Its a shame when people have to compare two evils. We’ve seen the fights that break out when people compare genocides with each other (eg “which was ‘worse’: Armenian or Rwandan?”) or things like the Holocaust and slavery, or even rape vs. murder.
Unfortunately, with Islamist extremism at the fore, this is occurring again. I see it here on a daily basis; things like “RW terrorism is worse or a bigger threat than Islamist terrorism,” and even worse, some try to play down the threat from evil jihad by comparing body counts from after September 11, 2001 (because once you add 3000 people [and in a span of a few hours], the comparison looks pretty damn out of touch).
Another big problem with some, who try to claim that all Islamist terror emanates from the Iraq War is that jihadist attacks have been going on since before September 11 and after September 11. Let’s not forget the foiled Millennium Plot, which could’ve killed thousands in one blow.
Our government spends $16 billion on counterterrorism per year to stop jihadist attacks and has spent hundreds of billions on it since September 11. Governments across the globe are doing this. No, they are not spending that kind of money on other forms of terrorism or extremisms expressly inspired by religions aside from Islam. Nor are they international and domestic threats as jihadism is.
Another problem with comparing raw death tolls is that with the dollars (and thus hours of labor by thousands of people) in mind, the jihadist attacks foiled since 9/11 had potential death tolls (and those are only foiled plots made public) that would’ve been staggering.
Polls have shown that Americans are more worried about terrorism than in recent times. There is no doubt that jihadism and RW extremism both result in what are indisputably acts of terrorism. I am in no way downplaying RW terrorism. Progressives should not downplay Islamist Jihadism, or we risk being out of touch with both reality and the people at large. Candidates for Congress (both houses) who do so as well risk putting the GOP in power.