Y2K Terrorism Scare Was Unjustified

by Randolph T. Holhut

Suspicious looking Arabic folks detained at the border or hustled out of their homes by the FBI. Security was tightened everywhere around the nation, and again we heard the American media and government promoting anti-Muslim hysteria under the guise of vigilance against terrorism?

But here's a question for you. How many Americans were killed abroad by anti-American terrorists since 1993? According to the State Department: A grand total of 62, and that's far fewer than the previous 10 years.

So, were all the recent warnings about the threat of terrorism a reasonable reaction by the U.S. government to a real and present danger, or the usual anti-Arab hysteria? An interesting piece called "The Truth About Terrorism" by Ali Abunimah of the University of Chicago blows a lot of holes into the convention wisdom about the subject.

Abunimah took a look at the United States Government's own data about terrorism, and found that the events of the past few weeks were "a completely unjustified overreaction which puts at risk all of our civil liberties and freedoms, but especially those of Arab and Muslim Americans who are despite all the lessons of Oklahoma City, TWA 800 and other incidents, still the first to fall under suspicion and to be victimized by repressive measures such as the use of secret evidence and passenger profiling."

He took a look at the State Department's most recent annual report on the subject, "Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1998."

The report deals with events that the State Department defines as international terrorist incidents, and excludes domestic terrorism by purely U.S.-based groups, such as anti-abortion groups. The report found that has been a significant and consistent downward trend in international terrorist incidents in the period 1979-1998. In 1998, number of international terrorist incidents, at 273, was the lowest ever in the period, and the annual number has shown a consistent downward trend since it reached a peak of 666 in 1987.

Of all the international terrorist incidents of recent years, the vast majority aren't related to the Middle East or Muslim "extremists." Since 1995, Latin America has consistently had the highest annual number of international terrorist incidents of any region, followed by Western Europe. In 1998 there were 110 attacks in Latin America, 48 in Western Europe and 31 in the Middle East. There were 21 in Africa and zero in North America.

According to the State Department, the incidents in Latin America are primarily connected to conflicts in Colombia and Peru, while the vast majority of incidents in Europe are attributable to Basque separatists in Spain, the conflict in Northern Ireland, the Kurdish movement in Turkey and various anarchist groups in Greece. Middle East or "Islamic" terrorism was not a significant factor in either region.

Of the attacks against U.S. targets, 80 percent occur in Latin America. In 1998, there was a total of 111 anti-U.S. attacks. Eighty seven were in Latin America, 13 in Western Europe, 5 in the Middle East and 3 each in Africa and Eurasia. The most common target of terrorists are businesses. Attacks on diplomats, military or government installations are relatively rare. The total number of American fatalities from these attacks in 1998 was 12, all related to the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

As for Middle East terrorism, there's been less of due to the various broad-based peace processes that were started in the 1990s. The State Department report acknowledges that the downward trend in terrorism "reflects the improved political climate that has diminished terrorist activity in recent years in various parts of the world."

Abunimah concludes that there is "a complete disparity between the facts about international terrorism as presented by the government on the one hand, and the media, official and popular response to the issue on the other. There is no objective connection between the frequency of terrorist attacks originating from and occurring in the Middle East, and the amount of attention that such attacks receive."

We've heard President Clinton and other government officials frequently talk about terrorism as one of the greatest threats facing the world. But they appear to be ignoring their own objective information and are continuing to foster the climate of blame and speculation about the Middle East as the world's principal purveyor of violence. Doing so continues to hurt and marginalize Arab and Muslim citizens of the United States, and to distort public perceptions about the Middle East.