The Terror Attacks Trump Won't Talk About
The Terror Attacks Trump Won't Talk About
Guess what they have in common.
Mark FollmanFeb. 7, 2017 5:30 AM
On Monday, in a case little noticed by the national media, a man went on trial in federal court for plotting a potentially horrific terrorist attack in upstate New York. In 2015, this man allegedly planned to enlist accomplices to help him bomb a house of worship and open fire with assault rifles on any bystanders. "High casualty rates" was the goal. "If it gets down to the machete, we will cut them to shreds," he allegedly said, according to prosecutors.
Also on Monday, the Trump White House released a list of 78 attacks carried out in the US and abroad by "radical Islamic terrorists" since 2014, which it said were mostly "underreported," following the president's own claim earlier in the day that the media conspired to ignore such attacks.
But had the upstate New York plotter succeeded, he would not have made the White House list. The individual charged with masterminding that plan was Robert Doggart, a 65-year-old white man from Tennessee who allegedly conspired to form a militia and attack a Muslim community in Islamberg, NY, on "behalf of American patriotism."
As the media picks apart the White House's absurd suggestion that attacks in Paris, San Bernardino, Orlando, and elsewhere were somehow ignored, the bigger story may be this: Trump has been almost entirely silent about terror plotted and carried out by white supremacists and other far-right extremists.
But there seems little reason to expect a list of attacks on Muslim and Jewish institutions from the president anytime soon.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/terror-attacks-trump-wont-talk-about-white-supremacists