In the last twelve months there has been a string of successful arrests of potential domestic terrorists with collections of bomb-making equipment as well as illegal weapons arsenals, in at least one case including antitank rockets. All were in possession of ideological tracts or videos of terrorist organizations. In the last twelve months, individuals associated with these domestic groups have murdered six law enforcement officers and several alleged plots to assassinate the President of the United States have been thwarted and its conspirators arrested.
And none of these were Islamic extremists. These were all members of militant right-wing extremist anti-government groups.
There have been domestic terror threats from Islamic extremist groups as well. The May shooting of two US servicemen in Little Rock, AK (in which one died), the thwarted alleged attacks on the Air National Guard in Newbury, NY and on Fort Dix, NY, and other alleged attacks and planned attacks in the last year by domestic Islamic extremists are nothing to sneeze at.
But prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center, the overwhelming source of domestic terror attacks and deaths in the United States had been from the militant right. In the last twelve months the number of extremists and militant right-wing organizations, and the number of attacks planned and actually launched by their members, has increased dramatically. Here is a link to a recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center on the alarming growth of these hate groups. Their memberships dwarf the numbers in domestic Islamic anti-government groups, and to the extent that we suffer a domestic threat from extremist violence, it is far greater from right-wing militias than from Islam.
It’s time we woke up to that.
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JR Riggins said:
I read through a series of articles posted at Armchair General by Chadwick and came to these conclusions.
That Americans will just have to get comfortable with Muslim terrorists threats for the foreseeable future.
That focusing on the Muslim terrorist threat is a distraction from the real threat by a handful of “right wing ” anti-government good ‘ole boys.
That Chile was nearly destroyed by it’s capitalist experiment, but was saved by re-instituting socialism. In addition, Chadwick drools over the notion that one of the United State’s most recognized capitalists has seen the light and appears ready to embrace the Utopian Socialist.
And, Chadwick seems convinced that the Iranian Republican Guard are practically trembling at the thought of “Green” protesters chanting and marching along the city streets.
I would say I have now read a broad range of commentary by Mr. Chadwick on a variety of subjects and I conclude that Mr. Chadwick should suspend his work on Alexander and start on a biographical series on successful Marxist dictators of the western hemisphere.
March 12th, 2010 at 1:01 am
Zurab Abayev said:
Dear Mr. Chadwick:please open your eyes – your favorite Comunism and Socialism is not wellcome in USA. It is time that we now wake up to the most important threat – threat of commie dictators who would run us to the ground like they did with any other society they managed before. Your articles are full of lies – please remember that those who refuse to see the facts die of a myth. For example – right wing crazy guys were ALWAYS present in this country, and still we survived. And the fact that Alliende instituted proper building code does not mean that he was a good guy – after all, it was SS that started using bicycle refractors, and Comrade Stalin who exterminated malaria, typhoid fever, and cutaneous leishmaniasis in the USSr – but that does not mean that SS and Stalin were nice guys – far from it. And I am surprised that with your views you still live in the USa – the paradise of Cuba is much better place for someone like you.
March 13th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Frank Chadwick said:
Interesting. Limiting my comments to those actually relating to this article, I certainly agree that we have — and will — survive the attacks of “a handful” of right-wing extremists. But we have — and will — survive the attacks of an even smaller handful of Islamic extremists. The real question is which has the potential for causing us the most harm, and historically that has been the militant right. Disagree with that? Fine. Let’s hear some arguments as to why.
March 18th, 2010 at 7:47 am
Barry said:
Frank,
I think the difference between the militant right (and the militant left of the late ’60s early ’70s) and Islamic extremists is that the militant right in this country can’t agree on anything, cannot coordinate between themselves, and fundamentally do not believe in their own cause enough to spend a day in prison, let alone an eternity in the afterlife. Arguments for my stance, none, other than I know lots of people on the “militant right”
March 18th, 2010 at 8:14 am
Frank Frey said:
Frank,
You’ll get no argument from me. I think you’re spot on in your observations. I think part of the problem is that a lot of these right wing groups especially the ones that profess to be Christian probably have sympathizers within the ranks of local,state and federal government.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:40 am
Jake said:
@JR Riggins – Ok, let us take your points, such as they are, one at a time, shall we?
1) “That focusing on the Muslim terrorist threat is a distraction from the real threat by a handful of “right wing ” anti-government good ‘ole boys.”
