This is an excerpt from "White Power USA," which aired on Democracy Now last Monday as well as on Al Jezeera English. "White Power USA" is a short documentary produced by Rick Rowley and Jacquie Soohen which gives insight into growing social and political support of white supremacist hate groups across the country.
The US Department of Homeland Security warned last June that right-wing extremism represents "the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States." Many on the right balked at this claim, citing it as a partisan attack.
Yet, as Republicans have been quick to demand the Ft. Hood shootings and the failed Christmas Day Bombing be declared terrorist attacks on the US, the same demand was largely absent after the assassination of abortion doctor George Tiller by a supporter of Christian anti-abortion groups like the Army of God, regarded as a terrorist organization by the United States government.
On January 22 of last year, Matthew L. Derosia of St. Paul MN rammed an SUV into the front entrance of a planned parenthood clinic, claiming the Jesus had called on him to do so. Had Mr. Derosia been of Islamic decent instead of white and had he a Qur'an in his truck instead of the Bible, this incident might quickly have been exploited as a terrorist attack. Yet, it slipped strangely under the radar.
- In 2002, two white supremacists are convicted of conspiring to start a race war by bombing landmarks associated with Jews and Blacks
- In 2003 William Krar, a white supremacist is charged in connection with a bombing plot using a sodium cyanide bomb that was seized with at least 100 other bombs, bomb components, machine guns, and 500,000 rounds of ammunition
- In 2006, Demetrius Van Crocker, a white supremacist from rural Tennessee, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempting to acquire Sarin nerve gas and C-4 explosives that he planned to use to destroy government building
While the media and intelligence agencies are focusing their attention on armed militias in Yemen and Pakistan, it is easy to forget that armed militias are growing within our own boarders.
The U.S. Patriot Act defines domestic terrorism as: (A) acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended— (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
Based on just a cursory reading, it's quite obvious that a host of domestic terrorist attacks have either occurred or been thwarted in the last ten years. This is far from the black and white picture that many politicians are trying to paint through the mainstream media, yet very few media outlets have drawn any real attention to this issue. It's not so much that we need to be frightened of domestic terrorism, but we do need to recognize that we can not allow the face of terrorism to be painted as inherently Islamic.
Many pundits have been making that argument that a Muslim man citing passages from the Qur'an as he guns down Americans is a terrorist. If this is true, then an American man citing passages from the Bible as he guns down law-abiding citizens is just as dangerous if not more dangerous if we choose to blind ourselves in an attempt to thwart Islamic Extremism.
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