Members of Christian Militia Arrested

Paleocon wrote:
Farscry wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Could it be that most people view terrorism as inextricably linked with attacks on civilians?

Not judging from US reactions to the USS Cole bombing. That was declared a terrorist attack. Oh, right... those were muslims though.

Not to mention that, at least when it comes to the definition of combatants, police ARE civilians.

I would say a policeman's funeral, with their friends and families in attendance, would no doubt be considered an attack on civilians.

I just hope the police department used up their flashbang and teargas budget on that raid. The least these asshats should get for their trouble is asthma and tinnitus.

If they had succeeded I think it would have been given the label of "terrorism." It was prevented and that is why they aren't calling it terrorism. I'm not saying that is right AT ALL. To echo the comments of others above as well, the fact that these are "good old white boys" probably hits too close to home for comfort with a lot of people as well. People like to think that "terrorism" is only something that is ever perpetrated by those of Muslim faith. They don't want to open their eyes and realize that the crazy is all around them....

JC wrote:

If they had succeeded I think it would have been given the label of "terrorism." It was prevented and that is why they aren't calling it terrorism. I'm not saying that is right AT ALL. To echo the comments of others above as well, the fact that these are "good old white boys" probably hits too close to home for comfort with a lot of people as well. People like to think that "terrorism" is only something that is ever perpetrated by those of Muslim faith. They don't want to open their eyes and realize that the crazy is all around them....

So Richard Reed is not a terrorist?

Farscry wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Could it be that most people view terrorism as inextricably linked with attacks on civilians?

Not judging from US reactions to the USS Cole bombing. That was declared a terrorist attack. Oh, right... those were muslims though.

Yeah but if you accept every definition of terrorism, you get the point where everything is terrorism.

Under the Patriot act, this seems to fit the criteria of domestic terrorism:

(5) the term `domestic terrorism' means activities that-- (A) involve 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.
Quintin_Stone wrote:

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

Good thing we haven't shut down Gitmo yet. Let's gather up all the Tea Party members and give them a little vacation by the sea.

JC wrote:

To echo the comments of others above as well, the fact that these are "good old white boys" probably hits too close to home for comfort with a lot of people as well. People like to think that "terrorism" is only something that is ever perpetrated by those of Muslim faith. They don't want to open their eyes and realize that the crazy is all around them....

Welcome to April 19, 1995.
People need to stop forgetting that one.

LobsterMobster wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground weren't connected to the Islamic villians du jour, but that didn't stop Sarah Palin from saying that Obama goes "palling around with terrorists" so I do think it's that their identity makes them 'too good to be terrorists.'

Let's not confuse that for anything more than it was. If Palin had proof that Obama had the sniffles when he shook hands with a foreign leader she'd accuse him of a pre-emptive biological warfare strike at the leader of a sovereign nation. The fact that she refers to Bill Ayers in the plural should illustrate that.

I don't think I am making it more than it was. She wouldn't have said it unless she thought it would resonate.

In any case, I don't see militant animal rights activists as connected to the Islamic villians du jour, but that hasn't stopped us almost five years into the war on terror from calling them terrorists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_...

Boogle- America has a tragic short term memory. I still stick with my opinion that because the Oklahoma bombing was actually carried out, as opposed to this one where it was only planned, The Oklahoma bombing was given the label terrorism

Paleocon- I think Richard Reid falls into the "Muslim" category when it comes to terrorist attacks. Yes he was born in London, and had parents not from the middle-east, but the fact that he is of Muslim faith ends up lumping him into that category with everyone else.

Please don't think I'm defending or arguing against the fact that this was indeed terrorism. I'm just annoyed that our government has not yet labeled this for what is was planned to be regardless of the outcome.

JC wrote:

Boogle- America has a tragic short term memory. I still stick with my opinion that because the Oklahoma bombing was actually carried out, as opposed to this one where it was only planned, The Oklahoma bombing was given the label terrorism

Attempted terrorism? The definition makes no sense. It is not rigorous!

LobsterMobster wrote:

It does pull back the curtain from the "Global War on Terror" a little, though. We are in Iraq and Afghanistan to fight the terrorists, so it goes to reason that if someone has no ties to the people we're fighting, they must not be a terrorist, right?

