America the Vulnerable: Right Wing Violence Surges

[lakhota]

America the Vulnerable: Government Does Nothing as Right Wing Violence Surges

Home-grown terrorism is on the rise, but the Department of Homeland Security is scaling down intelligence units that might catch the next Timothy McVeigh before it's too late.

This March, federal prosecutors charged six members of an antigovernment group called the Alaska Peacemakers Militia with plotting to wage a campaign of murder and kidnapping against court officials and state troopers. They had already amassed an arsenal of weapons, including hand grenades, assault rifles, and a .50-caliber machine gun.

That's exactly the kind of violence that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned law enforcement agencies about two years ago in a report about the growing threat of terrorism from right-wing extremists.

But after that 2009 report was leaked to the media, conservative groups and politicians complained — quite wrongly — that it unfairly tarred those on the political right as violent extremists. The American Legion, for example, didn't like the report's assertion that extremists would be interested in recruiting veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, even though it was completely accurate.

Rather than defend the report, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano quickly disavowed it — and criticized it as shoddy work that had not been properly reviewed within the agency.

Bowing to misguided political criticism was bad enough. Now we know that the DHS went much further: It gutted the unit that developed intelligence on the activities of non-Islamic domestic extremists — making it much harder to catch the next Timothy McVeigh before he strikes.

Daryl Johnson, the former DHS analyst who was the principal author of the controversial 2009 report, told the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in an explosive interview for our quarterly journal,Intelligence Report, that the unit he once headed now has a single analyst where there were once six. Further, Johnson said, the DHS instituted restrictive policies that have effectively ended the issuing of any of the dozens of important reports it previously prepared for law enforcement each year.

The fact is, the 2009 report accurately portrayed the dramatic rise in right-wing extremism. Independently, but around the same time, the SPLC had documented a dramatic surge since President Barack Obama's election in the anti-government "Patriot" movement, which includes armed militias and so-called "sovereign citizens."

As we noted in a letter to Secretary Napolitano, the DHS report was spot on in forecasting rising incidences of violence and terrorism from far-right radicals. In May 2009, just one month after the report's release, an anti-abortion zealot murdered Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider, inside his church. That June, a well-known neo-Nazi shot and killed a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The next year, in March 2010, nine members of a Michigan militia were charged with seditious conspiracy and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction in an alleged plot to murder police officers and spark a war against the U.S. government. In May of last year, a father-son team of sovereign citizens, people who believe the government has no authority over them, killed two police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas, and badly wounded two more.

This pattern continues right up to the present. In January of this year, a neo-Nazi was arrested on his way to the Arizona-Mexico border and later charged with possessing homemade explosives. In March, a neo-Nazi activist was arrested for planting a sophisticated backpack bomb along a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade route in Spokane, Washington.

There's no question that we're seeing an explosion of right-wing extremism. In fact, the antigovernment atmosphere and toxic rhetoric is remarkably similar to the mid-1990s militia movement. It culminated with McVeigh's 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 innocent people.

In his interview, Johnson said that his "greatest fear is that domestic terrorists in this country will somehow become emboldened to the point of carrying out a mass-casualty attack, because they perceive that no one is being vigilant about the threat from within. This is what keeps me up at night."

Daryl Johnson is right. This is an issue of national security, not politics. That's why the SPLC has asked the DHS secretary to re-examine the resources devoted to monitoring homegrown extremism. We can only hope that it doesn't take another catastrophic attack for the department to take this threat seriously.

www.alternet.org/story/151437/america_the_vulnerable%3A_government_does_nothing_as_right_wing_violence_surges/?page=entire

[Deleted]

Not surprising. I've been saying that it could happen for a while. The main difference between the left or the right tends to be that the left works as individuals & the right more in groups. I think that a lot of people could die in the fight between left & right philosophy. Both could justify their actions with: Protect our country from it's enemies both foreign & domestic enemies because each side sees the other as a domestic enemy.

[privateinvestor]

What about left wing violence?
Ann Kane

Let's get this straight, Mr. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post-the right wing commentators and the Tea Party are responsible for all domestic terrorism, and the left has done nothing to encourage terrorist behavior; funny how leftists never see themselves as guilty of anything. In his Op Ed piece, The Hutaree Militia and the rising risk of far right violence, Robinson summarizes:


It is dishonest for right-wing commentators to insist on an equivalence that does not exist. The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction -- the right, not the left. The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day -- and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies -- is calibrated not to inform but to incite.

Demagogues scream at people that their government is illegitimate, that their country has been "taken away," that their elected officials are "traitors" and that their freedom is at risk. They have a right to free speech, which I will always defend. But they shouldn't be surprised if some listeners take them literally.


