Last week the New York Timespublished an article detailing the Pentagon’s plan to shift focus away from international terrorism, known under the previous administration as the Global War on Terror, towards larger strategic threats to the United States such as destabilized governments and mass refugee crises provoked by climate change. Most in the defense establishment welcome this shift in strategy, but the threat from terrorism still remains.
This time, however, there is a difference. The terror threat comes largely not from foreign nationals but from Americans.
In 2009 almost 70 Americans, including police officers and medical personnel, have been killed by domestic terror attacks. This is a breathtakingly sharp rise from 2008, when only two people lost their lives, both of whom died at the hands of anti-Liberal terrorist Jim D. Adkisson in Tennessee. The first attack in 2009 was in Samson, Alabama, when Michael McLendon went on a cross-county shooting rampage that killed 11 people including himself. The most recent was on June 10, when James von Brunn opened fire inside the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, killing one guard and wounding several others.
While each of these attacks is unique, they can be roughly broken down into a handful of categories. In this piece, we will explore these terrorist archetypes, the ecosystem that produced them, as well as common tactics, both harmful and helpful, used to counter them. The intention is to provide students, analysts and researchers, with a sound and coherent image of the domestic terror threat facing the United States.
On Sunday President Obama delivered a speech notable for domestic politics rather than foreign policy. Notre Dame is the most famous Catholic university in the United States. In the run-up to the address, protestors and some in the media tried to label the President as an unacceptable speaker because of the abortion issue and, more broadly, the idea of “culture wars”.
Obama’s response drew from established sources, including his books, and the standard of an exceptional “America”. Still, as a statement of values — in the context of not only domestic issues but also his recent decisions on issue from war to torture — I found it well worth consideration.
This morning, I was catching up with the newspapers when a friend/reader Skyped about our recent item, “Dick Cheney’s Fox Interview and the Defence of Torture”: “Surely there must be some date by which I can hope to never ever see Cheney’s face on EA again.”
While I could understand the sentiment, it also brought on depression about how this torture discussion will probably “go away”. The barrage of news stories and commentary — now that many in the American “mainstream” media, with the Bush Administration in the rear-view mirror, has decided torture should be noticed — brings on fatigue. Now that Cheney, formerly the most secretive Vice President in history, has decided that he will incessantly shine his own distorted light on “enhanced interrogation”, I have the sense from his smirk that he knows he is wearing us down. Read the rest of this entry »
On Wednesday night, John McCain’s economic shtick was that he was the President who would look out for “Joe the Plumber”, a working-class fella from Ohio who apparently would not be able to buy his business under Barack Obama’s tax proposals. Joe Wurzelbacher instantly became the newest celebrity of Campaign 2008
Mr. Wurzelbacher had never held a plumber’s license, which is required in Toledo and several surrounding municipalities….His full name is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher. And he owes back taxes, too, public records show. The premise of his complaint to Mr. Obama about taxes may also be flawed, according to tax analysts. Contrary to what Mr. Wurzelbacher asserted and Mr. McCain echoed, neither his personal taxes nor those of the business where he works are likely to rise if Mr. Obama’s tax plan were to go into effect, they said.
[OTHER FAMOUS JOES WHO COULD SAVE MCCAIN: Joe Pesci, Joe Louis, Joe and the Volcano, Joe Mama, Joe 90, and (hat tip to Liam Kennedy) Joe Soap]
2. One Last Wild Cultural Swing
Following on from the “Culture Wars” theme: FiveThirtyEight.com took the line, immediately after the debate, that McCain lost his early advantage in the debate when he took a pop at Congressman John Lewis of Georgia.
A man I admire and respect — I’ve written about him — Congressman John Lewis, an American hero, made allegations that Sarah Palin and I were somehow associated with the worst chapter in American history, segregation, deaths of children in church bombings, George Wallace. That, to me, was so hurtful. And, Senator Obama, you didn’t repudiate those remarks.
So, the issue is not that the McCain-Palin rhetoric with their question, “Who is Barack Obama?” and the answer, “Palling around with terrorists….This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America,”, was prompting crowd responses of “traitor” and “terrorist…kill him”.
Instead, it’s Big John who is the victim? Hmmm….
Here’s what
What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.”
George Wallace [segregationist Governor of Alabama and Presidential candidate in 1968 and 1972] never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.
Well, the way I read it, Lewis was not accusing McCain and Palin of the crimes of the 1960s. Instead, he was warning that character attacks on Obama with the clear message that he is “un-American” and the (unstated) reminder that he is a black un-American are not exactly conductive to good-neighbourly relations . If the language was over the political line (and the Obama campaign quickly pointed this out), Lewis’ allegation doesn’t stand up to the Republicans’ own guilt-by-association tactics.
Leave aside the snap polls that showed — even on Fox — Obama ”winning” the debate by a 2:1 margin amongst undecideds. FiveThirtyEight.com has some dramatic numbers on Obama’s margins in five states allowing early voting:
% Voting Early Margin amongst Early Voters Margin in Polls
Even if you pop a couple of grains of salt on these numbers, say, that pro-Obama folks are quicker to get to the mailbox, Obama’s lead — even in what should be “safe” Republican state of Georgia and North Carolina, which McCain has to win to have any hope — is ominous if you’re a Big John backer.
4. Crossing to the Other Side
The Times of London — that’s right, the staunch defender of Thatcherism in the 1980s, flagship newspaper of Rupert Murdoch — endorses Obama. (By the way, so did the Washington Post.)
A Necessary Correction
JM writes from London:
“As a fervent reader of your Journal, I must complain about the glaring omission in the Sarah Palin Flowchart (Watching America, 16 October). You forgot THE WINK that tells the fellow travellers that ‘I’ve got this one right’ and the rest of us, ‘What am I doing here?’”
Happy to set the record straight, JM. Consider the flowchart amended with a special SP wink aimed straight at you.
TODAY’S IRAQ CELEBRATIONS
Michael Gerson, former Bush speechwriter (and thus one of the scribblers behind the American adventure in Iraq), is the latest columnist to give General/King David Petraeus a big kiss:
Petraeus may be uniquely capable of convincing our friends in the region of America’s long-term commitment, precisely because he didn’t leave Iraq to its fate — because he is the man who stayed.
In the Times of London, Richard Beeston has the classic line, “Without the distractions of the bombings and shootings, it is easier to see Iraq for what it really is.” Which is bit like asking, “Apart from the shooting, Mrs Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
This morning, I was catching up with the newspapers when a friend/reader Skyped about our recent item, “Dick Cheney’s Fox Interview and the Defence of Torture”: “Surely there must be some date by which I can hope to never ever see Cheney’s face on EA again.”
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