In the wake of Boston Bombing we've had all sorts of renewed talk about how "Bush Kept us Safe" and Obama has been "Soft" on terrorism. That's he's perhaps "sympathetic" to Murdering Islamic Extremists because he was "raised muslim" in Indonesia. (Which he wasn't but oh well, who needs Factiness)
We've heard that the "Terror-Score" of Successful Attacks during Presidential Terms has been "Bush 0: Obama 5"
Let's ignore the fact that in his criticism of Obama he counts Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (the so-called "Underwear Bomber") who didn't accomplish his mission, but he also ignores Richard Reid (the Shoe Bomber), and Jose Padillia - who didn't accomplish their missions either - not to mention the Anthrax Attack on Congress, the DC Sniper(s) and the 11 Embassy Bombings that took place under Bush.
And that one other attack, what was it called? Oh - yeah - 9/11/01!
P.S. Who Killed Osama Bin Laden and who let him get away at Tora Bora? To me that's Obama 1! - Bush Goose-Egg.
Besides the floor of the GOP Congress, these ideas have largely been pushed forward on Fox News, even so much so that a former Fox News Corespondent recently said that they are "waging a campaign to link Radical to Islam"
“I think that Fox is practically waging a campaign to link the words ‘radical’ and ‘Islam’,” Hall agreed. “I don’t think radical Islam is a religion. I think what happens can be a perversion, from what I understand, of religion. I don’t think the media should shy away from looking at how these young men got radicalized, what [dead bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev] learned when he went back to Russia… But I think there is a difference endlessly linking this and saying, you know, helpfully having visuals that say radical Islam with these young men’s pictures.”
Hall makes a fair point about Radicalization. But the truth is that most acts of radical religiously motivated domestic violence and terrorism on U.S. Soil are committed by (Usually White) Right Wing Extremist Christians.
And no one seems to know it.
Here's a chart from ThinkProgress.com that documents the actual percentage of terrorist attacks on U.S. Soil going all the way back to the Oklahoma City Bombing.
Fifty-six percent of domestic terrorist attacks and plots in the U.S. since 1995 have been perpetrated by right-wing extremists, as compared to 30 percent by ecoterrorists and 12 percent by Islamic extremists. Right-wing extremism has been responsible for the greatest number of terrorist incidents in the U.S. in 13 of the 17 years since the Oklahoma City bombing.
Media Matters takes this a bit further with some specific examples.
On August 5, 2012, just before 10:30 in the morning, Wade Michael Page pulled up outside the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, WI., took out his semi-automatic handgun and started killing worshipers. An Army veteran and an avid bass player in a neo-Nazi rock band, Page murdered two Sikhs outside the house of worship and then made his way inside. There, he reloaded and killed four more, including the president of the temple who was shot while trying to tackle Page. Three more were critically wounded in the massacre.
When local police descended, Page opened fire and shot one officer nearly ten times. When the authorities returned fire and shot Page in the stomach, he took his 9mm pistol, pointed it at his own head, and pulled the trigger.
According to acquaintances, the 40-year-old killer hated blacks, Indians, Native Americans and Hispanics (he called non-whites "dirt people"), and was interested in joining the Klu Klux Klan. Immersed in the world of white power music, Page's band rehearsed in front of a Nazi flag.
And the part that people tend to ignore, is the fact that the Klan
claims to be a "Christian" Organization.
They [The Klan] were explicitly Christian terrorist in ideology, basing their beliefs on a "religious foundation" in Christianity.[65] The goals of the KKK included, from an early time on, an intent to "reestablish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible," and believe that "Jesus was the first Klansman."
In additional to this recent example we've had this series of Prosecutor Executions perpetrated (allegedly) by Neo-Nazi Prison Gangs.
http://news.nationalpost.com/...
Heavily armed police guarded the courthouse in the normally sleepy Texan county town of Kaufman Tuesday as Brandi Fernandez arrived to take up her duties as district attorney.
The menacing mood facing Miss Fernandez, 42, an experienced local prosecutor, is the product of a double murder that has caused fears that criminal gangs are targeting the town’s officials.
She has good reason to worry for her security, since she led the prosecution of a senior “enforcer” of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas last year.
