Is Homeland Security Wary About Reporting on Right-Wing Extremists?
By Mark Hosenball
 Declassified
April 16, 2010
Excerpts
Despite a recent upsurge in threats and violence by far-right groups and loners, the Homeland Security Department appears gun-shy about reporting or monitoring the trend too closely. Domestic security and counterterrorism officials say that even though, in light of recent events, a controversial report issued a year ago by Homeland Security [link added] about a “resurgence” in far-right radicalization and recruitment appears well informed, if not prescient, the Department has done nothing to re-issue the report or update it.
When its report titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitmentâ€Â [PDF] first leaked to the media last year, the Homeland Security Department was slammed by conservative activists and pundits for even daring to address the issue.
Blogger Michelle Malkin called the report a “hit job on conservatives,” alleging it was “one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real.” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tweeted, “The person who drafted the outrageous homeland security memo smearing veterans and conservatives should be fired,” and the issue became major fodder for Fox News hosts.
Particularly upset by the report were veterans’ groups, who expressed great irritation at a passage in the report stating that returning vets “possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to right-wing extremism”; the report added that Homeland Security’s intelligence office was “concerned that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.”
The American Legion’s chief sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano blasting the report as “incomplete, and, I fear, politically biased,” leading Napolitano to request an urgent meeting with the head of the veteran’s group in order to honor Americans who had served in the military.
While not formally withdrawing the report, Napolitano and other senior Homeland Security officials apologized for it, saying it was poorly written and not properly reviewed before it was issued. But as we reported here last year, Napolitano also indicated that the report would be “replaced or redone in a much more useful and much more precise fashion.”
Napolitano has not followed through on that, however, even though recent news events — including the crashing of a plane into an IRS office in Texas by a tax protestor [link added], a torrent of threats against Congressional leaders [link added], and the takedown of the bizarre but well-connected Hutaree [link added] militia (whose membership, as we noted here, included former U.S. military personnel) — have substantially vindicated Homeland Security’s judgments of last year. …
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Related reports
Endangered species: Responsible Republicans are nearly extinct (Jacob Weisberg, Newsweek, April 16, 2010) — It was a December 1993 memo by conservative strategist and commentator William Kristol…. about how Republicans should respond to Bill Clinton’s 1993 health-care effort [that] pushed the GOP away from any cooperation with the other side. His message marks the pivotal moment when Republicans shifted from fundamentally responsible partners in governing the country to uncompromising, hyperpartisan antagonists on all issues. … Full story
“By mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead.” (David Frum, prominent conservative and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, in a piece about the health-care vote titled “Waterloo.”)
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7/25/2011 Update
Norway Attacks Focus Attention on U.S. Right-Wing Extremists
Video
U.S. anti-Islamic rhetoric quoted in alleged killer’s manifesto (NBC Nightly News, July 25, 2011) — In the wake of the Oslo attacks, investigators are focusing on a 1,500-page manifesto in which accused suspect Anders Behring Breivik vows to take violent action to stop “the ongoing Islamic colonization of Europe.” Some say Breivik was influenced by heated rhetoric from groups in the United States. NBC’s Michael Isikoff reports. (02:18)
By Azriel Relph and Michael Isikoff
July 25, 2011
The bomb attack and shooting spree that killed 76 people in Norway on Friday [July 22, 2011] is refocusing attention on the threat from right-wing terrorist attacks in the U.S. inspired by anti-Islamic rhetoric.
In the aftermath of the mass murder, investigators are looking at a 1,500-page manifesto in which Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian man who admitted to carrying out the attacks, vowed “brutal and breathtaking operations†in order to stop “the ongoing Islamic Colonization of Europe.†Analysts say the manifesto was inspired by heated rhetoric from groups in the United States – some of which are quoted directly.
“This attack in Norway should be a wake up for our decision makers,†said Daryl Johnson, the founder of DT Analytics, a consulting firm that tracks extremist activity in the United States.
As a former top domestic terrorist analyst for the Department of Homeland Security, Johnson produced a 2009 report that warned of a growing threat from right-wing extremists and domestic hate groups. The report produced a storm of controversy amid charges that the department was monitoring protected political speech. The report was ultimately removed from the Homeland Security website …
Johnson … sees parallels between the rhetoric of some domestic extremists and Breivik’s writings.
“We could have a similar attack here, and that’s my greatest fear,†he said. “We could have a Timothy McVeigh-type carry out a mass shooting event or a vehicle bomb attack that resulted in mass casualties.â€
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8/21/2012 Update
Michele Bachmann Opposed DHS Focus on Right-Wing Extremists
By Ken Avidor
The Dump Bachmann Blog
August 8, 2012
The shooting at at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin is being described by the FBI as a domestic terrorism incident. Annie-Rose Strasser at Think Progress reminds us that many right-wingers, a few years ago harshly criticized the Department of Homeland Security for describing white supremacy as this country’s biggest threat for domestic terror:
The gunman in the shooting at a Sikh temple over the weekend has been labeled a potential domestic terrorist — defined as one who incites politically-motivated violence against his or her own country. In Wade Michael Page’s case, that political motivation was likely white supremacy, a growing problem in the United States.
