather than ‘quantity’ is the real issue here?

But, is it?

I went back through the data, which revealed the following conclusion: there were zero deaths from Islamist terrorism for every single year the Europol reports were published, a span of five years.

Here is the data (all quotes are taken directly from that year’s Europol terrorism report):

In 2006, there were no successful terrorist attacks by Muslims, but only 1 “failed terrorist attack that took place in Germany” resulting in zero deaths.

In 2007, once again “[t]here were no successful Islamist terrorist attacks” with 1 “failed terrorist attack that took place in Germany” and 3 “attempted terrorist attack[s]” resulting in zero deaths.

In 2008, there was only 1 terrorist attack by Muslims, in which “only the attacker himself was injured.”  Again, zero deaths.  But, the scale of the Islamist terrorist attacks make up for the fact that 99+% of terrorist attacks were by non-Muslims!  (Note: there were no other attempted or foiled attacks in that year.)

In 2009, there was only 1 terrorist attack by Muslims, resulting in zero deaths but “[o]ne of the guards trying to stop [the terrorist] was slightly wounded.”  The scale!  The horror!

In 2010, “[t]he number of Islamist terrorist attacks actually carried out in the EU was limited to three attacks in 2010.  They caused minimal damage to the intended targets.”  The report notes further that “[t]he attacks shared some characteristics” including “lack of familiarity with explosives.”  But, be very afraid of these Mastermind Terrorists!  In the first attack, the victim “managed to save his life” by locking himself in a room.  In the second attack, the Mastermind Terrorist accidentally let the bomb explode while “in a hotel toilet,” resulting in zero fatalities.  In the last attack, ”the suspected suicide bomber himself was the only fatality.”  Once again, there were zero deaths from Islamist terrorism in that year.

This brings us to a grand total of zero deaths from Islamist terrorism from every year since Europol started keeping track of terrorism and publishing an annual report.  Amazingly, it seems that the only injuries sustained, in the entire five year period, was to one guard who “was slightly wounded.”

Yet, even though according to the data in their own reports Muslims were responsible for less than 1% of terrorist attacks and caused zero deaths, Europol ominously warns that “the threat [from Islamist terrorism] remains real and serious” and “the threat of Islamist terrorism by Al-Qaeda inspired groups and affiliates is high.”  Every year, without fail, Europol has reported these same findings, but never once did any of these reports note that the threat of Islamist terrorism is heavily exaggerated.  In fact, the data they provide is irrelevant to their conclusions and recommendations, which are actually predetermined long before any data is collected or analyzed.

In one of his recent articles, Glenn Greenwald notes that U.S. officials declared that they have defeated Al-Qaeda by rendering it “operationally ineffective” but at the same time warned that “the terrorist group will remain a major security threat for years.”  It seems that both the United States and the European Union are able to operate under such paradoxical premises.

Similarly, facts will not move Islamophobes.  Even as their main arguments fall apart, they will no doubt find some fall-back argument to rely upon.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

(updated below)

The most popular article published on LoonWatch was released in January of 2010: that article showed that, according to the official FBI website, only 6% of terrorist attacks in the United States from 1980-2005 (the only years where data was available) were committed by Muslims.

I published a follow-up article to look at the picture across the pond: I cited official data from Europol, which releases an annual terrorism report entitled EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (TE-SAT). The first available such report was for the year 2006.  The data from 2006, 2007, and 2008 showed that about 0.4% of terrorist attacks in the European Union were committed by Muslims–less than 1% (actually, less than half of 1%).

Today, I’d like to update our readers with new Europol data: the data for 2009 and 2010 is now available.

Once again, a minuscule percentage of terrorist attacks in Europe were committed by Muslims.  In 2009 and 2010, there were a grand total of 543 terrorist attacks, of which only 4 were committed by Muslims.  This means that only 0.7% of terrorist attacks–again, less than 1%–were committed by Muslims.

Meanwhile, in that same time frame, separatist groups in Europe committed 397 terrorist attacks, or 73% of terrorist attacks overall.  In other words, separatist groups committed 99.2 times (almost 100 times) more terrorist attacks than Muslims.