The assassination of two of her colleagues and the wife of one of the men has unnerved the ranks of law enforcement.
Normal criminals and gangs don't usually go on a spree to murder prosecutors. Let alone in multiple states. In fact, it almost never happens. Now it's becoming almost common-place.
Update: Despite their initial fears - it appears that the primary motive in the Texas Prosecutor murders has turned out to be based on a personal vendetta, rather than a coordinated action by Neo-Nazi Gangs. Such a reaction was understandable though since a Neo-Nazi Gang was linked to the murder of a Chief of Prison in Colorado.
http://www.foxnews.com/...
Authorities arrested a member of a white supremacist gang linked to the killing of Colorado's prisons chief, who was shot answering the door of his home last month.
James Lohr, 47, was arrested Friday by the Colorado Springs Police Department, Fox News confirms.
Lohr was wanted for questioning in the murder of Colorado Corrections Director Tom Clements. It's unclear if Lohr has been charged.
And the actual shooter in that case, operating allegedly under orders from Lohr and his prison-gang, just happens to have
fled to Texas where he was killed in a shootout with police.
http://www.cnn.com/...
The bullets that killed Colorado prison chief Tom Clements came from the gun found with a former inmate who died in a shootout with Texas police two days later, investigators confirmed Monday.
So maybe they had a reason to try and connect those dots, even if they didn't ultimately line up. Clearly these gangs are growing in boldness and power.
And it's not just neo-nazi's and the Klan, we also have "Christian" Warriors who have been more than willing to Fire and Acid Bomb Women's Clinics. And not just once in a while - repeatedly. (Media Matters)
Such acts have been legion. During a robust period of political violence last decade, women's health clinics were attacked in January, May, and September 2003, January and July 2004, January, May, and July 2005, as well as May and December 2007, according to the National Abortion Federation.
Then in 2009, five clinics in Florida were the target of acid attacks.
More recently, two antiabortion firebombings occurred in 2011. And last year a woman's health clinic in Wisconsin was damaged when a homemade bomb was set off on the building's windowsill.
And that's not all. They Shoot Down Doctors (like George Tiller) in cold blood, for Religious Reasons. Militia Members and members of the Sovereign movement continue to threaten, intimidate and murder as the Southern Poverty Law Center documents.
June 8, 2008
Six people, most of them tied to the militia movement, are arrested in rural north-central Pennsylvania after officials find stockpiles of assault rifles, improvised explosives and homemade weapons, at least some of them apparently intended for terrorist attacks on U.S. officials.
October 24, 2008
Two white supremacists, Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman, are arrested in Tennessee for allegedly plotting to assassinate Barack Obama and murder more than 100 black people.
April 30, 2010
Darren Huff, an Oath Keeper from Georgia, is arrested and charged with planning the armed takeover of a Madisonville, Tenn., courthouse and "arrest" of 24 local, state and federal officials.
July 21, 2010
Attorney Todd Getgen is shot to death at a gun range in Cumberland County, Penn., and his weapon, a silenced AR-15 rifle, is stolen. Authorities arrest prison guard Raymond Peake nine days later, saying Peake was trying to accumulate weapons for an unnamed organization that intended to overthrow the government.
Jan. 14, 2011
Federal agents in Arizona arrest Jeffery Harbin, a member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, for allegedly building homemade grenades and pipe bombs that he apparently intended to supply to anti-immigration groups patrolling the Mexican border.
March 10, 2011
Six members of the antigovernment Alaska Peacemakers Militia, including its leader, Francis Schaeffer Cox, 28, are arrested and charged with plotting to kill or kidnap state troopers and a Fairbanks judge.
Jan. 17, 2011
Bomb technicians defuse a sophisticated improvised explosive device (IED) found in a backpack along the Spokane, Wash., route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade with 1,500 marchers. Using forensic clues found in the dismantled bomb, officials about two months later identify and arrest Kevin William Harpham, a long-time neo-Nazi.
October 5, 2011
White supremacist ex-convict David "Joey" Pedersen, 31, and his girlfriend, Holly Ann Grigsby, 24, are arrested in California after a murderous rampage in three states.