Parse your words how you want, but you are basically just distorting what the author says. For instance, you leave out the word “domestic” in Muslim terrorist threat – which is a big difference. The author does not say that domestic right wing groups are a bigger threat than foreign Muslim terrorist groups – your statement implies (wrongly) that he does. Next, you put quotations around “right wing” – which implies that you disagree with the epithet. Is that in fact true? Do you feel that the groups mentioned are not right wing? If not, why not? Please feel free to include any source material.
2)”That Chile was nearly destroyed by it’s capitalist experiment, but was saved by re-instituting socialism.”
Let’s clarify that statement, because it shows either a total lack of reading comprehension, or you are deliberately changing it to fit your rhetoric. What the author actually said was that the government was socialist first, and then capitalist – so how it could be “saved” by “re-instituting” socialism is beyond me, since it was before Pinochet, and not after. In addition, all he said was that the Wall Street Journal claimed Pinochet’s coming to power and the capitalist movement caused prosperity which was a direct cause of the building codes being put into place which caused Chile to withstand the earthquakes better than Haiti – whereas in reality, the building codes were already in place prior to Pinochet taking power, and so the claim that the capitalist movement was responsible for the building codes is in fact, false.
3)”Chadwick seems convinced that the Iranian Republican Guard are practically trembling at the thought of “Green” protesters chanting and marching along the city streets.”
Why do you put quotations around the word “Green”? The author did not – so what are you implying? Do you disagree with the term? Do you dispute the fact that the Iranian government is worried about the protestors? Were you there for the non-stop news cycle right after the election? Did you read the articles that he posted links to? If you do feel that the Iranian government is not worried at all about the protests, please feel free to elaborate why, and please list any sources, I would be happy to read them.
Now let us turn to Zurab Abayev:
I’m glad you said this:
“your favorite Comunism and Socialism is not wellcome in USA”
Spelling errors aside, Communism and Socialism are not, in point of fact, interchangeable terms. Far too often I have seen people on the left of being not only Communist AND Socialist, but ALSO Fascist – all at the same time. It is the equivalent of being called a Catholic and a Jew and an Episcopalian simultaneously. They all are names of types of groups – just not the same one.
You say we should worry about: ” It is time that we now wake up to the most important threat – threat of commie dictators who would run us to the ground like they did with any other society they managed before”
May I ask, which “commie dictator” (see, JR Riggins, I can use quotations derisively as well) you are concerned about. Please name the communist dictators we should be afraid of – I only ask because if I should be afraid of them, I’d like to know about it. Please let me point out first that Obama doesn’t count – because even if you believe that he is a communist, he isn’t a dictator, but a democratically elected official.
“Your articles are full of lies For example – right wing crazy guys were ALWAYS present in this country, and still we survived”
Um, where did he lie? Did he say that we would be destroyed by right wing crazy guys? No, but he said that the threat to us was larger from them than from domestic Muslim terror groups. How is recognizing the threat posed a lie?
Could you please list any actual lies you have found in his articles, refute them, and provide corroborating evidence – when you accuse someone of telling lies, that is the standard response – and I’d be very interested to see if you can find any examples.
“And the fact that Alliende instituted proper building code does not mean that he was a good guy”
Did you and JR go to the same reading comprehension class? Please find one place where the author even mentioned Salvador Allende, let alone makes the claim he was a good guy. You can see earlier in the post about the claim he does make, which was that the Wall Street Journal’s claim that it was Pinochet that instituted the building codes, but rather the earlier Socialist government. If someone said that Karl Dönitz was responsible for turning Germany into a world power capable of conquering as much territory as it did, and I corrected them and said, no, it was in fact Hitler – does that mean I’m a fascist, or that I believe Hitler is a “good guy?”
Lastly, and this, to be honest is the most disappointing thing – its the trite “if you don’t agree with us, you shouldn’t live here – or even want to live here.” Are we really reduced to this? That if you have different beliefs from me, you don’t belong in my country?
It is the political argument with as much validity and aplomb as a boy in kindergarten telling a girl she can’t be his friend because she has cooties.
March 18th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Frank Chadwick said:
Always nice to see a spirited exchange of views. :^)
Barry, thanks for joining the discussion. I can’t agree with you, though, for two reasons.