Another 85 attacks were committed by left-wing groups, accounting for about 16% of terrorist attacks overall.

Here is the data for 2009:

And for 2010:

In the 2010 report, the annex contains a summary of the results from the previous and current years:

(Due to size constraints, the table is a bit difficult to read here; you can see the actual report here.)

This “mega-table” shows that from 2007 to 2009, out of 1,317 terrorist attacks only 3 of them were committed by Muslims.  From a percentage standpoint, that means only about 0.2% of terrorist attacks in Europe were committed by Muslims in those years–again, far less than 1%.

If we combine the data from the years Europol started keeping track of terrorist attacks–including 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010–we see that out of a grand total of 2,139 terrorist attacks only 10 of them were committed by Muslims.  You can count the number of terrorist attacks by Muslims on your fingertips.  Percentage wise, this means that 0.5% of terrorist attacks in Europe–half of 1%–were committed by Muslims.

In spite of this fact, all we ever hear about in the media and national discourse is the threat of “Islamist terrorism.” The data, however, does not support such fear-mongering.   Yet, it is amazing how many people will persist in the belief that “Islamist terrorism” is an existential threat to America and Europe.

What is more amazing, however, are the Europol reports themselves.  Year after year they report the same data, with terrorist attacks by Muslims numbering anywhere from zero to four incidents, always less than 1% of the total.  For example, the 2010 EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report showed that only 1 Islamist terrorist attack took place in the entire previous year.  In that year (as in every year), separatist and leftist terrorism dwarfed Islamist terrorism by a magnitude of 237:1 and 40:1 respectively.  Nonetheless, the report notes that “Islamist terrorism is still perceived as the biggest threat to most Member States” and concludes that “the threat remains real and serious.”  No statement in the publication indicates that the perceived threat is exaggerated.

In 2010, there were 249 terrorist attacks; only 3 of these were committed by Islamists and the attacks themselves were described by the 2011 Europol report as “caus[ing] minimal damage.”  Yet, the same report ominously warns that “the threat of Islamist terrorism by Al-Qaeda inspired groups and affiliates is high.”  The report also includes xenophobic warnings about the threat of Muslim immigration to Europe, warning:

The current and future flow of immigrants originating from North Africa could have an influence on the EU’s security situation. Individuals with terrorist aims could easily enter Europe amongst the large numbers of immigrants.

So, three goons do something, and then the entire North African community is to be stigmatized?

Instead of drawing the obvious conclusion that the threat of “Islamic terrorism” is heavily exaggerated, the authors of these Europol reports continue to publish alarmist conclusions that simply do not match up with the data that they themselves provide.

*  *  *  *  *

When I published my previous article on terrorist attacks inside America and Europe, anti-Muslim critics giddily pointed out that the very same reports warned of the threat of Islamist terrorism.  The data also showed that a disproportionately large minority of suspects arrested, detained, or wanted for terrorism-related offenses were Muslims.

This is not something I dispute.  In fact, this finding supports my main argument: the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, the United States government, and their European counterparts are wrongfully targeting the Muslim community.  The disparity between actual terrorist attacks committed by Muslims on the one hand and the number of Muslims arrested on the other speaks to this grave injustice, blatant discrimination, and misguided policy.

The 2010 Europol report notes:

Reported court decisions related to separatist and left-wing terrorism have the highest acquittal rate (15 %).

Guess who has the lowest acquittal rate?  If your name is Abdallah ibn Masood al-Tamimi, you don’t stand a chance.

Furthermore, the report goes on to say (emphasis is mine):

Suspected membership of a terrorist organisation and the financing of terrorism were the two most common reasons for arrests related to Islamist terrorism.

In fact:

The majority of arrests were made on suspicion of membership of a terrorist organisation.

In other words, the most common reasons Muslims were arrested were not for actually planning or carrying out terrorist attacks…not even for being suspected of that.  Rather, it was for suspected membership of a terrorist organization.  But, here’s the real gem:

As in 2008, two-thirds of the individuals arrested on suspicion of involvement in Islamist terrorism could not be linked to specific terrorist organisations known to the authorities.

