Category Archives: Domestic Terrorism

The Historical picture of Domestic Terrorism in the United States

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Hoffman and Ware argue in their book, Gods, Guns, and about how  and spoke to us at ASU about how violent extremism in the United States has been a story of a historical trajectory that they believe is well described by the title of the book. According to the two of them this variant of extremism which has existed in the US since at least the period of reconstruction by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, was suppressed in part by the creation of the Department of Justice at another time of insecurity in the country for the purpose of suppressing that violent extremism. The Klan was revived again in the 19 teens as well as 1920s and one more time in the 1960s.

The 1970s violence was mimicked in the current era. Particularly xenophobia, and  distrust and dislike of immigrants, the gradual unsuccessful ending of a quarter of a century war in South East Asia contributed to a malaise that upset many Americans, especially those who felt America was losing its greatness. At the same time in the 1980s members of various religious groups helped give some justification for the white sheet part of the Klan and the Brownshirts of the neo-Nazis from Biblical scripture. The religious right became an enthusiastic supporter of the political right. This mixture of right-wing politics and conservative religion became acutely toxic.

White Supremacist churches became active in support of the American right, particularly the church of Jesus Christ Christian attempted to unite a group that was actually very diverse. It included anti-government extremists, tax resisters, gun advocates, racists, anti-Semites, xenophobes, and militant anti-abortionists needed uniting, they thought. Many of the leaders of the political movement were also Pastors or Reverends who also led churches or organizations of churches.

The guns part of the movement became prominent in the 1990s. Terrorist groups according to Hoffman, always are looking for ways to broaden their appeal. They started to advance the cause for gun rights coupled with salient religious rights as well. During the Clinton administration gun enthusiasts became convinced that the federal government would try to expropriate their guns while the religious right accepted that, but was also deeply concerned about the perceived immorality on the left. This was exemplified by the what they thought was the absolute corruption and immorality of the Clintons.

It was this fear of losing guns and freedoms to an aggrieved federal government that inspired Timothy McVeigh to launch an attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. 169 persons, many of them children, died in that attack and it is still the most lethal internal terrorist attack in the history United States. I remember when that attack occurred and how most people, including at first me,  assumed it had been caused by Jihadist terrorists.  That was where the fear of terror was born. No one thought at the time that home grown terrorists were a serious problem. That bombing changed that point of view.

Hoffman said when he first started his career as an analyst of terrorism 43 year ago, he was concerned about right-wing terror but that dissipated after 9/11 when American learned to fear Islamic extremism first with Al Qaeda and later ISIS.

Domestic Terrorism in America

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When we visit Arizona each winter, we always connect with Arizona State University (‘ASU’) because they have so many programs to which they invite the public—like us. Not just scholars, but ordinary people like us. We have found many of them fascinating. This year the first one we watched we watched online as it was not offered live. It was called God, Guns, and Sedition. The title caught my eye.

Shocking acts of terrorism across the country have erupted from violent American far-right extremists in recent years, including, among many incidents, the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Sadly, however these incidents, however, are neither new nor unprecedented, but are common. Frankly, they happen all the time.

One of these events, a mass shooting, happened about an hour by car from where we are staying here in Arizona. On January 8, 2011, Gabrielle Dee Giffords  who at the time was serving as a member of the United States House of Representatives. She was a member of the Democratic Party representing the 8th congressional district. She was shot in the head outside a Safeway Grocery store in suburban area outside of Tucson, by a man who ran up to a crowd of people participating in a political event and fired his 99mm pistol with a 33-round magazine.  His bullets hit 19 people killing 6 of them.

The speakers at the ASU event were Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware who are leading experts on domestic terrorism in the US.  In their book God, Guns, and Sedition In that book they provide a brief synoptic history highlighting developments including the use of cutting-edge communications technology; the embrace of leaderless resistance or lone actor strategies; the emergence of characteristic tactics and targets; infiltration and recruitment in the military and law enforcement; and the far right’s intricate relationship with mainstream politics. The history of domestic terrorism is what interested me the most.

This is what these two extremely knowledgeable intellectuals talked about in the ASU program.  Bruce Hoffman professor emeritus of terrorism  at St Andrews University and has written  a number of books on terrorism. Jacob Ware is a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. The moderator was Peter Bergen another expert in the field and a professor at ASU. In addition to being a professor at ASU he is also the Co-Director of the Future Security Initiative, at ASU. The first question they answered was, ‘Why is a book on far-right terrorism at this time?”

