Homegrown Failure: Why the Domestic Terror Threat Is Overblown | Benjamin H. Friedman | Cato Institute: Commentary

Homegrown Failure: Why the Domestic Terror Threat Is Overblown | Benjamin H. Friedman | Cato Institute: Commentary: " there is far less homegrown terrorism today than in the 1970s, when the Weather Underground, the Jewish Defense League, anti-Castro Cuban exile groups, and the Puerto Rican Nationalists of the FALN were setting off bombs on U.S. soil.

There was an increase in homegrown terrorism arrests in the late 2000s, with the decade's high coming in 2009. That year saw the decade's deadliest act of homegrown terrorism when Nidal Hasan killed thirteen people at Ft. Hood. Homegrown terrorism has declined since. According a report published earlier this year by Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina, arrests of homegrown terrorists fell from 47 in 2009 to 20 in 2011. No more successful plots have occurred."

"a sizeable minority of those arrested for terrorism in the late 2000s were U.S. nationals trying to help the al-Shabaab group in Somalia, either by recruiting, fundraising or joining its ranks. That counts as terrorism because the U.S. government categorizes al-Shabaab as a terrorist organisation and criminalises support for it. But it is an insurgent organisation chiefly interested in Somalia politics that has not attempted terrorism in the United States."

"Ferdaus had no accomplices, aside from those provided by the FBI, no money for the planes, other than what the FBI loaned him, and no explosives, beyond the fake sort that the FBI provides."

"By supporting the murder of most people, including most Muslims, al Qaeda ensures that it remains wildly unpopular in most places. Their ideology is especially noxious to those living in coherent, liberal societies like the United States. Americans drawn to al Qaeda are likely to be a troubled and disaffected lot, lacking traits that most organisations value in recruits."