So, let me get this straight: Muslims were arrested for suspected links to terrorist groups, except the authorities didn’t even know to which ones?  How much evidence could these authorities possibly have if they didn’t even know the names of the supposed groups that these Muslims were allegedly affiliated to were suspected to be affiliated to?

As for financing terrorism, we all know how that works: there is the famous case of the highly-esteemed Islamic intellectual Dr. Tariq Ramadan who donated money to two Palestinian charities between 1998 and 2002.  In 2003, the United States designated both of these charities as “terrorist fundraising organizations” for their alleged support of Hamas.  Dr. Ramadan did not give any more money to these charities  after that.  Even so, the United States government accused Tariq Ramadan of “providing material support to a terrorist organization.”  They argued that he “reasonably should have known” that the charities provided money to Hamas.  Ramadan naturally responded: “How should I reasonably have known of their activities before the U.S. government itself knew?”

The same situation happens with other Muslims, to the point where now Muslim communities are too scared to donate to Islamic charities or to charities located in their ancestral countries.  Even President Barack Obama seemed to appreciate this problem in a speech he gave in Cairo.

Muslims are arrested at a rate that does not correlate with the actual number of terrorist acts committed by Muslims simply because the majority of them are arrested not for actual, attempted, or even planned terrorist attacks.  Rather, they are arrested for “providing material support for terrorism”–the absolutest vaguest of charges, one that I suspect a future generation will be smart enough to prohibit by law.  Using such Gestapo style laws, Muslims can be arrested for mere suspicion of being part of an unknown terrorist organization, with little or no proof needed to levy such charges; alternatively, they can be arrested for “financing terrorism,” which often just means donating to charities that even the government hasn’t banned yet.  Other offenses for which Muslims are arrested for include producing “propaganda”, which here in the U.S. would be considered Constitutionally protected freedom of speech (but is now prosecuted due to the curtailing of freedoms of speech in the War on of Terror) or even for merely expressing unpopular political views.

*  *  *  *  *

Clearly, the data proves that Islamist terrorism is not a major threat to the United States or Europe.  Anyone who believes it to be an existential threat should be considered alarmist and even a bit insane.

We’ve all heard the oft-repeated saying of Islamophobes that “all Muslims might not be terrorists, but (almost) all terrorists are Muslims!”  Without any shadow of doubt, this mantra is patently false.  Not just that, but certainly in the case of Europe it’s completely reversed from reality: all Muslims aren’t terrorists, and almost no terrorist attacks are committed by them–less than 1%.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

Update I:

An anti-Muslim critic responded with the following snarky comment:

Perhaps ‘scale’ rather than ‘quantity’ is the real issue here?

Several others used a similar line of argumentation.  Therefore, I have responded in full here:  Europol Reports Zero Deaths from Islamic Terrorism in Europe.  The title of that article is self-explanatory.

Oslo Bombing Suspect Anders Behring Breivik

We’ve been screaming from the top of our lungs about how these crazed radical anti-Muslim Islamophobes are inciting violence through their hate-mongering. Anders Behring Breivak, arrested as a suspect in the attack has written glowingly of Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, SIOE, and the EDL. Charles Johnson of LGF reports that he had a link with Fjordman who was a guest writer on Geller’s blog.

Terrorism in Europe has been over linked to an Islamic Muslim threat, even though we reported on how exaggerated the claim was: Europol Report: All Muslims are Terrorists…Except the 99.6% that Aren’t.

What Just Happened in Oslo, Norway? (UPDATES)

(Mother-Jones)

This explainer is being updated as more news emerges. Click here for photos from the sceneand here for details about the man arrested in connection with the attacks. For the latest news updates, click here.

The basics: A massive explosion hit Norway’s government hub in central Oslo on Friday, killing at least seven people and injuring at least 15 others. The six-story building that was most heavily damaged included the oil ministry and is next to the building that houses the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. The PM was unharmed in the blast and is now operating out of an undisclosed location. Witness testimony and damage at the scene are consistent with reports of a car bombing. The New York Times reports:

Stunned office staff and civil servants working in the vicinity of the bombed building said two explosions could be heard in close succession. The sound of the blasts echoed across the city just before 3:30 p.m. local time. Giant clouds of light-colored smoke continued to rise hundreds of feet into the air over the city…

Photos and television footage showed windows blown out in the 17-story office building across the street from the oil ministry, and the street and plaza areas on each side were strewn with glass and debris.