But when, in 2009, the Department of Homeland Security reported that white supremacy is the US’s biggest threat for domestic terror, it was met with harsh criticism. Conservatives blasted the department for defining terror threats too broadly, instead of focusing on potential Islamic terrorists. Then-House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) was one of those who berated DHS, saying that they weren’t focusing on the real threats the US faces. …
As we reported back in April 2009, Michele Bachmann called for the resignation of Janet Napolitano, director of the DHS. This is what Bachmann said on the subject at her Townhall blog:
It is absolutely shocking to see what’s taking place at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
President Obama’s new Secretary, Janet Napolitano, has recently been criticized for issuing a nine-page memo prior to the nationwide “Tea Parties†last week, warning of right-wing political extremism, referring to United States citizens with “dangerous” political leanings.
An official document of the DHSÂ lists right-wing extremists as “groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” and includes those “rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority.” So, apparently, according to Homeland Security Department, the American ideal of federalism is a threat to American ideals. …
Congressman Thaddeus McCotter points out in a piece with the American Spectator that despite the Department of Homeland Security having “‘no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence,’ the memo specifically smears returning veterans and a host of other sovereign citizens who may hold conservative views; and generally smears conservatism by equating it with ‘Right-wing extremism.'” …
Here’s a video of Bachmann ranting about the DHS on the House floor:
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8/22/2012 Update
U.S. Army Battling Racists Within Its Ranks
Wade Michael Page, 40, an Army veteran, was the gunman the August 5, 2012, Sikh temple shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.
By Daniel Trotta
August 21, 2012
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — They call it “rahowa” — short for racial holy war — and they are preparing for it by joining the ranks of the world’s fiercest fighting machine, the U.S. military.
White supremacists, neo-Nazis and skinhead groups encourage followers to enlist in the Army and Marine Corps to acquire the skills to overthrow what some call the ZOG — the Zionist Occupation Government. Get in, get trained and get out to brace for the coming race war.
If this scenario seems like fantasy or bluster, civil rights organizations take it as deadly serious, especially given recent events. Former U.S. Army soldier Wade Page opened fire with a 9 mm handgun at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on August 5, [2012] murdering six people and critically wounding three before killing himself during a shootout with police.
The U.S. Defense Department as well has stepped up efforts to purge violent racists from its ranks, earning praise from organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has tracked and exposed hate groups since the 1970s.
Page, who was 40, was well known in the white supremacist music scene. In the early 2000s he told academic researcher Pete Simi that he became a neo-Nazi after joining the military in 1992. Fred Lucas, who served with him, said Page openly espoused his racist views until 1998, when he was demoted from sergeant to specialist, discharged and barred from re-enlistment.
While at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, Page told Simi, he made the acquaintance of James Burmeister, a skinhead paratrooper who in 1995 killed a black Fayetteville couple in a racially motivated shooting. Burmeister was sentenced to life in prison and died in 2007.
No one knows how many white supremacists have served since then. A 2008 report commissioned by the Justice Department found half of all right-wing extremists in the United States had military experience. …
In 1995, eight months before the Fort Bragg murders, two former Army soldiers bombed the Oklahoma City federal building, killing 168 people. With a growing awareness of the spreading militia movement, the Pentagon in 1996 banned military personnel from participating in supremacist causes and authorized commanders to cashier personnel for rallying, recruiting or training racists.
“What’s scary about Page is that he served in the 1990s when putatively this was being treated quite seriously by the military. There’s plenty of other Pages who served during the war on terror, and we don’t know what they’re going to be doing over the next decade or so,” said Matt Kennard, author of the forthcoming book “Irregular Army: How the U.S. Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror.”
Kennard argues the U.S. military was so desperate for troops while fighting simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that it allowed extremists, felons and gang members into the armed forces.
The Pentagon’s third directive against white supremacists was issued in 2009 after a Department of Homeland Security report expressed concern that right-wing extremists were recruiting veterans returning from wars overseas.
The Pentagon’s 2009 instruction, updated in February 2012, directs commanders to remain alert for signs of racist activity and to intervene when they see it. It bans soldiers from blogging or chatting on racist websites while on duty. …
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Topical reports on this site
Milwaukee Sikh Temple Shooting (Aug. 5, 2012)
Norway Christian Extremism Terrorist Threat (July 24, 2011)
Security Watch: Domestic Threats (Feb. 28, 2011)
Economy and Obama Volatile Mix (April 16, 2009)
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CAMPAIGN EVENT
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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — April 17, 2009
“The Personality Profile of President Barack Obama: Leadership Implications.” Research poster presented by Sarah Moore at the 44th annual Minnesota Undergraduate Psychology Conference, April 18, 2009, College of Saint Benedict, St. Joseph, Minn. (Supervisor: Aubrey Immelman, Ph.D.)
One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I featured abstracts of research projects on the personality characteristics and leadership style of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Sarah Palin, conducted at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics under my direction.
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