A study for the Combatting Terrorism Center, a think tank associated with the United States Military Academy at West Point, warns of the threat posed by rightwing extremists. It identifies the potential for violence in groups defined a “far-right,” and provides a “[C]onceptual foundation for understanding different far-right groups and then presents the empirical analysis of violent incidents to identify those perpetrating attacks.” “In the last few years, and especially since 2007, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of attacks and violent plots originating from individuals and groups who self-identify with the far-right of American politics,” the report’s executive summary reads. “These incidents cause many to wonder whether these are isolated attacks, an increasing trend, part of increasing societal violence, or attributable to some other condition.”
The report warns of three categories of rightwing extremists that represent terroristic threats: “[T]he Racist/White Supremacy Movement, the Anti-Federalist Movement, and the Christian Fundamentalist Movement.”
The report notes that it focuses only on those groups that have perpetrated violence and not political causes which are deemed extremist but have no violent incidents attributed to them.
I imagine that the response from most of you is something along of the lines of "Yeah, no shit!"
However surprisingly enough the usually uber anti-terrorist Right Wing is not happy to hear that the report points the finger at them. Go figure.
 |
| Schaeffer Cox and his fellow Peacekeepers Militia members |
Courtesy of the Atlantic Wire:
Conservatives love appealing to these kinds of studies when arguing that we need to get tough on terror, right? Well, not in this case. One Republican congressional staffer—who thinks only Muslims can be terrorists—told The Washington Times' Rowan Scarborough:
If [the Defense Department] is looking for places to cut spending, this junk study is ground zero. Shouldn’t the Combating Terrorism Center be combating radical Islam around the globe instead of perpetuating the left’s myth that right-wingers are terrorists?
The National Review's John Fund also wants to change the subject to terrorists in other parts of the world:
The world is beset by terrorists—witness the American hostages taken in Algeria this week—but portions of our federal government continue to obsess about alleged home-grown threats from the "far right" ... My sources inside Congress tell me they continue to worry that efforts to monitor domestic Muslim extremists as well as interdiction efforts against radical Islamists crossing the U.S. border are sometimes put on the back burner. The government denies this, but it seems to me its protestations would be more persuasive if it spent less time producing half-baked warnings about the danger of "right-wing extremists."
World Net Daily's Michael Carl extensively quotes blogger Pamela Geller in his article on the report. "This is another appalling attempt to demonize loyal Americans and whitewash the Islamic threat," Geller says. "West Point probably is working on orders from higher ups. Or else it has bought into the dominant PC culture."
Yeah well personally I am FAR more concerned with the whackos we have on the Right Wing than the ones that we started two wars to eliminate.
And ANY group that starts openly talking about arresting, kidnapping, or shooting at law enforcement officials to protect their guns should certainly NOT be surprised to find themselves categorized as "terrorists." Because if talk like that does not terrify the American people then nothing else should.
Or is it only scary when a brown person blows up a building or open fires in a shopping center?