The first person on the scene “described it as ‘worse than a war zone,’” says Joe Sivilli, who’s talking to Mother Jones‘ Tim McDonnell from on the ground in Oslo. Sivilli, who speaks Norwegian fluently, works at a home-brewed beer shop about 2 kilometers away from the site of the bombing. He says he felt a “rumble, like a small earthquake,” when the bomb went off, but assumed it was just “construction or something like that.” He’ll be monitoring the Norwegian-language media for us as this story develops.

Wasn’t there another attack? A gunman dressed as a policeman reportedly opened fire this afternoon at a Labour party youth camp on the island of Utoya, about 15 miles outside of Oslo, killing at least 80 people (police officials previously reported at least 10 casualties, but had expect that number to rise). Police have a suspect in custody. Prime Minister Stoltenberg was due to visit the camp tomorrow morning, according to NRK, Norway’s national public television broadcaster. (Stoltenberg has attended gatherings at the camp almost every year in recent memory.) On Friday evening, police found undetonated explosives on the island.

Close to 700 teenagers had gathered on Utoya, and initial reports suggested that some tried to flee by swimming. CBS News reports that Kurt Lier, Oslo’s assistant chief of police, “had little information about what had happened on the island, but said if people are leaving island swimming, it is a ‘long swim.’” Hans-Inge Langø, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), says the “timing and targets [of the attacks are] too similar for this not to be connected.” The AP reports that Norwegian police say the two events were definitely connected.

The Pamela Connection:

UPDATE 1, Saturday, July 23, 12:16 a.m. EDT: Blogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs is reporting that the Oslo bombing/shooting suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, posted often on a Norwegian anti-immigration site and recommended a post by the prominent anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller, who spearheaded the US drive against the planned “Ground Zero mosque.” (We’ve previously covered her activities here, here, here, here, and here.) LGF also asserts a link between Breivik and one of Geller’s guest bloggers, Fjordman.

Geller responded on her own website: “This is just a sinister attempt to tar all anti-jihadists with responsibility for this man’s heinous actions…this is war. And the left is vicious, amoral and depraved. They mean to win, and that is the only way they know how.”

UPDATE 2, Saturday, July 23, 11:06 a.m. EDT: Oddmy Estenstad, an employee of agricultural retailer Felleskjøpet, tells CNN that Utoya shooting suspect Anders Behring Breivik bought six tons of fertilizer from the company in May:

She did not think the order was strange at the time because the suspect has a farm, but after Friday’s explosion in Norway’s capital, Oslo, she called police because she knew the material can be used to make bombs.

“We are very shocked that this man was connected to our company,” said Estenstad. “We are very sad about what happened.”

UPDATE 3, Saturday, July 23, 11:09 a.m. EDT: According to the UK’s Daily Mirror, Anders Behring Breivik has been “preliminarily charged with acts of terrorism.” Norwegian police say the 32-year-old Breivik appears to be an extreme right-wing, Christian fundamentalist, due to postings on his website. NRK reports that the suspect is a member of an Oslo gun club, and “was exempted from military service, and thus…has no special education [from the Norwegian] Armed Forces.”

UPDATE 4, Saturday, July 23, 11:19 a.m. EDT: Norwegian media report on eyewitness accounts of the Utoya massacre. The Los Angeles Times also has the story:

Media reports say the gunman apparently used a handgun and a machine gun, and that police arrived at the island possibly 90 minutes after the shooting started. At midmorning Saturday, police were still searching the island for more bodies.  One wounded survivor, Adrian Pracon, described the gunman as “calm and controlled,” shooting people who tried to escape the island by swimming to the mainland…Pracon described his attempt to escape. “We started running down to the water and people had already undressed and started swimming.”

Pracon said he began swimming, but “after 150 meters … I realized I wouldn’t make it so I went back and saw him standing 10 meters from me shooting at the people who tried to swim over.”

