Comparing deaths on American soil, from banned versus not banned countries

Question

This image is circulating on the web. Is its figures for deaths on American soil at the hands of citizens of banned versus non-banned countries correct?

Here's why Trump's Muslim ban makes literally NO sense: it bans people from countries whose citizens have never attacked the United States.

Note that the claim is about deaths on American soil, although that is not explicit in the image.

Notes: I'm not interested in the precision of the figures - errors of a few tens of people are not important.

Also note this is not a duplicate of this question, since this is specifically about terrorist deaths, not any terrorist activities.

EDIT: I did omit originally the specification that the statement was about deaths on American soil.

I agree with all of these that the graphic is very misleading, but it is a valid question. The OP is not under any obligation to be asking a question to solve every debate about the executive order. — rougon, Jan 29 '17 at 21:32
@Shog9 the claim does not say "American soil", instead the person asking the question chooses to interpret it that way. — DavePhD, Jan 30 '17 at 03:04
All those edits look like major goalpost-shifting to me. "No Americans have died" - I mean "No Americans have died _on American soil_" - no, wait, I mean "No Americans have died on American soil _due to terrorist activity_". — Dave Sherohman, Jan 30 '17 at 08:32
By my calculations, the vast majority of the deaths listed (2996) were on Sept 11, 2001. They have pro-rated the death by count of the number of hijackers from each of the four countries listed. I'm a bit dubious about that technique being used (should the nationality of their leaders be counted too?), but as long as you know that's what they have done, I figure it is acceptable. — Oddthinking, Jan 30 '17 at 10:07
As an example of the ridiculousness of this sort of threat assessment, one might consider the number of Americans killed by the Japanese military prior to December 1941. — jamesqf, Jan 30 '17 at 18:13
A better figure would be the number actions carried out or the number of murderers. It seems to imply that the Saudis are the most threatening whereas I would guess that the vast majority if not all of the Saudi-caused deaths were the Sept 11th 2001 attack all carried out as a single action by a single group almost sixteen years ago, and so not statistically representative of a Saudi threat. Also, where is Mexico and United States on that list? I would say that would imply that Americans should be banned from America! — komodosp, Feb 15 '17 at 17:21

score 13 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 30 '17 at 04:37

The data seems to have come from a publication of the Cato Institute titled "Terrorism and Immigration: A Risk Analysis". The paper's appendix includes "Table A.1. Identified Foreign Persons Who Attempted or Committed Terrorism on U.S. Soil, 1975-2015", which seems to be the source of the claim. The table does not list country of origin, which makes verifying the claim somewhat time consuming. However, startling fact is that the 9/11 attacks make up the vast majority of foreign-born terrorist murders in the United States for that period.

Those men were from Saudi Arabia (15), the United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt and Lebanon. The chart in split deaths in a single attack evenly across all perpetrators. So each of the 9/11 hijackers was listed as causing 157 fatalities. That would produce this chart:

Country               Fatalities
-------               ----------
Saudi Arabia                2355
United Arab Emirates         314
Egypt                        157
Lebanon                      157

Since there were 17 pre-9/11 murders and 24 post-9/11 foreign-born terrorist murders in the time period, that means the numbers in the chart are correct within the tens of people specified by the question. Whether or not the Cato Institute information is wrong, outdated or misleading, I haven't considered in this answer.

Digging a bit further into the paper, I found this very interesting chart:

And the conclusion:

Foreign-born terrorism on U.S. soil is a low-probability event that imposes high costs on its victims despite relatively small risks and low costs on Americans as a whole. From 1975 through 2015, the average chance of dying in an attack by a foreign-born terrorist on U.S. soil was 1 in 3,609,709 a year. For 30 of those 41 years, no Americans were killed on U.S. soil in terrorist attacks caused by foreigners or immigrants. Foreign-born terrorism is a hazard to American life, liberty, and private property, but it is manageable given the huge economic benefits of immigration and the small costs of terrorism. The United States government should continue to devote resources to screening immigrants and foreigners for terrorism or other threats, but large policy changes like an immigration or tourist moratorium would impose far greater costs than benefits.

@DavePhD: Good question. I'm not sure why that attack was not listed in the table. Perhaps it's because the motivations of the relief first officer are unknown? Or maybe because the Egyptian investigators disagreed with the NTSB's conclusion? Oversight? In any case, that would add 100 to the Egypt column, which would be a much larger difference than allowed by the question. Seems unlikely to change the rhetorical point of the claim, however. — Jon 'links in bio' Ericson, Jan 30 '17 at 04:58
I just want the people to be remembered, regardless of rhetoric. It's bad enough that the question says the deaths of "a few tens of people are not important". — DavePhD, Jan 30 '17 at 10:28
@DavePhD That incident was in international waters, not on US soil. — ventsyv, Jan 31 '17 at 15:01
There's also no evidence of any links to terrorism for [that 1999 incidence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990) - as far as I can tell there's no firm proof about motive but evidence points to mass-murder/suicide by a [flight officer who was](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameel_Al-Batouti) being disciplined for inappropriate sexual behaviour, and whose last flight happened to have the officer who responsible for his disciplinary action as a passenger — user56reinstatemonica8, Jan 31 '17 at 18:27
Did 9/11 cause a dip in murders by non-terrorists, as claimed by the graph? — Andrew Grimm, Feb 15 '17 at 11:08
@AndrewGrimm: That's a good question. On the face of it, that doesn't seem right. Indeed, the [FBI data](https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/pressrel/press-releases/crime-in-the-united-states-2001-1) suggests a small _increase_. My guess is that this paper mistakenly assumed the 9/11 deaths were counted as individual murders in the crime data. — Jon 'links in bio' Ericson, Feb 15 '17 at 15:10

score 6 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 13 '17 at 17:00

6

Iranian citizen Ismail Ascari, killed 241 Americans, 23 October 1983.