Professor Bruce Hoffman, made it clear there also  many other terrorist threats facing America today. He insists it was not a partisan choice that they focused on the far-right out of all those choices.  Although there are left-wing terrorists in the US as well, they are greatly outnumbered by those on the far-right. He also acknowledged that one of the most significant terrorist events from recent years occurred in June of 2017 by someone on the far left who claimed to be a supporter of Bernie Sanders a well-known left wing politician and Senator in the United States. This was the event where he attacked several members of Congress who were practicing for an annual Congressional baseball tournament. He seriously wounded 5 members of Congress.

According to Hoffman it is just “that the numbers on the far right completely eclipse the threats from the far left as well as other actors. Cynthia Miller-Idriss Professor, School of Public Affairs and School of Education Department of Justice, Law and Criminology and a recognized expert on violent extremism in the United States “put the number of armed far-right extremists at an estimated 75,000 persons. Needless to say, that is a lot of violent extremists.

A few years ago, the New York Times put the number of armed members of militia movements at 20,000.  Many of the violent extremists come from that pool. Added to that if you read the FBI reports it is easy to see where the overwhelming majority of threats come from—i.e. the far-right not the far left or any other group including Jihadis, Antifa, eco-terrorists, indigenous groups, or any others. The far-right is the main reservoir for terrorism in America. Unfortunately, many on the less extreme right-wing in America are blind to this uncomfortable fact.

Hoffman reported,

“In 2019 for example the FBI had 850 active domestic terror investigations. That number doubled in 2020. It tripled in 2022…that includes 3 big buckets: racially motivated violent extremists, home grown violent extremists of both the left and the right, and others such as INCEL, eco-terrorists, animal rights people, militant anti-abortion. But even within those figures the overwhelming majority of the current over 2,000 investigations, are the violent far-right extremists.”

 

There is no domestic terrorism statute in the US just like there is none in Canada. As a result, scholars like Hoffman and Ware have to rely on non-governmental organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (‘ADL’) and Southern Poverty Law Center for figures. Although the numbers are not yet available for 2023 , according to the ADF, all 25 of the extremist related murders in about a dozen incidents in 2023 were linked to violent far right extremists and according to  Hoffman of that number , “of that number 95% were committed by white supremacists or white nationalists.” Hoffman also said, “this is part of a decades long trend that the ADL has followed. Since 2012 75% of the people who have been killed were killed by far-right extremists and of that number 73% were killed by white supremacists.

I am frequently bothered by right-winger complaining about extremists on the left without mentioning that there are vastly more extremists on the right. It is difficult to call out people who look like us as extremists. After all, we are the good guys.

 

When Hatred and Violence Goes Mainstream

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I have been living in the United States for 2 months now with more to come. I am learning, as if I did not know already, that this is a very dangerous place.

PBS News Hour interviewed an expert on domestic terrorism by the name of Cynthia Miller-Idriss, of American University. She is the director of American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab.

She said she wished she lived in a world where the FBI had enough resources at its disposal to complete its investigation into the crimes committed at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Don’t we all wish that?

Miller-Idriss made one of the most surprising statements I have ever heard. She said this on PBS News Hour:

“We don’t have the capacity in any law enforcement agency to handle a surge of political violence or hate-fueled violence when that — when it’s driven by misinformation that is believed by millions and millions of people.”

 

She is an expert on domestic terrorism in the US and she says that America can’t deal with a surge of political violence! And frankly that makes perfect sense in a country like the US where it is apparent that millions of Americans believe the misinformation that is fueling the hatred there. The problem is that the hatred and violence in the US has gone mainstream! As a result, she says, everyone who works in her field is very worried. And that worries me. Particularly when I live here for 3 months.

 Of course, it is difficult for police forces to deal with domestic terrorism when it has not just implicit, but explicit support from the political leaders.  For example, this is what Republican Congressman  Matt Gaetz said immediately after the violence on Capitol Hill after President Trump fired up his supporters that they must “fight like hell” for their country or risk losing it:

“Some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters. They were masquerading as Trump supporters and, in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group Antifa.

 

Even more shocking were the statements by the new speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson who earlier had been one of the leaders of the project of the Trump team to file lawsuits seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He said he wanted to make public a video of the events that occurred on January 6, 2021 but would blur the faces so the rioters could not be identified:

“We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ.”

 

Think about that.  the leader of the House of Representatives said openly he wanted to help rioters who threatened to hang Mike Pence and wreck the Capitol to avoid criminal prosecution

In addition, Trump and many of the current GOP presidential primary candidates have promised to pardon Jan 6 rioters.  They are giving their blessing to what many judges and juries have already determined in many cases of the criminal trials of the leaders of the riot was sedition! That to me is astounding! And frightening.