From our Loonwatch Readers:

Dane Bargeld:

He has written a number of comments on norwegian website document.no:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.document.no/anders-behring-breivik/

He seems to be more intelligent than the average loon. His comments are reflective rather than emotional. He doesn’t seem crazier than the average loon. His last comment is from october 2010 though.

He’s expresses support for:

- The Vienna school of thought
- Political movements like Tea Party, PVV (Wilders), EDL and (norwegian) Progress Party
- Israel
- Christianity (he’s a protestant but dislikes modern day protestancism and suggest that christians should unite in the roman-catholic church)
- Countries like Japan and South Korea (for rejecting multiculturalism)

He dislikes:

- Islam
- Totalitarian ideologies
- Cultural marxism
- Multiculturalism

David:

According to Norwegian reports, the organization this CHRISTIAN TERRORIST belonged to tried to establish links with the English Defense League — another Lieblingsorganization von Frau Geller.

Myrpou:

The swedish site realisten.se claim that Anders Behring Breivik claimed to be THE Fjordman over a year ago, so they initially reported when they got his name that Fjordman was the terrorist. However Robert Spencer claims it isn’t Fjordman and an article on Gates of Vienna claims the same, however the former was a bit suspicious to me, they didn’t allow any comments on that particlar article and made it clear that “the discussion was over”. If they’re certain that this guy isn’t fjordman wouldn’t they be more willing to prove it?

Eslaporte:

Breivik has had many posts on the site Document.no, an Islam-critical site that publishes news and commentary…Anders Breivik Behring has also commented on the Swedish news articles, where he makes it clear that he believes the media have failed by not being “NOK” Islam-critical…

As far as the Dutch connection, we still don’t know the total details about the 2009 Queen’s Day Apeldoorn attack – which there were accusations that the ethnic Dutchman, Karst Tates, was a radical right nutjob. The Dutch police appeared to whitewash the report and there appear to be a sloppy investigation of Tates’ past year up to his terrorist attack on the Dutch Royals.

Last April, we had a shoppingmall shooting where the shooter was an unabashed PVV voter and hated foreigners also. Are we going to see the are whitewash by Dutch police?

How Islam Created the Modern World:

He was active in the kind of Huy buoy-like forums in the Netherlands as we know. He was active in SOORTS called Huy buoy-eight forums that even in Kenner Netherlands.

There is another link with the Netherlands. Ice is another link system nand Netherlands. Breivik is also a follower of Pamela Geller, an angry white woman who became famous thanks to the action against the otnmoetingscentrum five blocks from where the WTC once stood. Breivik is a follower of Pamela Geller, an Angry glossy women who shoveled name thanks to the Acti called otnmoetingscentrum Five block from where formerly called World Trade Center stood. Geller invited Geert Wilders and the two support each other. Geller invited Geert Wilders supports a two Elka. Breivnik how close to her is unclear (probably a follower, and no more).

How Hecht Breivnik ice with her was not clear (probably a Volga, a Not anymore). It seems that he wanted to act against the Muslims politically dangerous enough to play offered. It seems that HE is a DAAD Wild Couples against the dangerous politics against Muslims Few games offered.

Apparently, the norwegian far right Anders has also praised Geert Wilders PVV party as being the only true party.

‘Verdachte aanslag en schietpartij heeft sympathie voor PVV’
http://welingelichtekringen.nl/14368-schutter-heeft-sympathie-voor-pvv.html

Google translate from Dutch to English

‘Suspicious attack and shootings have sympathy for PVV’

Anders Breivik Behring, the man suspected of the bombing and the shooting on the island, according to Fox News Utoya sympathy for Geert Wilders. On a Swedish news site he would have said that the Freedom Party is the only “true” conservative party. The media were not critical enough towards Islam.

Wilders said in a statement on Saturday:
“I despise everything he stands for and everything he did.”

