Shame, shame Seamus: selectively slanting statistics....

Summary:

• Seamus Milne in The Guardian selectively quotes Europol figures to downplay the Islamist terrorist threat and to suggest that Right-wing terrorism is a greater threat than Islamist.
• He uses old Europol figures (2008), quoted from secondary sources.  He ignores figures showing both Left-wing and Islamist terrorism at higher levels than Right-wing terrorism
• Europol’s latest report (2011) shows that its primary concern is Islamist, because they are aimed at “indiscriminate mass casualties”, whereas Separatist terrorism is aimed at property.
• An alternate headline: "93% of non-local terrorism is Islamist or Left-wing". [2008-11]

Detail:

Seamus Milne’s article of 28^th July, headlined “In his rage against Muslims, Norway’s killer is no loner” leads me instead to this conclusion: “In his rage against critics of Islam, Seamus Milne distorts the truth”.

Here I focus on Milne’s citation of a Europol study: [PS, 7 July: critique of the whole article here].

…as Europol figures demonstrate, the overwhelming majority of terror attacks in Europe in recent years have been carried out by non-Muslims.

Milne’s link to the Europol figures is via a secondary source: an article in Al-Jazeera by Robert Lambert.  Now, I confess to watching Al-Jazeera TV when I’m at the gym.  And they’re not at all all bad. Their coverage of the Arab uprisings was rather more thorough than that of international news cable channels. 

But Al Jazeera can hardly be considered to be a staunchly objective and disinterested observer on this issue can they?

The Europol figures quoted by Al Jazeera, and thence by Milne, are from the 2008 Report.  Why is this?  Two clicks on Google, and I find that there’s a 2011 Report.  Why not reference the latest Report?  Perhaps because it’s far more critical of Islamist terrorism (see below). 

In context, it appears that Milne has not read even the 2008 Report (he’s a busy young man, no doubt), and that he’s taken the easy road by quoting Al Jazeera instead.  But to my mind, that’s sloppy and lazy. 

The Al-Jazeera article says:

According to Europol, in 2006, one out of 498 documented terrorist attacks across Europe could be classed as "Islamist"; in 2007, the figure rose to just four out of 583 - less than one per cent of the total. By contrast, 517 attacks across the continent were claimed by - or attributed to - nationalist or separatist terrorist groups, such as ETA in Spain.

I checked the 2008 report and indeed it’s true.  There were just four documented terrorist attacks in 2007, which were Islamist.  But almost all the rest – as the article itself notes – were Nationalist-Separatist, almost all by ETA and Corsican-related groups. 

Clearly the separatist incidents swamp the overall figures.  Their actions are specific to land claims. They do not form an existential threat to the body politic as do the Islamist, Left and Right-wing movements. 

Moreover, as the 2008 Report says:

“… the vast majority of [separatist] attacks were arson attacks aimed at causing material damage.” [my emphasis]. 

Two persons were killed by all 517 attacks, both of them police.  (2008, p10). By contrast, the Islamist attacks were

“…mainly aimed at causing indiscriminate mass casualties” (2008, p10. My emphasis).

It seems to me that there’s a fundamental difference between:

(i)            attacks on property, with a clearly defined land-based aims (ETA) and

(ii)          attacks aimed at innocent civilians in the pursuit of a global caliphate, or the imposition of Islamic law in the west (Islamist).

It would be rather more relevant, therefore, to look at the figures “ex-Separatist”, to compare more directly the Islamist, Left-wing and Right-wing attacks, movements which share a commonality: they are a form of non-Christian Millenarianism, but on shorter timescale than 1,000 years. (Centenarians? Decadarians? Shariatomorrowarian?). 

Moreover, the ex-separatist analysis is germane given that Milne and Al Jazeera concerns are to seek to prove Right-wing terrorist actions to be a greater threat than Islamist (Left-wing attacks are not mentioned by either).

The Report in toto does not support Milne or Al Jazeera’s assertions.

Figure 2 on p10: “Number of failed, foiled and successfully executed attacks”.  4 were Islamist, 21 were Left-wing and 1 Right-wing.

Figure 3, p10: “Number of arrested suspects in 2007”.  There were 201 Islamist, 48 Left-wing and 44 Right-wing. 