In his tirade, Robinson unwittingly managed to encapsulate life in these United States today: our country has been taken away by left wing demagogues in the White House, and freedom is at risk.

Now, for some comparisons to the Hutarees, but approved by the left:

Homegrown Muslim terrorist groups like the one in the Catskills in New York, who plot jihad against America 24/7. Where is Mr. Robinson's outrage when it comes to Muslim terrorists on American soil?

Muslim jihad extremists like Hasan of the Ft. Hood murders. Why did left wing racists give him a free pass, but not the Hutarees?

Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground who didn't think his group went far enough in committing violence against the government.

Former communist and left wing extremist Van Jones, who recently had a makeover after resigning as Green Jobs Czar, and now sits on Princeton University's staff.

Rev. Wright who preaches black liberation racist theology and hatred of America.

Louis Farrakhan who promotes anti-white, anti-Semitic propaganda.

Andy Stern of SEIU, Obama's BFF (best friend forever), who allows his union thugs to beat up an innocent man in St. Louis?

Maybe right wing extremists like the Hutaree that Mr. Robinson demonizes will someday end up becoming professors and visit Obama in the White House, but for now, they live in shacks out in the woods while the left turns them into an icon of the right.


www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/what_about_left_wing_violence.html

[Deleted]

Let's get this straight, Mr. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post-the right wing commentators and the Tea Party are responsible for all domestic terrorism, and the left has done nothing to encourage terrorist behavior;

I saw an article not to long ago that broke down the political violence of the past. As I remember it the total number of people killed or harmed was done by the right just because of the Oklahoma bombing. The total number of incidences was done by the left & if you subtract the Oklahoma bombing, they also had a larger number of people hurt & killed.

On the other hand the left propaganda machine has said for so long that the right is dangerous & they have done nothing that it's almost a fact. An untrue fact, but still looked upon as a fact. I've noted that fact here before & used the example of the left calling the right baby killers. No matter how left your views are I find it strange that a Pro abortion party will call a party that is totally against abortions.....baby killers. I mean how the hell can a person rule that out in their mind & justify it?

[deziloooooo]

I thought, it's been suggsted here so many times, all the leftest are afraid of weapons in the home, have nothing to do with them, so if that is true, while the left may be very loud in their screechings, when it comes to actual violence, that seems to be the only thing they could or would do, where as the right, seem to like having many weapons around, comfortable with them , know how to handle them, most have actually served in the armed forces vs the leftest, stay home and hide under the bed as has been suggested here, so besides the screeching , they too can do that too, they also have the means to take the next step..

Just a thought, not sure how much validity there is there, but thought I would bring it up here..

[shelby]

Call me crazy but I don't think bringing guns to rallies (as has been documented at tea party rallies) or waving flags with guns on them is a way to effectively get your point across...unless of course you are just trying to scare and intimidate people. Wish I could read what the flag says anyone know?

We are very divided these days I was listening to Rush yesterday and was amazed at the language intentionally used to incite fear and anger...he said government elitists 3 times in 1 minute, Obamas government the next and was saying all democrats in all areas need to be eradicated, going on about how democrats are ruining OUR America....I only listened for a couple minutes could not listen anymore. I know he is doing all these things intentionally and knows exactly what will happen with what I see as dangerous rhetoric. So no surprise people are becoming extremists I can't imagine he is the only one using such tactics to strike a cord in followers. Words are very powerful and all the me vs. you inciting domestic war and divisiveness should stop IMO. Oldtex the baby killer statement is a good example but I have not heard that from the left but def from the right.

[deziloooooo]

Rush is still alive, on the radio?? Holy cow, where have I been..people actually listen to him?..Remarkable.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Whoa, well I'm worried. If they keep at it then in just 1,000 short years, they will have racked up as many murders as Muslim extremists did on ONE day in 2001- let alone all the muder before, and since. I'm not saying we should turn a blind eye- we should nail scumbags of every stripe when and where we find them. But we DO have to PRIORITIZE. We didn't create DHS after Oklahoma City. We created it after 9.11.01.

[ed1066]

Just a thought, not sure how much validity there is there

Virtually none...

[privateinvestor]

This message has been deleted. Sorry about that but the 15 second delay thing is hung up again..

[privateinvestor]

"I am a Gun Totting, God Fearing, Flag Waving Conservative that Liberals feel threatened by"...P.I.


So what is your problem??

[deziloooooo]

Any one, unless on say a overnight hike in isolated area..some very bad places that I shouldn't be in anyway..but just normal activities..any one who is carrying bothers me..just the way it is, and no, I am not afraid of weapons, do know how to use them, have used them, practice at least once a month at a local range in my town..but just to have people carry...I am glad here they are concealed, so for the most part I am not aware..