First, the lack of agreement among right-wing militant groups does not keep them from being dangerous. It did not stop a right wing terrorist from blowing up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and killing over 150 people, it doesn’t stop them from trying (unsuccessfully, so far, thank god) to assassinate the President, and it hasn’t stopped one of them from flying a plane into an IRS office. A large number of them practice a devout, if twisted, form of Christianity and do indeed seem willing to attack regardless of the consequences, including death.
Second, the fault lines in radical Islam are just as sharp and deep, maybe more so. Back when the highest single cause of US casualties in Iraq was roadside IEDs emplaced by the Shiite Mahdi Army, the Sunni al-Qa’ida in Iraq was bombing Shiite mosques. In fact, it was the bombing of a Shiite mosque by al-Qa’ida which caused the Mahdi Army to declare a unilateral cease fire in Iraq, maybe the single most important factor in the dramatic drop in US casualties in the last couple years. But the fact that they do not play nicely together does not make them less dangerous, in my opinion.
Frank Frey and Jake, also welcome to the discussion and thanks for your remarks.
March 18th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Barry said:
I am not sure I would call Joe Stack a right wing militant – those of us on the right considered him a bit left-wing – I think though that the technical term for Joe Stack was “looney”
I will give you Timothy McVeigh.
Trying to parse your post, I am trying to tell if you meant that “large number”…”do seem willing to attack regardless of the consequences” are referring to the same number. If so, I would like to see something quantifying the large number. I have no data, but I would suspect that large number is somewhere below the number 2. Not that 2 people can’t do some serious harm.
March 18th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Frank Chadwick said:
Barry, good qustions and I’ll try to oblige, at least to clarify my position.
As to how many are religiously motivated, or at least religiously entangle, lots of the more extreme ones. The Church of Jesus Christ/Aryan Nation, for starters, but one of the founders and original organizers of the religious right, Rev. Ray Schaeffer, has also expressed concern at the increasingly violent religious message from the fringes of the movement. Here’s a link.
If you check back to the original article you’ll find a link to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s report on rising militant membership. By way of summary, hate groups grew from 926 in 2008 to 932 by the end of last year, “Nativist and Extremist” groups grew from 173 to 309, and “Patriot Movement” groups skyrocketed from 149 (incouding 42 paramilitary militias) to 512 (including 127 militias), an increase of over 250% in one year. The “Patiot Movement” is what spawned McVeigh. That’s a lot of people, and the militias are armed and trained — at least well enough to raise a lot of hell.
Who else was willing to die for the cause?
Jim David Adkisson expected to die when he walked into a Unitarian Universalist Church in 2008 and opened fire with a shotgun, trying to “kill as many liberals as he could before the police shot him down.” He lived, but that wasn’t the plan.
James Von Brunn clearly had no expectation of survival when he walked into the U.S. Holocaust Museum and openned fire.
Richard Poplawski had no reasonable expectation of survival when he just began killing Pittsburgh police officers he thought were “coming to take his guns” as part of a secret conspiracy by Obama to disarm America.
Carl Drega didn’t seem very concerned about survival when he went on his execution spree of government officials and police officers in New Hampshire and Vermont in 1997.
And I think Joe Stack — whatever his earlier ideological roots — was clearly acting out a classic anti-IRS tax denial attack, which has been a hallmark of the militant right for over a decade. There have been six attacks on IRS facilities since the Oklahoma City bombings, all of them by militant right-wing extremists. Stack had become heavily involved in that movement. He may very well have been looney as well, but most suicide bombers are. Kinda goes with the territory.
March 18th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
JR Riggins said:
I see my original post garnered a few responses. I’ll try and respond in order.
To Mr. Chadwick: That the militant right is more of a threat than Islamic extremists can be refuted with simple math. Americans killed by middle eastern terrorists groups since 1970 is very close to 3,700 (including 9/11), wounded is 1600. Property damage in the billions. I’ve backed up my assertion, how about you try it.
To reference the SPLC as a reputable source for information about a growing right wing militant threat is ridiculous. I live in Wyoming and the SPLC gives our state credit for having four right wing militant groups. I’m afraid the SPLC missed the number by the proverbial mile. Sorry to disappoint, but we don’t have any. The SPLC mistakenly gave us Montana’s militants. Do you suppose they have mistakenly calculated that for every state?
For Jake: I used quotation marks for “right wing” because the words were prominently underlined in Mr.Chadwick’s article.I will defer to Mr.Chadwick’s critique if I used the punctuation incorrectly. As to your assertion that I distorted the author’s words, perhaps we should ask the author? While the author acknowledges that domestic Islamic terrorism is a threat, the whole point of his article was to assign greater significance to the threat he believes is posed by “right wing” militant groups in the US.