 

When Law Makers and Law Enforcement  Support the Violence

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One of the things that shocked me when I watched the violence and rioting unfold at the Capitol in Washington on January 6th 2021 was the presence, in a supportive role, of what appeared to be cops or military in the midst of the rioters. They believed in the cause of violent insurrection in the support of a lawless President.

As Ryan Reilly author of a book called “Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System,” said about the rioters:

“We do have a lot of people within the FBI who are not so enthusiastic about bringing these cases against people who attacked the Capitol on January 6…There are, and I say that because some of these individuals who were at the FBI have come out and said that publicly. They have resigned from the FBI because of these cases.”

 

 

He said he would work against the FBI charging rioters. Reilly also pointed out that not only did current and former law enforcement officials push conspiracy theories, so did members of Congress who outright opposed the investigation into the crimes committed at the Capitol on January 6th. The current speaker of the House, Republican Mike Johnson, was one of those obvious supporters.  Added to that, he said many of them “contributed to misinformation about what happened that day.”

Think about that: Law makers and law enforcement supporting domestic terrorism. I  repeat what I have beeen saying: how can anyone deny that America is a country in serious decline?

Sedition Hunters

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The investigation by the FBI into what happened at the US Capitol on January 6th is the largest criminal investigation in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI is so overwhelmed it is relies on tips from amateurs doing their civic duty, as they see it, to pursue leads about the rioters so they can help the FBI to identify insurgents. One of those citizens, talked to PBS’s Judy Woodruff and told her that she had joined a massive citizen organization, including Trump supporters, to identify the people who participated in the riot at the Capitol by attacking police and the Capitol security.

As a result, that woman now has to hide her own identity because American right-wing extremists are threatening her personally to such an extent that she fears retaliation. One of the ones she called “insidious” was sending her videos of himself racking his gun. Imagine if you received such a video. 

The group of citizens is now referred to as “sedition hunters,” because as Judy Woodruff said on PBS News Hour,

“Over time, they developed their own methodologies, guidelines, even a software application to keep track of every individual rioter, giving each one a pseudonym and compiling dossiers of evidence that they then turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, along with the rioters’ real identity.”

As Ryan Reilly NBC Justice Reporter said, “The FBI was overwhelmed with the number of tips that they were receiving. They had received hundreds of thousands of tips.” Reilly, the author as well of the book “Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System,” described how the FBI has struggled to investigate the thousands of claims about people who stormed the Capitol.

Of course, according to FBI data,  the number of domestic terrorism cases in the US have increased by about 490% between 2016 when Trump was elected and 2021 when he lost the election and Biden was inaugurated.

Frankly, it is astonishing to me that the richest country in the world is unable to properly investigate the crimes committed at what the Americans refer to as a sacred place for its democracy. Many of those cases will expire because the statute of limitations is approaching and after that the perpetrators can’t be prosecuted. The FBI does not have the capacity to investigate all cases in time to meet the deadline!

 How can the US deny that it is a country in decline?

 

Republican Response to January 6th riots

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Very surprising is what many Republicans have said since January 6th 2021. Many Trump supporters have denied the obvious truth that the events that day were a riot and Trump supporters rioted. Ryan Reilly an NBC News reporter estimated that about 3,000 people unlawfully entered the Capitol, damaged property or assaulted police officers at the Capitol that day. So far only about 1,200 have been charged and more than 900 already convicted so far. Those events reminded me of what I have seen portrayed in films as the riots in Germany in the 1930s in support of Hitler and his rabid campaign of anti-semitism.

The reactions of many Republican elected leaders has been nothing short of astonishing.  For example, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), now the Speaker of the House said he would release images of the riot, but: “We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ.” He doesn’t want the rioters to be charged and in fact will actively work to ensure as few of them as possible are charged! And he said that with a broad smile.

In addition, Trump and many of the current GOP presidential primary candidates have promised to pardon Jan 6 rioters. That to me is astounding!

Many of Trump’s supporters don’t admit that the rioters did anything wrong. Having watched hours of  television of the riot that day, that astonishes me.

How about you?

Surging Domestic Terrorism

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The American criminal investigation by the FBI into what happened on Capitol Hill in Washington on January 6 2021 is the largest investigation it has ever undertaken. More than 1,200 people have already been charged with more than 900 of those convicted by courts of law. Republicans and many other Americans don’t seem to grasp this. These are 900 people who have already either admitted their guilt or been found guilty by a court of law.  And it is expected that hundreds of more charges will be laid. Yet many of them believe this is not true. Because that is what Fox News and their spiritual leader tell them.

