Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford of Arizona was shot and killed this morning at a constituent event at a Safeway grocery store. A man walked up, pulled a guy and shot her point blank in the head. He then turned and fired indiscriminately into the crowd, killing, according to NPR, 6 other people and wounding another 6. A Gifford staffer tackled him and, along with bystanders, wrestled him to the ground. He’s been arrested.
This is almost certainly going to turn out to be the work of a right wing, American terrorist furious that Gifford had the audacity to question Petreus about the military using green energy. But it won’t be covered as the inevitable fruit of right wing rhetoric. Instead, we’ll hear about the “radicals” with no mention of the fact that it only the right which is killing people right now.
I thought it was a good time to repost my blog from June 1st of 2009 about how many Americans were killed by right wing terrorists here in the US in the 90s. In fact, almost twice as many were killed by the right. But you won’t hear that anywhere on network news – that’s one more truth that can never be told.
Yesterday morning witnessed the first terrorist attack against an American on American soil of a new administration. During the last Democratic administration, we saw a rising number of terrorist attacks unleashed by the American right against their fellow citizens Indeed, almost twice as many Americans were killed by right wing American terrorists as were killed by foreign terrorists.
So, let’s tote the numbers up. I’ve assembled the list of American deaths from foreign terrorism from the State Department’s Global Patterns in Terrorism released yearly.
1993:
Six Americans dead in the WTC attack. Those were the only American deaths from terrorism that year.
1994:
Four Americans were killed in terrorist attacks during 1994. Corporal Nachshon Wachsman, mentioned previously, held dual Israeli and American citizenship. Three other Americans died in an apparent suicide bombing of a Panamanian commuter aircraft in July that killed all 21 persons aboard.
1995
Twelve US citizens were killed in international terrorist attacks last year. In addition to the two US Consulate employees killed in Karachi, the two missionaries killed in Colombia, and the five citizens killed in Riyadh, a US tourist was murdered in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge, a US citizen was killed in a suicide attack on an Israeli bus in Gaza, and another died in a similar attack on a bus in Jerusalem.
1996:
Twenty-four US citizens died in international terrorist attacks last year, more than twice the number that died in 1995. Nineteen were killed in the 25 June truck bombing of the US military housing facility near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. This was the highest number of US citizens killed in a single act of international terrorism since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103, in which 189 US citizens died. Five US citizens died in bus bombings and drive-by shootings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
1997:
During 1997 there were 304 acts of international terrorism, eight more than occurred during 1996, but one of the lowest annual totals recorded since 1971. The number of casualties remained large but did not approach the high levels recorded during 1996. In 1997, 221 persons died and 693 were wounded in international terrorist attacks as compared to 314 dead and 2,912 wounded in 1996. Seven US citizens died and 21 were wounded in 1997, as compared with 23 dead and 510 wounded the previous year.
On 12 November: four US citizens, employees of Union Texas Petroleum, and their Pakistani driver were shot and killed when the vehicle in which they were riding was attacked 1 mile from the US Consulate in Karachi.
On 30 July: two suicide bombers attacked a market in Jerusalem. Sixteen persons–including a US citizen–were killed, and 178 were wounded.
On 4 September:
* Three suicide bombers attacked a pedestrian mall in central Jerusalem, killing seven persons–including a 14-year-old US citizen–and injuring nearly 200 persons.
* Frank Pescatore, a US geologist and mining consultant working in Colombia, was kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in December 1996 and later killed by his captors; his body was discovered 23 February 1997.
1998:
Twelve US citizens died in terrorist attacks last year, all in the Nairobi bombing
1999:
The number of persons killed or wounded in international terrorist attacks during 1999 fell sharply because of the absence of any attack causing mass casualties. In 1999, 233 persons were killed and 706 were wounded, as compared with 741 persons killed and 5,952 wounded in 1998.
Five U.S. citizens died in these attacks:
* The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) kidnapped three U.S. citizens working with the U’Wa Indians in Northeastern Colombia on 25 February. Their bodies were found on 4 March and were identified as Terence Freitas, Ingrid Washinawatok, and Lahe’ena’e Gay.
* A group of Rwandan Hutu rebels from the Interahamwe in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda kidnapped and then killed two U.S. citizens, Susan Miller and Robert Haubner, on 1 March.
2000:
Nineteen US citizens were killed in acts of international terrorism in 2000. Seventeen were sailors who died in the attack against the USS Cole on 12 October in the Yemeni port of Aden. * Carlos Caceres was one of three aid workers murdered when a militia-led mob in Atambua, West Timor, attacked a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees aid office on 6 September.
* Kurt Erich Schork was one of two journalists killed when rebels in Sierra Leone shot down a UN helicopter on 25 May.
That’s 89 deaths that the American government recognized as being the result of foreign terrorism. Now, let’s look at the home front:
1993:
* Michael Griffin kills Dr. David Gunn outside his clinic in Pensacola, Florida.
* In addition, Dr. George Tiller was shot outside his clinic in Kansas by Rochelle Shannon, though he survived.
7/1994:
* Dr. John Britton and escort James Barrett are murdered outside Britton’s clinic also in Pensacola, Florida.
12/1994:
* John Salvi kills employees Shannon Lowney and Leeanne Nichols at clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts. Five others are inured as well.
1995:
* Timothy McVeigh murders 168 Americans who work at the Murrow Building in Oklahoma City.
1996:
* Eric Rudolph plats a 40 pound pipe bomb and kills Alice Hawthorne at Olympic Park. 111 other people are injured as well.
1998:
* Eric Rudolf kills clinic guard Robert Sanderson at an early morning clinic bombing in Birmingham, Alabama.
1998:
* Terrorist James Kopp kills Dr. Bernard Slepian at his home in New York. In the aftermath of Slepian’s murder, Flip Benham of Operation Rescur called the cries for non-violance “pitiful” and said, “we are in store for more bloodshed in the streets—the likes of which will sicken even the sturdiest among us.”
One hundred and seventy six murders were committed by the American right to the eighty-nine committed by foreign terrorists. The DHS has warned us recently to be prepared for more right violence. I didn’t think it would come so quickly.
On update: It appears that Giffords may still be in surgery but the death of an aide has been confirmed
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