Also, don’t lump Zurab and I together. Did I suggest anyone leave the country? No. Did I use the phrase “commie dictator”, no. On top of that you used quotation marks and attributed the quote to me. Another error on your part. The following is something you wrote, “Did you and JR go to the same reading comprehension class?” (note the proper use of the quotation marks). From this point forward, don’t lecture anyone on reading comprehension until you have mastered it yourself.
March 19th, 2010 at 12:20 am
Jake said:
JR. I’ll do this as clearly as I can, so as not to confuse you.
I did not attribute “commie dictator” to you. That was clearly in the section marked “Now let us turn to Zurab Abayev”. I made the side remark to you – in parentheses – because I had made a previous comment about your use of quotations in your post – Vis-à-vis “right wing” and “Green”.
Next, let’s tackle the reading comprehension – you asserted in your post that the author states, and I quote you now, so there is no confusion on your part: “That Chile was nearly destroyed by it’s capitalist experiment, but was saved by re-instituting socialism”. Clearly, this is just nonsense, since the capitalist regime under Pinochet came AFTER the socialist one under Allende. Since Zurab also made the statement (and again, this is him, not you): “And the fact that Alliende instituted proper building code does not mean that he was a good guy” – when the author did not mention Allende at all in his article, let alone assert he was a good guy, well, it smacked of neither of you comprehending what the article was about, and so I commented on it.
Lastly, again, the comments about leaving the country if you don’t agree with “us”, was still in the section under Zurab, although I can see you could have taken it to mean the two of you. In this case, I am remiss, and I apologize. For the rest, it was quite clear if you but took the time to read it.
Now that that is cleared up, can we return to the actual topic of discussion?
1)Please either recant or explain the nonsense about the author claiming capitalism destroyed Chile and socialism saved it.
2)Please explain why you think Iran is not worried about the Green Movement, and if so, please provide sources.
3)Your refutation of the SPLC as a source is certainly valid, it is good to question sources – may we have the benefit of knowing which source claims that there are zero right wing groups in Wyoming?
4)Threat, I’m afraid, is more than just numbers of deaths. If, for instance, we adhere to your belief that because Muslims caused 9/11 (which accounts for the vast majority of the casualties you listed) they are they most dangerous threat, and tomorrow a right wing militia detonates a bomb which kills 100 people, who is the threat? If they do so again every day for 2 weeks – which is only 1400 people dead, are they still not the greatest threat? Do we have to wait until someone actually kills more people than the Muslims until we consider them a larger threat? What if they kill more people but cause less property damage – is there a conversion rate we should use? Potential threat is not about what has happened, it is what will happen. Mind you, I’m not saying that extremist groups aren’t a threat – I’m saying that what they did 9 years ago may not be as pertinent as to what they (or someone else) is going to do today.
March 19th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Frank Chadwick said:
JR, Your information on the SPLC report is wrong. All four Wyoming “Patriot Movement” organization listed in the SPLC report are indeed based in Wyoming, not Montana. I have no idea where you heard that, but somebody just made up a lie and it’s now being repeated in the blogosphere. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you passed it along in good faith, but it’s false.
As to your refutation, I’m not all that interested in refuting you. You have an opinion and I have one, we disagree, and I’m pretty okay with that. I would say that while the past may be prelude, it is not invariably so.
My column dealt with domestic terror attacks, specifically home-grown terrorists, while your number of 3,700 is considerably in excess of all US domestic terror deaths in the period you cite. The big event was, of course, 9/11, with 2,973 deaths. Since then, however, there was not a single death on US soil from Islamic terrorists until June 1 of last year, when Private William Long was shot and killed outside a recruiting facility in Little Rock, Arkansas. However there has been a steady stream of violence from the far right. Since 1977 there have been over 40 bombings of abortion clinics and government offices (mostly IRS offices) by militant conservatives, as well as over 90 attempted bombings or arsons, which dwarfs the number of attacks or attempted attacks by militant Islam on US soil.
They hit us big once, nine years ago, no denying it. But today militant Islam is on the run everywhere. Predator drone strikes are taking out the top layer of their leadership, the vast bulk of Moslems at the grass roots level have turned against them, and they are scrambling just to survive. By contrast, the number of armed militant militias in this country tripled last year.
That looks like an emerging threat to me.