Figure 6 on p13 : “Number of verdicts for terrorism charges”.  They are: 198 Islamist, 27 Left-wing and 1 Right-wing.

Taking these together, the figures for Islamist and Left-wing attacks and arrests dwarf those for Right-wing.

Yet neither Milne nor Lambert mentions the Left-wing attacks, nor the fact that taken in toto, the figures implicate Islamist somewhat more than the Left and far more than the Right.

And what about the 2011 Report?

 “The threat of attacks by Islamist terrorists in the EU remains high and diverse” (2011; “Key Judgements”. Emphasis in the original)

 “Individuals with terrorist aims could easily enter Europe amongst the large number of immigrants. “[ibid, p6].  But of course any concern about immigration would be "bigoted" and "xenophobic" to the likes of Milne.

“The vast majority of these threat statements had an Islamist terrorist background”. [ibid p 10].

 “Although most of these [threat] statements are not direct indicators of future attacks, they may serve as a motivating factor for home-grown terrorists or diaspora groups to engage in terrorist activities”. [p10]

While the Islamist attacks in 2010 caused minimal damage to intended targets, “… at least two of these attacks could have caused mass casualties and multiple fatalities”.  [my emphasis]. That they did not do so was only our dumb luck: the would-be mass murderers had a “… lack of familiarity with explosives”. [ibid p15]

Annex 2, p36: “Number of failed, foiled and completed attacks, 2010”: Islamist 3, Left-wing: 45, Right-wing: 0.

Annex 3, P37: “Arrests in 2010” 2010: Islamist 179, Left-wing 34, Right-wing 1. 

Annex 4, p38: “Convictions in 2010”: Islamist 84, Left-wing 37, Right-wing 4

Add in figures from 2009 and 2010 to give total 2008-2011:

The summary of these is below, using all the figures from Europol that are compatible and can be compared across years:

	ISLAMIST	LEFT WING	RIGHT WING
2008
FFC*	4	21	1
ARRESTS	201	48	44
2009
FFC	0	28	0
ARRESTS	187	68	0
2010
FFC	1	40	4
ARRESTS	110	29	22
2011
FFC	3	45	0
ARRESTS	179	34	1
TOTAL	685	313	72
%	64%	29%	7%

*FFC = "failed, foiled, completed attacks".

In other words, of terrorist attacks, or arrests of those in committed by quasi-Millenarian movements, Islamist were the majority and Islamist and Left-wing accounted for 93% of the total.

Given the numbers of killed by all of these movements, including in bad years such as 7/7 in 2005 for the UK and 2004 in Spain, it is not the killing, shocking as it is, that is an existential threat.  Citizens of the EU are more likely to be killed by a bee than by a terrorist bomb, whether Islamist, Left or Right-wing, including the murderous nutter Breivik.

The bigger threat is from movements that seek to destabilise societies to install revolutionary governments on their own visions. Of these, most coherent, aggressive and yet the bleakest is the Islamist one. A careful reading --- indeed even a cursory reading -- of the core Islamic primary texts puts this judgement beyond dispute, whatever the bleatings of Milne and his ilk.

There are manifold avenues that they pursue their aims in the west apart from violence: Sharia courts in the UK, pressure on courts in Germany to mitigate spousal violence as being part of religious-cultural freedom; nearly 1,000 areas in France which are considered “off limits” to local law enforcement, and run by local Muslim councils, use of public schools as mosques in Toronto (when they don't allow the Lord's prayer), and so on.  The list is virtually endless. It is these that are existential, clearly focussed, explicitly espoused threats to the west.

For the likes of Milne to smear these concerns as “racism” is not just slander.  It’s also dangerous as it tries to shut down any discussion of them and what it is that’s raising the concerns: vibrant, pressing Islam.
"In his rage against critics of Islam, Seamus Milne kills freedom of speech"....

Key documents:

• EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report [TE-SAT 2008], Europol, 2008.  PDF.
• EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report [TE-SAT 2011], Europol, 2011.  PDF.

Europol is the European Police Office. The figures on terrorism are drawn from European police forces and Interpol.  “… it can generally be stated that the data contributed by the Member States for 2010 was of high quality” [2011, p 40]