Stats Show Hillary Clinton’s Policies Cause Terrorism, Not Donald Trump

Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

While Hillary Clinton claimed that ISIS is using Donald Trump to recruit members, reality shows that worldwide terrorism skyrocketed due to the policies of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her boss, President Barack Obama.

A November 2014 piece in the New York Times—well before Donald Trump entered the race for the White House—showed the spike in deaths due to terrorism around the world, stating that “an independent study on Tuesday offered little solace, saying the number of fatalities related to terrorism soared 60 percent last year” and pointing out who was responsible for the increase: the same Muslim terrorists that Trump and other Republicans are voicing concerns about.

Four groups — the Islamic State, Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Taliban, which is active in both Pakistan and Afghanistan — took credit for two-thirds of worldwide deaths related to terrorism in 2013, the report said, describing radical variants of Islam as “the key commonality for all four groups.”

The Times was quoting a think tank that studies terrorism.

The Institute for Economics and Peace is a registered charity in Australia with offices in New York, Mexico City and Oxford, England.

“In 2013, terrorist activity increased substantially with the total number of deaths rising from 11,133 in 2012 to 17,958 in 2013, a 61 percent increase,” the report said. “Over the same period, the number of countries that experienced more than 50 deaths rose from 15 to 24. This highlights that not only is the intensity of terrorism increasing, its breadth is increasing as well.”

A look at the Institute for Economics and Peace website show that things got worse in 2014. Their 2015 report states that:

• Deaths from terrorism increased 80% last year to the highest level ever, with 32,658 people killed, compared to 18,111 in 2013.

• Boko Haram and ISIL were jointly responsible for 51% of all claimed global fatalities in 2014.

• 78% of all deaths and 57% of all attacks occurred in just five countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria.

• Iraq continues to be the country most impacted by terrorism with 9,929 terrorist fatalities the highest ever recorded in a single country.

It’s worth noting that President Obama said in his September 6, 2012, acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention that he had ended the war in Iraq:

You know, in a world of new threats and new challenges, you can choose leadership that has been tested and proven. Four years ago I promised to end the war in Iraq. We did.

Under Obama and Clinton, most troops were withdrawn, and the results are terrorist fatalities that are “the highest ever recorded in a single country.”

Hillary Clinton needs to run from her record as Secretary of State—and falsely accusing Donald Trump of causing terrorism may be a smart political play to pander to Democrats, but it has no possible basis in reality.

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