There are so many investigations that the FBI basically acknowledges that it will not be able to complete all of the investigations before the Statute of Limitations expires!  That means many people who should be charged won’t be charged because it will be too late. Many domestic terrorists will be released or not even charged because the FBI is overwhelmed.

This is not fake news. This is fact. In fact, it is a brutal fact. These are Americans who were incited to appear at the Capitol on that day because Donald Trump said, “it’s going to be crazy.”  And “It will be wild.” And for once Trump was exactly right. It was crazy and it was wild.

I watched it unfold on television for hours that day, and to me it was completely unbelievable. Yet there it was right before my eyes. I saw much of it. And it was a riot. It was not a bunch of overly enthusiastic tourists as many Republicans alleged. Those were not crisis actors. This was a riot and for hours the president of the United States did nothing to stop it. Instead, he poured gasoline on the flames. Trump told his followers that day, “We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

 One of the interesting things about this riot is the varied reactions from Americans. Many on the American right have pooh-poohed it. American House Republican Representative Matt Gaetz said the rioters who breached the Capitol that day were not Trump supporters but were members of the violent left-wing terrorist group known as Antifa, masquerading as Trump supporters.  In effect, he said, it may look like a duck, walk like duck and quack like a duck, but still not be a duck.  And of course, all of this he claimed without any evidence whatsoever.

Many of the rioters violently tried to throttle the police and Capitol security forces. Many of those officers feared for their lives.  Many of the rioters were chanting “Hang Mike Pence” over and over again, because they were disappointed that he did not support Trump’s attempt to steal the election by subverting the electoral count  in the House of Representatives that day. Some of them even carried gallows to the event ready for use when needed!  Many of them were hunting for Senator Barbara Pelosi, likely for a similar purpose.

It was indeed crazy!

 

Cooper’s Collar

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After the motives of Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma bombing became clear, William Cooper who had inspired McVeigh became uncomfortable. He knew some people were pointing fingers at his organization.  But Cooper admitted nothing. Instead, he doubled down. He said, “They are in the process of attempting to propagandize the American people to believe that patriots bombed the building in Oklahoma City. No patriots would ever attack this nation. That’s what the word “patriot” means.”

Just like Donald Trump and his Trumpsters said after the attacks on the American capitol on January 6th 2021.  Those could not have been patriots they said.  Even though the rioters talked like Trump’s patriots, walked like Trump patriots and looked like Trump patriots presumably they were different.

He did not just say his movement was innocent, he claimed that the government was guilty. The government did it to discredit patriots, he said. He also called it a “sting operation to suck patriots into conducting an illegal act.” It was all part of a conspiracy to bring about a one world socialist government. Does this not all sound very familiar?

Again, the same attempt to deflect people from the truth was made by Trumpsters after January 6th when they said the government was responsible. They called it a false flag operation, suggesting that the government or Antifa was actually behind the riot. Later they even denied there was a riot.  Just a bunch of rambunctious tourists they said.

All of this is crazy, but what continues to amaze, is how Trump supporters believe this junk. In FantasyLand that is possible quite easily. When you live in FantasyLand, no belief is too crazy to be believed.

The Oklahoma City Massacre: Where Right-wing Hatred Ran Deep

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On April 19, 1995, just after 9  in the morning, another very important incident occurred in Oklahoma City.  It was the second anniversary of the Waco massacre. A rush of people was moving into the Alfred P. Murrah federal building at that time. Many of them were children. There was a day care in the building.

Timothy McVeigh wanted people to remember what had happened at Waco 2 years earlier. He wanted people to remember what happened there for a thousand years. Sort of like the proposed 1,000-year reign of the Nazis in Germany.  I suspect both episodes might  be remembered for a thousand years. Heinous crimes have a habit of staying in memory. Good deeds rarely get such sustained attention.

McVeigh had 5,000 pounds of explosive ammonium nitrate and nitro methane in the back of his rental truck. He lit a 2 minute fuse under the day care centre in the federal building. Think about that: he parked the truck, locked it, immediately under a day care center filled with kids. McVey walked away to a get-away vehicle.  The explosion killed 168 people including 19 children. It was called, “the worst act of terrorism in American history.” And it was home grown.

I remember when I heard about it that day. My immediate reaction was that it must have been initiated by some radical Islamic terrorists. A lot of Americans had the same presumption. We were wrong. It was set by radical domestic right-wing terrorists! This was home grown terrorism.

