Why Are There So Few Homegrown US Muslim Terrorists

On Saturday, I asked why France seems to keep being the victim of Jihad attacks.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/11/maajid-nawaz-on-why-france-continues-to.html

I think Paul Waldman does a good job here of suggesting why on the other hand we have seen so few terrorist attacks in the US by Muslim homegrown terrorists.

"Consider that the kind of attacks we saw in Paris would be simple to pull off in the United States, where acquiring all the guns and ammunition you want is easier than getting your hands on a box of Sudafed. Why have there been so few terrorist attacks in the U.S. by home-grown Muslim radicals? It’s not that someone who wants to kill a bunch of people faces some kind of practical impediment to doing so. It’s because American Muslims are much more integrated into the broader American community than their counterparts in Europe. American Muslims are less alienated and more patriotic, even despite the kind of harassment and surveillance so many of them have been subjected to in the last 14 years."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/11/15/the-silly-distracting-debate-over-whether-to-use-the-words-radical-islam/

This is a good point. The Right in France-like elsewhere-is claiming that there was this failure-no doubt the fault of the Left-for this attack. Time to get tough is going to be their takeaway no doubt.

But the French already have some very tough anti terrorist policies. Despite the apocalyptic response favored by the Right sometimes the answer is to stay the course as President Obama gets.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/paris-terror-attacks-isil-215907

What the French have also done, is been considerably harsher towards their own Muslim population-remember the anti Burqu law?

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/11/135305409/frances-burqa-ban-adds-to-anti-muslim-climate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_law_on_secularity_and_conspicuous_religious_symbols_in_schools

It's telling that the Right hasn't worried about an attack on religion in France despite such a heavy-handed 'secular law.'

But to our nation's credit, something like that would never happen here.

Waldman is also right that the debate over Radical Islam vs. Radical Jihad is silly.

"In case it isn’t clear: saying “radical jihadists” makes you weak, while saying “radical Islam” makes you strong. “The critique is that the softness of language betrays a softness of approach,” Dickerson said. Overall, Dickerson did a good job moderating the debate, asking substantive questions and trying to pin the candidates down when they attempted to evade. But this was definitely his low point."

Parenthetically, I don't agree, though that Dickerson did a good job-he was biased against Hillary. He did not pushback at Bernie the way he did with her answers and he even gave Bernie a lifeline on gun control by falsely claiming that Bernie and HRC are proposing the same policies now.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/11/in-2016-primary-it-seems-only-hillary.html

But on this silly gotcha stuff about Islamic terrorism I agree that Hillary is right. There's no reason to make Muslims feel like we're in a war against Islam-as this is exactly what ISIS is trying to sell to Muslims, precisely how they're trying to recruit them.