Look at the hypocricy, it’s stunning. What a reptilian farce, I mean can’t these muslim haters at least be loyal to one another? Anders at least is honest, but Geert Wilders is a smarmy liar, when he says he despises everything Anders stands for.
How can he say that, when he shares his goals and supports the PVV, is pro Zionist, supports the Israeli far right, anti Muslim,

Death toll at Oslo attacks rises to 92

http://www.ejpress.org/article/52233

Breivik wrote he was a backer of the “Vienna School of Thought,” which was against multiculturalism and the spread of Islam.

He also wrote he admired Geert Wilders, the populist anti-Islam Dutch politician, for following that school.

Wilders said in a statement on Saturday:
“I despise everything he stands for and everything he did.”

Norwegian:

The suspect is not, by all accounts, the blogger known as Fjordman. He is one of his followers in his preachings of class war. Fjordman is widely believed to be one of the two brothers Anfindsens, since part of OJ ANfindsens book about the necessity of the survival of the white race seems written by his brother and bears close resemblance to Fjordmans style of writing.

JD:

Ok so when this story first broke out Yahoo was reporting it as a muslim terrorist see link below ( picture is fuzzy because it a screen shot of whole page click on it to zoom in and you can read it)

http://justpaste.it/2030…

If you scroll down you love the comments

Grobpilot: Kill all muslims even the babies because they will eventually grow up and start killing you.

Bob: They rounded up japanese americans during ww2 and put them in basicly concentration camps in the desert
maybe thats what need done with the muslims till they are shipped out

Hakepeszip:When will civilized countries finally learn not to allow in Islamist in especially not if they are from any
of their garbage countrys

Another Article Few Hours Later ( keep in mind this is mid day we still dont know who what where when why )

http://justpaste.it/2031

People blamed by journalist Louise Nordstum and Matt Lee at AP were..
Al-Quida
Helpers of Global Jihad
Libya
People Pissed off at Mohammed Cartoons.

This lead to more wonderful comments which are at bottom of the pic you can read them

Uncle Remus: Welcome to the rest of the world norway see how far the muslim cancer has spread.

Thaddeus : Lets Hope if it is a white christian patriot then he took out plenty of left wong traitors
and some muzzie immigrants Europe must cleanse itself of third world immigrants
and left wingers Me and my mates are ready herer in England blah blah blah(+5 thumb up)

Norwegian national broadcaster NRK identified him as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik and said police searched his Oslo apartment overnight. NRK and other Norwegian media posted pictures of the blond, blue-eyed Norwegian.

“He is clear on the point that he wants to explain himself,” Roger Andresen told reporters Saturday.

National police chief Sveinung Sponheim told NRK that the suspected gunman’s Internet postings “suggest that he has some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views, but whether that was a motivation for the actual act remains to be seen.”

Andersen said the suspect posted on websites with Christian fundamentalist tendencies. He did not describe the websites in any more details.

George Carty:

Here’s an extra interesting piece of info: the island camp had hosted a pro-Palestinian rally the day before. I wonder if the gunman got his dates mixed up?

Salam:

He has written a 1400 page islamophobic book where he described in detail how the bombing/massacre would go down. I take back what I said about his ideology not being extreme. This is fucking insane. He used this as a publicity stunt to spread his propaganda. Oh wow.

You can download the book in English here: http://www.sharepdfbooks.com/3TZOU0V52W6B/2083_-_A_European_Declaration_of_Independence.pdf.html…

A quote from the book:
“7a. Apprehension
If you for some reason survive the operation you will be apprehended and arrested. This is the point where most heroic Knights would call it a day. However, this is not the case for a Justiciar Knight. Your arrest will mark the initiation of the propaganda phase.
7b. Your trial offers you a stage to the world”

When I thought this couldn’t get more surrealistic..

Damian:

This video calling for European Christians to take up arms against the Islam and the multicultural left seems to have been posted by Anders Breivik (here anglicised as “Andrew Berwick”) yesterday before he put his plans into action (please note: Youtube have removed original by Andrew Berwick, so this is a repost, which may also be moved):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mZ29eUVAxg

The video shows him holding a gun a the end. From the text of the video, it seems he is hoping to start a new Crusade, a civil war that will finally rid Europe of Islam once and for all.

