Americans are slowly adjusting to the age of surveillance and body scans due to the increased threat of terrorism. Not long ago, communities would grind to a halt over a bomb threat from a prank call. Now, Americans feel relatively safe under a perpetual Homeland Security Advisory System that alternates between “elevated” and “high.”
Although terrorist activity is nothing new, efforts to avoid world wars have caused the exportation of military activity to non-state groups who will conduct guerilla warfare directly on enemy citizens. This is especially true of Islamic states, which want to continue supplying oil to world markets without the economic penalty of open war.
Guerilla warfare is so effective that most of the battles being waged worldwide involve cultural subversion and terrorist cells — not state militaries. Terrorist cells of all stripes are nothing more than mercenary soldiers of ideological groups, many of whom will attack their own countrymen. The ideologies in question include religious fanaticism, eco-zealotry, communism, fascism, anarchism, and everything in between.
From a religious perspective, the most dangerous terrorists are Muslim extremists. Islamists seek to conquer those they cannot convert — to “cast terror in the hearts of disbelievers.” Under the leadership of groups like al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, militants are now shifting away from centralized control into an era of independent cells that follow directives posted on extremist websites. Because of this tactical shift, terrorist plots are less complicated than 9/11 but have exponentially grown in number.
Pockets of violent Muslim “youths” in Western Europe conduct terrorist activities from inside those countries. That kind of homegrown terrorism is spreading in America. Dearborn, Michigan — home of the largest U.S. Arab community, is under constant FBI surveillance because some residents have expressed a desire to “spread Islam through violent jihad and violence against the United States government and against law enforcement.”
Due to the spread of Islamist violence, Jews outside of Israel are again seeking the refuge of a homeland. Even the famed neutrality of Sweden now fails to protect them from persecution.
Those fleeing political and religious persecution have no where else to go but America, the last remaining sanctuary country. Walid Shoebat put it succinctly when he described his own defection from the Muslim culture:
America is the only place that we can live — people with conscientious objection. I can’t go to the streets of Ramallah and carry a sign that says, “I condemn suicide bombing.” I’ll be lynched within seconds! You can’t go to a bus stop in Cairo or Syria or Damascus … and say, “I’m Jewish” or say, “I’m against terrorism.”
But Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam leader and organizer of the Million Man March, creates a hostile environment here in America — among many incitements of racism, he engages in hate speech about whites and Jews. Farrakhan preaches of white “devils,” characterizing them as the “anti-Christ.” He promotes anti-Semitism by defaming Judaism, calling it a “gutter religion” and Jews “bloodsuckers.” His effect on the youth of the Nation of Islam can be seen in a video of a drill team marching to a young man’s cadence:
The devil’s on your left, the devil’s on your right. … We kill when we know it’s time to fight. Farrakhan is our leader, Allah told him right. Touch your hand on his head if you want to lose your life. Soldiers going strong; studying Islam. Martial law we train, break backbones and all. We fast on Ramadan; we know holy Koran. … Soldiers for Farrakhan.
In that clip, the young drill team is encouraged by a cheering, jubilant crowd.
Islamists are not the only ones who make up terrorist and militant groups in America. Anarchists, eco-zealots, and animal rights activists are following the same effective decentralized command structure as jihadists: individual cells claiming responsibility for terrorist acts under the banner of a larger coalition.
The most alarming aspect of the tight-knit pack of left-wing extremists is an increasing use of IEDs in terrorist attacks. Because Mexico is preoccupied with drug cartels and gangs, these groups are bolder in their attacks in that country — setting off over 12 IEDs from January to September of 2009.
Left-wing extremist groups have used IED attacks in the U.S., but the groups are more closely monitored and investigated here; as a result, the groups are not as emboldened as their Mexican counterparts. However, the situation in Mexico is headed our way if America descends into social crisis from our plummeting economy.
Another disturbing trend is left-wing activism targeting the tea party movement. One commenter on AnarchistNews.org wrote about attending a tea party rally:
We aren’t going to be able to “turn” any ‘Baggers to the Left. … Best thing to do is organize AFA & ARA (Anti-Fascist/Anti-Racist) groups and confront them face to face.
Another poster called for anarchist militias. Someone responded: “It’s time to stop breaking windows and start breaking skulls.” Another poster took a subversive tone: “Join and infiltrate the teabaggers. Gather intel. Destroy it from within.”
Anarchists for a utopian cause have linked forces with communist and socialist groups to “bring this [capitalist] system down.” They believe the libertarian tea party movement that started under the Bush administration was co-opted by conservatives only after the first black president was elected. This makes them believe conservatives who were quiet during Bush’s expansion of socialist policies like Medicare only oppose Obama for his race, not politics.
Left-wing agitators truly believe the tea party movement is a resurgence of “right-wing” fascism and Nazi racism. Although their assertion is not true, for those who have long believed conservatives are racists, bigots, and homophobes, the appearance of tea party hypocrisy looks damning.
Conversely, the same left-wing groups agitated by Bush’s “fascist” war policies are suddenly quiet as Obama expands fascist dictatorial rule. This gives tea party groups the same suspicion of hypocrisy among the left.
The tea party movement is not without its own set of legitimate problems. Growing ever distrustful of government, and rightly so, the right is dealing with its small but radical factions from the militia movement of the 1990s.
Just last month, a militia group was arrested for plotting to kill a law enforcement official in hopes of luring more to slaughter.
The tea party movement can’t allow hardcore survivalists and hair-trigger Harrys to usurp the movement for localized holdout groups. So far, the movement has kept its cool. The real test will be if they can successfully avoid the baiting of the left — including the Obama administration.
The strangest twist regarding terrorism in America is the government’s role in goading one particular group to violence: the tea party movement. While the left-wing groups poke fun of the seeming impotent, geriatric buffoonery of “teabaggers,” the media and federal government are working overtime to paint this group as dangerous extremists.
Nancy Pelosi cried crocodile tears while reminiscing over the left-wing violence of the 60s, and projected it onto conservatives. This was shortly after she lied about them bringing swastikas to town hall meetings.
Obama mocked, then ignored, the tea party protesters.
Network media painted conservative rallies as “violent,” when the only acts of violence were from left-wing activists who attacked attendees of town hall meetings. These acts were caught on tape, unlike the new accusation that conservatives spat on members of Congress before the House vote on health care reform. The video backing up that claim has yet to surface despite the congressional group having taped the whole event.
Considering the potential power of the tea party movement to repeal socialist policies, one can see why it’s important to the left to discredit it. Since all left-wing/totalitarian political groups can trace their ideology to last century’s communist and fascist movements, it becomes imperative to isolate the classical liberal and populist tea party movement from public favor by pushing them to violence as well.
In an age of free societies and terrorism, the last man standing to appeal to the masses will be the one of reason and nonviolence. Now that the tea party movement is emerging as a political powerhouse, the left will drag them into the mud at all costs — even if it means that to stay in power the government must intentionally push the right to “terrorism.” This is truly a new form of politics.
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