To Reiterate the Point

The first images of the destruction in Oslo's city centre Friday were reminiscent of New York City's, Madrid's and London's encounters with jihadist terrorism. But Oslo also looked eerily like Oklahoma City in 1995. And as the news trickled in that the terrorist attack was the work of Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian rightwing extremist, Americans had rapidly to re-evaluate their comfortable post 9/11 belief that only swarthy jihadists engage in terrorist atrocities. The ghost of Osama bin Laden quickly morphed into the visage of Timothy McVeigh.

No religion, ideology, race or ethnicity has a monopoly on political violence. Despite this truism, many Americans and US media outlets continue to conflate Islam with terrorism – a fact many media critics documented during the clumsy breaking coverage of Breivik's attack. This may seem understandable as we Americans face the anniversary of 11 September 2001 in little more than a month. Homegrown and overseas jihadists certainly present a clear and present danger to the United States, but they are by no means the only threat or, arguably, the most dangerous. Indeed, the US has come face to face with many potential Breiviks before – fortunately, few as bloodily effective as this terrorist.

Since 9/11, there have been at least five incidents where American extremists possessed or sought to obtain chemical, biological or radiological materials, according to the post 9/11 database compiled by the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Of these five, three cases involved white males holding white supremacist and extreme anti-government beliefs. None, however, was jihadists. Incidents such as these show that it isn't only al-Qaida and its fellow travellers who want to make a spectacle of indiscriminate slaughter. Yet, past incidents like the shooting at the Holocaust museum; the murder of abortion doctor Dr George Tiller; Joseph Stack's suicide attack on the IRS building in Austin, Texas; and a neo-Nazi's disrupted attack on a Martin Luther King Day Parade in Spokane, Washington; all highlight the US media's blind spot to terrorist acts and plots not perpetrated by Muslims. Rarely are they described as what they are: rightwing terrorists.
~ from Norway's Corrective to Our Post 9/11 Terror Myth by Matthew Harwood ~

There are radical leftists -- people on my side of the aisle -- who advocate violent revolution. If one or more of them carries out some heinous act to further their political beliefs, you can rest assured that I will condemn them as much as anyone else. As Harwood aptly points out, violence and hate are spewed across the political spectrum. For me, it makes no difference what your political or philosophical beliefs are -- if you set out to terrorize and kill others, you are an immoral SOB!!