Only a socialist or muslim would think so.
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The Greater Danger: Military-Trained Right-Wing Extremists
Prior to the Boston bombing, a series of high-profile attacks prompted
concern about Islamist extremists within the U.S. armed forces. It's not
unfounded, but it downplays a bigger threat.
David Sterman Apr 24 2013, 4:31 PM ET
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RTR36CW7.jpgA memorial honoring the six victims of a shooting at a Sikh
temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The shooter was Wade Michael Page, a white
supremacist and U.S. Army veteran. (John Gress/Reuters)
Before last week's bombing attack in Boston, there was a growing anxiety in
the United States not only about homegrown violent Islamic extremism, but --
especially after Nidal Hasan killed 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, and
then further after Eric Harroun was accused of fighting alongside a
terrorist group in Syria last month -- about the specific and particularly
frightening prospect of such extremism developing among members or trainees
of the U.S. military. It's an understandable anxiety, and it may again be
vindicated. But there's meanwhile a more worrying danger: that right-wing
extremists who have served in the U.S. military will use their training in
carrying out terrorist violence.
Right-wing extremists are more likely than violent Islamist extremists--or,
as they are sometimes called, jihadists--to have military experience. They
are also better armed, and are responsible for more incidents. The past two
decades have seen multiple attacks from right-wing extremist veterans, from
Wade Michael Page, who trained at Fort Bragg, to the group of former and
active-duty soldiers in Georgia, who collected weapons to carry out a plan
to assassinate President Obama. In 2011, Kevin Harpham, who had served in
the army, placed a bomb along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day
parade. During the 1990s, violent extremism in the militia movement and
other right-wing movements relied heavily upon those who served in the
military. Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the most deadly terrorist
attack on American soil before 9/11, was a military veteran whose
libertarian views were also heavily influenced by a novel by a former
American Nazi Party official. Eric Rudolph, the anti-abortion extremist who
bombed the 1996 Olympics, had also enlisted in the army.
Daryl Johnson, former senior domestic terrorism analyst at the Department of
Homeland Security, noted the important relationship between the military and
violent right-wing extremism in his book Right Wing Resurgence. He writes
that right-wing extremists "target law enforcement and military personnel
for their training experience (particularly weapons and explosives
training), their disciplined way of life, leadership skills, and access to
weapons, equipment, and sensitive information." Johnson further notes that a
government survey of 17,080 soldiers found that 3.5 percent of them had been
contacted in order to recruit them into an extremist organization and that
7.1 percent said they knew another soldier who they believed to be part of
an extremist organization.
The New America Foundation's dataset on homegrown extremists offers a
platform to quantitatively compare the threat from military-trained
right-wing and jihadist extremists, and to evaluate the significance of the
threat from each form of extremism. The dataset includes those extremists
indicted or involved in violent activities since 2001. According to the
dataset, 13 jihadist and Al Qaeda-linked homegrown extremists served in the
US military, and they account for about six percent of jihadist extremists
listed in the database. These jihadists do appear to be more dangerous than
jihadists who have not served in the military. They are more likely to
acquire arms on their own, for example. Furthermore, about twenty-five
percent of those who served in the military were involved in violent
incidents compared to six percent of all jihadist extremists in the dataset.
In terms of raw numbers, the threat of jihadist extremists with experience
serving in the US military appears to have held steady or possibly to have
declined since 9/11. Slightly over half of the cases involved indictments or
incidents prior to 2005, though five cases since 2008 suggest a continued
risk.
So the dataset does provide support for those worrying about the increased
security risk of military-trained jihadists. Yet the threat pales in
comparison with the threat from right-wing extremists with US military
training. While only 13 jihadists had served in the US military, 21
right-wing extremists served in the US military. It's a particularly
striking number because there are nearly 100 fewer right-wing extremists
listed in the dataset. Moreover, in contrast to the military-trained
jihadist threat, the threat from right wing extremists with military
training appears to be growing. About 70 percent of the right-wing
extremists who have served in the military were indicted or were involved in
an incident since the beginning of 2008.
Another sign of the risk from military-trained right wing extremists:
They've committed more attacks -- more than twice as many as their jihadist
counterparts. Just under half of military-trained right-wing extremists were
involved in incidents compared to under one-fourth of military-trained
jihadist extremists. As with the jihadists, military service among
right-wing extremists is correlated with an increase in rates of violent
incidents compared to those without military service, though the effect
appears to be smaller than among jihadists: About 48 percent of those who
served in the military were involved in incidents compared to about 44
percent of all right-wing homegrown extremists.
Right-wing extremists who have served in the military are also more likely
to acquire arms individually. About nine out of every ten military-trained
right wing extremists obtained weapons compared to about six out of every
ten military-trained jihadists and about a quarter of all jihadists. There
are many potential explanations for the difference, but it is clear that the
right-wing extremists who have served in the military are by far the
best-armed extremists threatening the American people.
The role of violent Islamic extremists with experience in the American
military is worthy of concern. But no group appears to be quite as dangerous
as right-wing, military-trained extremists. As the American public's
attention turns away from terrorism and as budgetary pressures increase, it
is important to ensure that the homeland security and counterterrorism
enterprise properly ranks risks to American lives and livelihoods.
Right-wing extremist violence should be placed at the forefront of any
examination of extremism in the military. To do otherwise risks allowing the
right-wing violence to continue increasing, as we seek ever more perfect
prevention of jihadist violence with too little attention to the costs or
tradeoffs of continuing to focus on the much smaller jihadist threat.
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