March 19th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Phil said:
It is obvious that militant right wing groups are more dangerous to us than Islamic militant radicals. They have more support for their views than the Islamic radicals do. They wrap themselves in he flag and denounce the government. If you’ve noticed the attacks are usually against “the gumint”. They are certain the gumint is out to take away their freedoms, most notably the right to own guns. And many of their friends and neighbors agree that gumint has gotten to big fer its britches. So it is much safer for a right wing militant organization to plot against the gumint than it is for Islamists to plot against the U.S. After all, their friends and neighbors have known them for years and just won’t turn them in.
March 19th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Frank Chadwick said:
Just a short note on format so that everyone understands how the web site works. JR mentions the term right wing was prominently underlined in my post, and he apparently thinks it was done so for emphasis. No. The underlined passages (which are also a different ink color, although the difference is sometimes subtle) are actually hyperlinks to other articles. So if you click on that underlined word or passage you will go to the source material.
March 19th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
JR Riggins said:
I understood what the underline was for, I pointed it out for Jake’s benefit.
I was getting my information from the SPLC’s Hate Map, a prominent feature of their website. I searched for the Patriot Movement groups listing on their website, but found nothing there. Maybe you could provide a link?
I guess it is good information to know that you consider Patriot Movement organizations as a right wing threat. I guess they aren’t quite notorious enough to be listed on the SPLC’s Hate Map, but maybe you could lobby to get them listed in place of the fictitious pointy-hatted guys in white sheets that they list there for Wyoming?
The SPLC can hardly be considered a relevant source of information when one of their most prominent features is so full entirely fabricated information.
Wyoming wasn’t the only state that the SPLC invented some hate groups for. All of this could easily be cleared up with a call to local law enforcement. Would that be too much trouble for you? It obviously was for the SPLC.
March 20th, 2010 at 12:20 am
JR Riggins said:
One more thing, I guess the Ft. Hood shooting wasn’t an Islamic jihadist action?
Are you serious?
What do these jihadist have to do, Frank? Carry a signed statement by Bin Laden himself (with the proper notary, of course)?
March 20th, 2010 at 12:25 am
Frank Chadwick said:
JR,
1. I mentioned the hyperlink because in your response to Jake you appeared to justify your use of quotation marks for emphasis as simply following my lead. You said, “I used quotation marks for “right wing” because the words were prominently underlined in Mr.Chadwick’s article.” If you knew the underlining was not for emphasis but rather was a hyperlink to a source, I am at a loss as to what you meant.
2. Specifically with respect to hate groups listed in Wyoming by the SPLC all really being in Montana, and your claim that there actually are no hate groups in Wyoming, are you saying (for example) that the United White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and which is listed on the Klan’s own web page as Klavern 102, is actually located somewhere in Montana? Or are you saying it is not really a hate group?
3. I said there was not a single U.S. death from Islamic terror from the 911 attack in 2001 until June of last year, when Private Long was killed in Arkansas. The Fort Hood shootings took place after that, in November, not before it. When do you believe they took place?
March 20th, 2010 at 9:30 am
Jake said:
Ah, JR – do you notice how you keep avoiding all the places you are simply wrong? You come on the website, and instead of simply saying “Frank, I disagree with your statements, and here is why.” You come up with a list of statements about the author’s opinions, some of which are just factually incorrect.
Then, when called on it, such as the Chile incident, you simply ignore that, because your original statement makes you look like either a liar or a buffoon, so even when asked to clarify or recant that statement twice, you ignore it. Similar, by the way, the statement about the Green Movement in Iran – still waiting on any response on that one.
The quotations about “right wing” is great. You put quotes on it – which I stated implied you disagreed with the term. You said you only did it because it was “prominently underlined in the author’s article”. Why would a hyperlink cause you to put quotations around it? The word “anti-government” was underlined in the original post, and yet you did not put quotations around it in yours.
Stop backpedaling. You put the quotes around the words “right wing” and not “anti-government” for the same reason you used the words “good ole boys” and yet the author did not. You did it for the same reason that you made the previous statements about Chile and Iran – rather than have an argument of your own, you wanted to smear the author as some left wing liberal Marxist (hence the suggestion on your part he write “a biographical series on successful Marxist dictators of the western hemisphere.”
Looking forward to your responses on either of the above issues as well as the response to the Fort Hood shooting and the KKK.
March 21st, 2010 at 10:42 am