DiFi’s Very Brown List of Terrorists

Presumably to boost Obama’s election chances, Dianne Feinstein released a list of “95 individuals arrested inside the United States since January 2009 on terrorism-related charges.” The list includes the real terrorists–Najibullah Zazi and Faisal Shahzad (the latter of which DiFi bizarrely credits as a thwarted attack rather than a botched one, even while she doens’t count Nidal Hasan or the UndieBomber because the attacks weren’t thwarted). It includes the most extravagant products of FBI’s imagination, including the Scary Iran Plotter and Goldfinger, the would-be terrorist who would have left a tenth of the world’s gold untouched at the Fed. It includes men whose plots were so dubious the FBI wouldn’t touch them: Jose Pimental, Ahmed Ferhani, and Mohamed Mamdouh.

But by my count, it only includes 16 non-Islamic white terrorists (nine of which are the Hutarees).

• Kevin Harpham, the MLK Parade bomber
• Roger Stockham, who planned to bomb the Dearborn Islamic Center
• The Hutaree, including the 7 members whose charges were thrown out
• The Ohio 5, anarchists who planned to blow up an OH bridge

Just a few of the white terrorists not on this list?

• Scott Roeder, who killed George Tiller
• Ray Lazier Lengend, who firebombed a NYC mosque
• Wade Michael Page, who attacked the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, WI
• Schaffer Cox, the Sovereign Citizen convicted of the charge the Hutaree should have been charged with–conspiring to kill federal law enforcement officers
• The Waffle House Four, who allegedly (but implausibly) were going to make a bioweapon, ricin

Now, to be fair, to some degree these white terrorists aren’t on the lists because their crimes weren’t defined as terrorism. Attacks on mosques with guns and low explosive bombs are hate crimes, whereas aspirational plots on synagogues with inert bombs provided by the FBI are terrorism. Attempts to overthrow the government with guns are conspiracies, but not terror, whereas attempts to overthrow the government with bombs (again, usually supplied by the FBI) are terrorism. There’s no excuse, really, for not charging Roeder and the Waffle House plotters as terrorists (at least if you believe a castor bean plant equates to a WMD plot, which I don’t, but the FBI charged anyway). And in some of these cases, law enforcement had an incentive not to label an attack as terrorism because the plots were successful: terrorism stats are all about proving success, not keeping the country safe.

Then again, I suspect putting out a document showing that white terrorists are a real threat in this country wouldn’t help Obama’s reelection.

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