His thinking on these issues is clearly influenced by Robert Spencer of “Jihad Watch”, who also calls for a new “Crusade” against Islam in his books. Much of what Breivik says in online comments comes straight out of Spencer’s thinking on these issues: e.g. that the leftists/multiculturalists are the greatest threat to Western civilisation, because they are facilitating the “Islamisation” of Europe:

http://translate.google.com/translate?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&rurl=translate.google.com&twu=1&u=http://www.document.no/anders-behring-breivik/

In these comments Breivik cites Spencer’s “Jihad Watch”, as well as Pamela Geller’s anti-Islam/anti-leftist hate-site “Atlas Shrugs”, as sites that all Europeans should read.

Europol releases an annual study of terrorism; the results do not support claims that "(nearly) all Muslims are terrorists"

Islamophobes have been popularizing the claim that “not all Muslims are terrorists, but (nearly) all terrorists are Muslims.”  Despite this idea becoming axiomatic in some circles, it is quite simply not factual.  In my previous article entitled “All Terrorists are Muslims…Except the 94% that Aren’t”, I used official FBI records to show that only 6% of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by Islamic extremists.  The remaining 94% were from other groups (42% from Latinos, 24% from extreme left wing groups, 7% from extremist Jews, 5% from communists, and 16% from all other groups).

But what about across the pond?  The data gathered by Europol strengthens my argument even further. (hat tip: Koppe)  Europol publishes an annual report entitled EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report.  On their official website, you can access the reports from 2007, 2008, and 2009.  (If anyone can find the reports from earlier than that, please let me know so we can include those as well.)

The results are stark, and prove decisively that not all terrorists are Muslims.  In fact, a whopping 99.6% of terrorist attacks in Europe were by non-Muslim groups; a good 84.8% of attacks were from separatist groups completely unrelated to Islam.  Leftist groups accounted for over sixteen times as much terrorism as radical Islamic groups.  Only a measly 0.4% of terrorist attacks from 2006 to 2008 could be attributed to extremist Muslims.

Here are the official tables provided in the reports…

For 2006:

For 2007:

For 2008:

(According to the report, there was 1 “Islamist attack” in the UK in 2008, which was omitted in the table above.  It has been included in the bar graph below.)

Just glancing at those tables is enough to know how absurd it is to claim that “all terrorists are Muslims.”  That statement is nowhere near the truth.  If we compile the data, it comes out to this:

On p.7, the 2009 Europol report concludes:

Islamist terrorism is still perceived as being the biggest threat worldwide, despite the fact that the EU only faced one Islamist terrorist attack in 2008.  This bomb attack took place in the UK…Separatist terrorism remains the terrorism area which affects the EU most. This includes Basque separatist terrorism in Spain and France, and Corsican terrorism in France…Past contacts between ETA and the FARC illustrate the fact that also separatist terrorist organizations seek cooperation partners outside the EU on the basis of common interests.  In the UK, dissident Irish republican groups, principally the RIRA and the CIRA, and other paramilitary groups may continue to engage in crime and violence.

Perception is not reality.  Due to the right wing’s influence and propaganda, people mistakenly think that Islamic terrorism is the greatest threat to the Western world.  It is even a commonly held belief that Islamic terrorism poses an existential threat–that the very survival of the Western world is at stake.  Of course, the reality is that there are other groups that engage in terrorism on a much larger scale, yet these terrorist incidents are minimized.  Acts of terrorism committed by Muslims are purposefully sensationalized and focused upon, culminating in the idea that “(nearly) all terrorists are Muslims.”

Terrorism from Islamic extremists is certainly a cause for concern, but it need not be an issue that creates mass hysteria.  Nor should it be allowed to be such a critical issue that we are willing to sacrifice our ideals or civil rights for fear of it.  Neither should we be reduced to a status of absolute sissitude.  We have analyzed data from America and Europe (a good portion of the entire Western world), and the threat from Islamic terrorism is much more minimal than commonly assumed; in the U.S., it accounts for 6% of terrorist attacks, and in Europe not even half of a percent.

It is only through sensationalism and fear mongering that the topic of Islamic terrorism is allowed to be used to demonize a religious community that happens to be a minority in the West.  When confronted by such lunacy, we ought to respond with the facts and the truth.

