CNN's National Security Analyst: 'U.S. Right Wing Extremists More Deadly Than Jihadists

Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst, and David Sterman, a research assistant at the New America Foundation, published an opinion piece on CNN Monday with the title: "U.S. right wing extremists more deadly than jihadists."

It asserts: "Since 9/11 extremists affiliated with a variety of far-right wing ideologies, including white supremacists, anti-abortion extremists and anti-government militants, have killed more people in the United States than have extremists motivated by al Qaeda's ideology. According to a count by the New America Foundation, right wing extremists have killed 34 people in the United States for political reasons since 9/11. (The total includes the latest shootings in Kansas, which are being classified as a hate crime)."

Peter Bergen (Photo: CNN)

Terrorists motivated by al Qaeda's ideology, the article goes on to say, have killed 23 people in the United States since 9/11.

The article only mentions victims of left-wing violence in parentheses, saying: "(Although a variety of left wing militants and environmental extremists have carried out violent attacks for political reasons against property and individuals since 9/11, none have been linked to a lethal attack, according to research by the New America Foundation.)"

For those unfamiliar, the New America Foundation describes itself as a "nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States." The board of directors is chaired by Google's Eric Schmidt, and includes CNN's Fareed Zakaria and Johnathan Soros, the son of billionaire activist George Soros.

The article highlights instances where "right wing extremists" have committed deadly crimes, before lamenting the "flawed division in the public's mind between killing that is purportedly committed in the name of Allah and killing that is committed for other political ends..."

"Today in the United States, al Qaeda-type terrorism is the province of individuals with no real connection to foreign terrorists, aside from reading their propaganda online," the CNN piece concludes. "Given this, it becomes harder to explain, in terms of American national security, why violence by homegrown right wing extremists receives substantially less attention than does violence by homegrown jihadist militants."

Within a day of being published, the article had over 7,000 comments, many questioning why the media has consistently attempted to assign political motivations to lunatics. Others were curious why white supremacists are considered right wing extremists, since slavery was abolished under Republican President Abraham Lincoln and the Ku Klux Klan often targeted Republicans in addition to African Americans.

You can read the complete article here.