STATISTICAL INFORMATION ABOUT DOMESTIC TERRORISM IN USA

The threat of Islamic extremism and terrorism was one of the most important themes during Donald Trump's presidential campaign. After becoming the president, he has banned foreign nationals from six predominantly Muslim countries from entering USA. Several wealthier Muslim-majority countries, where the Trump Organization has business interests, are not on the list. President Trump claimed that
the temporary ban is needed in order to avoid terrorist attacks. Some critics have argued that the ban is just a backdoor way to bar Muslims from entering USA (1).

What seems to have been overlooked is right-wing extremist terrorism. 
The Investigative Fund and Reveal have compiled a database of nine years of domestic terrorism incidents in USA (2). The database gives very interesting statistical information about the domestic terrorism in USA.

DOMESTIC TERRORISM INCIDENTS IN USA     

January 2008 – End of December 2016

Type of domestic terrorism	Number of incidents	Foiled plots* (% of total)	Number of fatalities
Islamic extremist	63	76 %	90
Right-wing extremist	115	35 %	79
Left-wing extremist**	19	-	7

* foiled plots = no attack took place    ** including ecoterrorism and animal rights

Source of the data: The Investigative Fund

During January 2008 - end of December 2016 there were 63 Islamist terrorism cases. Vast majority (76 %) of these cases were foiled plots, i.e. no attack actually took place. 48 % of these cases were sting operations. 13 % of Islamist terrorism cases caused fatalities. However, the total number of fatalities was greater.

According to the database, there were nearly twice as many (115) right-wing extremist terrorism incidents. Only 35 % of these cases were foiled plots and only 
12 % were sting operations. The right-wing extremist terrorism was often more deadly - nearly 1/3 of these incidents caused fatalities.

Left-wing extremist terrorist incidents were comparatively rare. Only 10.5 % of these cases were sting operations.

Before President Trump signed the ban regarding the six predominantly Muslim countries, he claimed that vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offences since 9/11 came from outside USA. According to 
the database, only 13 % of perpetrators or alleged perpetrators were foreign born and only 1 % of them came from the countries that are on Trump's list. 
The Department of Homeland Security analysis came to the same conclusion - it stated that citizens of nations named in the ban are "rarely implicated in U.S.-based terrorism." (2)


SOURCES:

1) Samuel Osborne: "Muslim-majority countries where Donald Trump does business not included in travel ban" The Independent  27.6.2017
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-travel-ban-muslim-majority-countries-business-organisation-syria-iran-yemen-islamic-a7810711.html

2) David Neiwert: "Home is where the hate is. Trump’s fixation on demonizing Islam hides true homegrown US terror threat" Reveal  21.6.2017
https://www.revealnews.org/article/home-is-where-the-hate-is/

STRATFOR FOUNDER GEORGE FRIEDMAN'S THOUGHTS ABOUT U.S. GEOPOLITICAL STRATEGIES

I came across some quite interesting thoughts from George Friedman, the founder and former CEO of Stratfor which has been referred to as "the Shadow CIA" by Barron's (1). Mr. Friedman expressed his views during a discussion on the emerging crisis in Europe - the discussion took place during spring 2015 (2). 

Among many things, Mr. Friedman spoke about the USA as a superpower and "empire":

"The United States has a fundamental interest, it controls all the oceans of the world, no power has ever done that. Because of that, we get to invade people and they don’t get to invade us, that is a very nice thing. Maintaining control of the sea and control of space is the foundation of our power. The best way to defeat an enemy fleet is to not let it be built."

"...empires that are directly governed by the empire like the Nazi Empire failed. No one has that much power. You have to have a level of cleverness. However, our problem is not yet that, it is actually admitting that we have an empire."

When asked, if Islamic extremism is really the major threat to the United States, 
Mr. Friedman answered:

"It is a problem to the United States, it is not an existential threat. It has to be dealt with, but it has to be dealt with proportionately. We have other foreign policy interests. So, the primordial interest of the United States over which for centuries we have fought wars, the first, second and cold war has been the relationship between Germany and Russia. Because united they are the only force that could threaten us, and to make sure that that doesn’t happen."

Later on, Mr. Friedman continued on this subject:

"For the United States, the primordial fear is Russian capital, Russian technology, 
I mean German technology and German capital, Russian natural resources and Russian manpower as the only combination that has for centuries scared the hell out of the United States."

Sources:

1) International Business Times (26.2.2012):
http://www.ibtimes.com/wikileaks-reveal-e-mails-inside-private-shadow-cia-416500

2) Uaposition.com (5.4.2015):
http://uaposition.com/stratfor-founder-and-ceo-george-friedman-about-europe-ukraine-and-us-military-power/