In a future article, we shall analyze the data for terrorism on the world stage in order to further strengthen our argument…

French Immigration Minister, Eric Besson

What is going on in Europe? Some have postulated that Europe is going through an identity crisis that challenges the core universal values that it trumpets, while others like the more conservative populists warn of a transformation of Europe at the hands of barbaric Muslim hordes remaking Europe into a Eurabia.

The dialogue has gotten heated, and we have seen a rise in neo-fascist and Euro-supremacist groups who are leading Europe into a dangerous direction of greater Islamophobia. This dialogue has a way of polluting reality which then effects mainstream parties who see this rise in anti-Muslim sentiment and for political gain drop their universal values and resort to cheap populist rhetoric.

At the same time that Muslims across Europe are integrated into their countries and identify with their nations to a greater extent than their fellow citizens, it seems their fellow citizens view them increasingly with suspicion (with the exception of Britain). This has lead to initiatives that are truly shocking to anyone who believes in Democracy, such as the recent ban on minarets in Switzerland which has echoed across Europe, from Italy to Denmark with parties such as the Northern League and Geert Wilders saying they will follow suit.

Recently France has been the scene of some of the most strident Islamophobia, and moves that from the perspective of an outsider smack of an attack on Democracy. We have heard of the desecration’s of Mosques and Muslim graves, but this has all happened in light of statements like this from French junior minister Nadine Morano,

In one of the many local debates scheduled to be held as part of the nationwide discussion on what it means to be French, the junior minister for families, Nadine Morano, suggested Tuesday to a young Muslim that he should change his behaviour. “What I want of a young Muslim is that he loves France when he lives here, finds work and does not speak in slang. And that he doesn’t wear his cap back to front.”

This discussion follows an earlier discussion around the niqab, or full face veil that a small minority of Muslim women wear in France. If you recall, Nicholas Sarkozy inaugurated the first presidential address to France’s parliament in decades with a call to ban the niqab.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party, the UMP, says it will push for a law banning the full-face Islamic veil, according to its parliamentary leader Jean-François Copé.

“The issue is not how many women wear the burqa,” Copé wrote in an article in the right-wing newspaper Le Figaro. “There are principles at stake: extremists are putting the republic to the test by promoting a practice that they know is contrary to the basic principles of our country.”

It seems the principles of the French Republic do not include women choosing to wear what they want. Banning the niqab is not enough, just yesterday the French Immigration minister Eric Besson said that he wants to make it law that women who wear the face veil be denied citizenship and residency cards.

France’s immigration minister said Wednesday that he wants the wearing of Muslim veils that cover the face and body to be grounds for denying citizenship and long-term residence.

Eric Besson said he planned to take “concrete measures” regarding such veils, which are worn by a small minority of women in France but have become the object of a parliamentary inquiry into whether a ban should be imposed. Besson spoke during a hearing before the panel of lawmakers as their nearly six-month inquiry draws to a close.

Besson said he believed a formal ban on veils that cover the face and body seemed to him “unavoidable,” with a ban in public services as a minimum step. Whether such veils are banned or not, he said he intends to personally move forward to ensure that women wearing such veils and seeking French nationality or residence cards are denied.

“I want the wearing of the full veil to be systematically considered as proof of insufficient integration into French society, creating an obstacle to gaining (French) nationality,” he said. He said he would advise prefects, the highest state representative in the various French regions, that the wearing of such veils is a motive for not delivering 10-year residence cards.

Besson said he was prepared to put the measures before parliament to make them law. In November, Besson ordered a nationwide debate on the French identity, to conclude by the end of January with possible measures.

This raises a whole number of questions: what about those French women who were born in France, whether descended from immigrants or indigenous who have taken up the veil, will they have their citizenship revoked? What if a woman immigrated to France but didn’t wear a veil but decided to wear one since, will she be denied citizenship?

These anti-Democratic measures have opened a pandora’s box of bigotry and racism that is leading Europe into an essentialized discourse that doesn’t bode very well for the future, as one French Law maker said, “This brings back the ethnic vision of the nation, the one that took place at (the pro-Nazi puppet government of) Vichy.”