As Justin Ling said, “Oklahoma City followed years of apocalyptic declarations and incitement from the fringes of right-wing radio.”  This is what president Bill Clinton said at the time in response: “They leave the impression by their very words that violence is acceptable. You ought to see some of the things that are regularly said over the airwaves in American today.  Clinton ought to know. He and his wife Hillary were subjected to hate on the airwaves of America for years. they still are.  Perhaps no one in America has been more hated by the American right-wing than the two of them. They were frequently accused of hideous crimes such as accusations that they killed and ate—yes ate—hundreds of children. These were the wildest untrue and hateful accusations that could a have been hurled in America. This too went on for years.

Hatred runs deep in the American right-wing.

And of course, these wild accusations were made, as always, without any evidence to back them up.  The American right-wing does not need evidence to set them off. All they need is unsubstantiated claims and hate which are enough to light the fuse to the hate.

Yet Rush Limbaugh challenged Clinton the very next day on his radio show:

“Talk is not a crime and talk is not the culprit here. Talk didn’t buy the fertilizer, and the fuel oil. Talk didn’t drive the van and talk didn’t rent the van. A person did. A lunatic did.”

Yes, but talk ignited the flame that lit the fuse! Hateful talk can do that. Years of hateful talk can have an effect. The German Nazis proved that in Germany, as did the fascist Hutus in Rwanda, as did Donald Trump in America.

Talk is cheap, but hateful talk is costly.

Wacky Waco

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One of the most important incidents in the history of the whacky right-wing movement in the US, occurred, appropriately near a city called Waco Texas. That incident ignited the right-wing  talk-radio hosts around the country.

On April 19, 1993 there was a tense standoff near the Mount Carmel in Waco Texas between a small Christian sect known as the Branch Davidians and nearly 900 federal agents including the FBI, Customs, the National Guard and the Texas Rangers. To many it appeared like an epic struggle between Christians and government. Of course, the   government agents brought massive amounts of fire power with them.  Nothing but overwhelming force would do against this small Christian sect. This included a dozen tanks. Inside the fortified building there are about 100 Branch Davidians that included 20 children. About half the adults were women. It didn’t look like a fair fight. But should it be a fair fight? If Antifa is rioting in the streets of Seattle or Portland should they be met with equal force?  What if the rioters are a motor cycle gang. Do the authorities have to fight them fairly? Or should we allow them to bring overwhelming force?

The Christian sect had a leader David Koresh, after whom the group was named. They were not lambs led to the slaughter.  As Justin Ling explained on his CBC podcast, “They’ve got a 50-caliber cannon, machine guns, and more than a million rounds of ammunition. They are prepared for a holy war.”        This was a very well-armed sect of Christians.

Modern Christians like to be well-armed. No lily-livered pacifism for them. They don’t turn the other cheek; they turn the other AR-15.

 One of the officers on the site said the agents had walked into “a hail-storm in reverse.” I don’t know what that means but it doesn’t sound good to me.

The initial fire fight led to the deaths of 4 officers and 5 Branch Davidians. Since then, there was a very tense stand-off. The line from the Clinton administration was about saving the children inside the compound.  But why did they need saving? There was a very different version of the events on short-wave radio.

One broadcaster from Arizona said “this was the beginning of the end for Christian America.”  The Christians believed that no one in the church was compelled to go there. Everyone was there as a result of exercising their own free will or their parents exercising their own free will. As a result, according to this view, the attack on the site was an extreme example of government over reach and tyranny—i.e. government interfering with the freedom of the people. One of those people upset with the government and who espoused this view was radio talk-show host William Cooper. Cooper said,

“The U.S government is training this massive military force on Americans who are just exercising their religious freedom. For Cooper this siege vindicated the dire predictions he had been making for years—that the socialist, liberal government is about to take away your freedom. And you might be next!”

The fears were being stoked. And once again, paranoia was bringing bad decision making in its wake.

As one right-wing pundit said,

“The siege continues in Waco Texas. A small group of men and women trapped under siege by government forces. They are fighting the second battle of the Second American Revolution. Make no mistake about it folks—we are at war.”

 

Many Americans believed exactly that.  America was at war with its own government. As a result of Waco, the American survivalist and militia movement was born. This was the group that later included domestic terrorists such as Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and many others. The events of January 6th 2021 were a direct descendant of Waco.

 There was a young boy who came to see the action in Waco Texas. He was selling bumper sticker such as this: “Fear the government that fears your gun.” “Banning guns make the streets safe for a government takeover.” That young kid later made a lot of noise in the right-wing movement when he got a little older. His name was Timothy McVeigh.