November 1, 2011
Four members of an unnamed North Georgia militia are arrested in an alleged plot to bomb federal buildings, attack cities including Atlanta with deadly ricin, and murder law enforcement officials.
December 10, 2011
Four soldiers, later identified as members of a militia-type group called Forever Enduring, Always Ready (FEAR), are arrested for murdering 19-year-old former soldier and group member Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Tiffany York, because they feared the pair would talk about the group's plans.
April 17, 2012
Joseph Benjamin Thomas and Samuel James Johnson of Mendota Heights, Minn., are indicted on federal weapons and drug charges following an investigation into their alleged plans to form a white supremacist group called the "Aryan Liberation Movement" and commit violence against minorities, leftists and government officials.
So do we have columns from Tom Friedman asking what we all did to get
Christians to hate us all they way he argues that Islam does?
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny — in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving.
Hey man, some people believe a lot of stupid self-aggrandizing shit. Some of them get weapons, some of them make bombs, and a bunch of them KILL based on those fracked up beliefs. Do we generalize and
profile them or get specific and find out
which of these people are the most dangerous?
Apparently Fox News and most Conservatives would prefer the Former for Radical Muslims and the Latter for Radical Christians.
Even after the Sikh Attack and the Prosecutor Murders and the Women's Clinic attacks if Homeland Security and police forces like the NYPD decided they were going to implement across the board surveillance of Christian Groups not just in their own jurisdiction, but in neighboring states - I'm sure we could expect those Christians to accept this treatment and knowingly nod in unison that "we may not like these Extreme measures, but in this terrible times of rampant (Christian Domestic) terrorism, we must accept that it's neccessary".
Yeah, that's exactly how the Muslim Community took it when they found out the NYPD had been doing exactly that to them for years.
NYPD Surveillance of Muslim has Created a Climate of Fear.
A new report released last week by a coalition of Muslim civil liberties groups paints a grim picture of the targeting of Muslims in the NYPD’s post-9/11 anti-terrorism surveillance operations. The report, “Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and its Impact on American Muslims,” tells how the NYPD’s extensive surveillance—always in the name of national security—has created a climate of fear and distrust among Muslims, has had a chilling effect on their ability to worship freely at mosques, and has deterred organization around Muslim civil rights issues.
Report co-author Diala Shamas, an attorney with Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR), said the research, which included 57 interviews with Muslims living in the New York City area, is a response to long held concerns that the NYPD is infringing on the constitutional freedoms of Muslims. “We wanted to show the community’s response to the NYPD’s claim that this surveillance is harmless,” said Shamas. (CLEAR is a project run out of the City University of New York’s School of Law.)
Among the report’s key findings: individuals reported heavy surveillance of the city’s mosques as places of suspected radicalization, which has made individuals wary when attending services; and the fear of being targeted by law enforcement has led to self-censorship and decreased involvement in community groups like Muslim Student Associations. A particular concern cited in the report is the department’s deployment of an unknown number of undercover informants throughout the city,. “You look at your closest friends and ask: are they informants?” said one respondent.
And how many plots did this surveillance foil? How man attacks were averted?
Apparently NONE.
"Zero/Nothing", That's what the NYPD's Demographics Unit says it has to show for years of surveillance of New York's Islamic community and other such communities in the region.
Unit commander Thomas Galati said this week that he's "never made a lead from rhetoric that came from a Demographics report and I'm here since 2006." Muslims at Friday prayers weren't surprised.
That's some crack police work there,
Sparky. Heck-of-a-job.
After 9/11 we understandably do have a high level of concern when it comes to Radical Islam - but have we ever had a similar high level of concern over Christian/Patriot/Neo-Nazi Domestic Terrorism after Oklahoma City, the Atlanta Olympics Bombing, the Firebombing of Abortion Clinics or the attempted Bombing of the MLK parade?
Would we ever seriously consider sending any of those people to Gitmo? Putting them in a Secure Black-Site for some Enhanced Interrogation? Would we ever think about using the "Public Safety Exception" to delay Mirandizing them?
I think not.
And if not, why not - because we seem to have (almost) no problem doing that to Muslims.
I've been saying we were on the verge of a Domestic Shooting War for years, turns out that War is already raging. And no one is noticing because look - Tsarnaev!
Vyan