Philadelphia Beirut Memorial

edited Feb 13 '17 at 17:00

gerrit

17,636
17
84
137

answered Jan 29 '17 at 21:44

DavePhD

103,432
24
436
464

Good point -- whether the killings are in the US or abroad is key to the question. – rougon Jan 29 '17 at 21:54
Your answer reminded me that [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War) resulted in a substantial number of US deaths at the hands of Iraquis. With no disrespect to the total correctness of your answer, I've changed the claim to assume 'on American soil' was meant. +1 – DJClayworth Jan 29 '17 at 22:06
Rereading the original source of the image, the claim was intended to be about deaths on American soil. Again, you gave a great answer to the question I originally posed. – DJClayworth Jan 29 '17 at 22:18
3

@rougon - including "abroad" makes the whole thing meaningless as that would - presumably, as a technicality - include all the deaths of US soldiers abroad - USS Cole, Iraq war, today's Yemeni raid, the list is countless. Much as I dislike this claim in the first place, disproving it on technicality or bad phrasing is not really an endeavor worth doing as far as illuminating the truth. – user5341 Jan 29 '17 at 22:49
4

@DJClayworth The actual claim simply says "attacked the United States". The phrase "American soil" is your own creation. When Libyans kill a US Ambassador in a US embassy, that is obviously an attack on the United States, even if it is not on American soil. – DavePhD Jan 29 '17 at 22:49
10

@DavePhD I think an embassy IS technically "american soil." – rougon Jan 29 '17 at 22:51
2

@user5341 I think the usefulness of the distinction is in areas that could be considered combat-related, or, perhaps attacks on civilians. I don't want to speak for the OP, but the issue seems to be whether people from these countries represent a danger to Americans over here. – rougon Jan 29 '17 at 22:51
1

@rougon - yes, pretty much the point I was trying to make. – user5341 Jan 29 '17 at 22:53
1

This answer should be less superficial. While *technically* one counterexample disproves the claim, it doesn't disprove the *overall meaning* of the claim either. – Sklivvz Jan 29 '17 at 23:12
2

@Sklivvz aren't all the deaths in the OP from one attack on 11 September 2001? One example, one counter example. – DavePhD Jan 29 '17 at 23:27
@Sklivvz Your corporation should be honored to host the names of the victims. It's sad that you only permit the name of the killer. I guess I need to accept the reality that someone actually considers naming the victims to be "defacing" a website. – DavePhD Jan 30 '17 at 02:58
6

@DavePhD: I think Sklivvz meant that adding a complete listing of the marines who died does not add to the effectiveness of the answer. To me, it adds an emotional element that doesn't fit well with a Q&A intended to rely on reason. (The embassy bombing was the first time I really understood how dangerous the world could be.) I think a better addition would be to explain how the embassy, despite its location, was technically US territory. – Jon 'links in bio' Ericson Jan 30 '17 at 03:51
2

@JonEricson SkepticsSE answers are supposed to address the notable claim itself. Here, the claim itself just says "attacked the United States", nothing about "American soil". My answer is about the Marine barracks bombing, not an embassy bombing. Americans also died in a separate 18 April 1983 embassy bombing. And there was the 11 September 2012 embassy bombing in Libya, which also seems relevant to the question. I only added the list of names after Sklivvz said the answer was too superficial. Then I thought, yes, just saying 241 were killed is superficial I should honor their memory. – DavePhD Jan 30 '17 at 04:36
1

@DavePhD: I dug into the claim a bit more and I provided another answer. A agree the question and the claim on Facebook are somewhat at odds. But I think the source of the claim _is_ specific about "U.S. soil". I don't think it would be wrong to list those attacks, the number of people murdered and give an indication of the circumstances. Certainly those attacks help explain the tensions between the US and countries such as Iran. It also seems useful to explain in your answer rather than comments why those attacks are significant to the claim in question. – Jon 'links in bio' Ericson Jan 30 '17 at 04:46
1

Even the question wasn't about the "american soil" part, i'd still consider this answer unvalid as it's very superficial as others have stated, and because it happened, as far as i know, on contested land during wartime. And that's clearly not where the original claim or the answer want to point at. – CptEric Jan 30 '17 at 08:35
1

@CptEric The US, UK, France and Italy were there for peaceful purposes, not war. The forces were "not authorized to engage in combat". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_Force_in_Lebanon – DavePhD Jan 30 '17 at 20:21
1

It still happened on contested land during wartime,and althought deplorable as the attack may be, it's still part of a military deployment, not a civilian terror attack, whom both OP's question and the graph target. – CptEric Jan 31 '17 at 07:18
1

@CptEric The OP is including deaths of military personnel inside the headquarters of the US military. – DavePhD Jan 31 '17 at 12:16
Since the background of the question is the ban on muslims from certain countries entering the USA, it's common sense that such a ban isn't going to make an embassy in Libya any safer. Quite the opposite - removing the ban will make sure that there are fewer terrorists in Libya, or at least that's the argument for the ban. – gnasher729 Feb 14 '17 at 23:09
@rougon: A common misconception. While an embassy is under special protection ([Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomatic_Relations), article 22), it is *not* extraterritorial. The US embassy in Lybia is still "Lybian soil". – DevSolar Jul 18 '17 at 09:06

Comparing deaths on American soil, from banned versus not banned countries

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