(breaking this off from the other response for clarity)

I see what you're saying, but I think it's not about the Islamic villians du jour, I think it's about the Islamic villians du 70s. We've always been more comfortable calling Muslims 'terrorists' than other groups, especially whites. Really, the first modern terrorists were the KKK, but I think the word 'terrorism' in its contemporary usage is something that entered into public use as a way to describe people killing civilians in discrete acts for a political purpose: i.e., hijacking a plane or kidnapping Olympic athletes or bombing a non-military establishment. We didn't really have a way to describe that sort of thing when its not limited to the colonies and comes home to a democracy, so that word became terrorism.

So I don't think it's so much a War on Terrorism thing, I think it's just that we've come to see terrorism as ethnic somehow. The tendency to label an act taken by a Muslim as terrorist while not labeling the same act taken by a Christian goes back long before 2001.

If anything has changed, I think it's that terrorism has become a word we're comfortable using for things on the 'left' but not for things on the right--why were we so quick to call what PETA does 'ecoterrorism' but we're still calling what the KKK does a 'hate crime'?

Is it really the case that the only difference between a fundamentalist militia and a terrorist organization is that the militia accepts Jesus Christ as their lord and personal savior?

Hell yes. Compare both to, say, the modern IRA, which was also 'representing' a religious group. The IRA committed acts that probably would fall under the heading 'terrorism'. The difference is, the IRA didn't deny the right of England to exist, and they didn't want to make Fish on Friday a law in Northern Ireland. The IRA were always interested in basically a liberal Western democracy, in shifting rule of the six counties from the UK to the Republic of Ireland, not like, Vatican City.

Now compare a Christian militia and an Islamic terrorist: both are interested in turning back the clock to some imagined golden age when the government and their religion were in perfect harmony. Maybe the Islamic fundamentalist wants to turn the clock back further, but, does that mean the two can't be compared?

I'm not saying it makes sense... I'm just saying that it is how it appears to be taken/defined now a days. If you're a white American and attempt a terrorist act that fails.. It will be given a different name.

Anyone know if the Patriot Act (or some leftover portion of it) helped in the apprehension of these folks?

fangblackbone wrote:

"I am over whelmed with gratitude at the power of who you are and what you are willing to do... If I was going to start a new country, I'd do it with you folks right here who have been with us the last few days. Lets hope we don't have to do that. Let's beat the other side to a pulp. Lets take them out, lets chase them down. There's going to be a reckoning!"

So, the gist I get is to encourage them to keep acting recklessly to even further extreme lengths. Then we should encourage separatist sentiment by leaving the option of starting a new country on the table. Then we should express hope that we may not have to do that because the alternative is to engage in a violent witch hunt, yay! We will be able to justify any of our contemptible, out of control actions because we are the righteous!

This guy is not talking in metaphors...

Geez that sure sounds like treason right there. And at a time when our President is at war. For shame...........

I guess it's time we get on with some hangin!

sheared wrote:

Anyone know if the Patriot Act (or some leftover portion of it) helped in the apprehension of these folks?

Don't know, but it sounds like they were under surveillance for a while:

A scouting mission was planned for April and, if someone had stumbled upon the mission, the Hutaree decided they could be killed, according to the indictment.

It was this mission that prompted the raids, said Barbara McQuade, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

"Because the Hutaree had planned a covert reconnaissance operation for April which had the potential of placing an unsuspecting member of the public at risk, the safety of the public and of the law enforcement community demanded intervention at this time," she said in a prepared statement.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100...

Paleocon wrote:

I just hope the police department used up their flashbang and teargas budget on that raid. The least these asshats should get for their trouble is asthma and tinnitus.

Including the innocent members of their families?

Dirt wrote:

Well, hell. A group of white Christians plot to kill a police officer and it makes national news. But when a motorcycle gang tries to kill police officers here in SoCal, nobody pays attention.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...

Did you really post to a national newspaper in order to complain that it wasn't carried nationally?

Jayhawker wrote:
Dirt wrote:

Well, hell. A group of white Christians plot to kill a police officer and it makes national news. But when a motorcycle gang tries to kill police officers here in SoCal, nobody pays attention.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...

Did you really post to a national newspaper in order to complain that it wasn't carried nationally?

IMAGE(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_K9qf7QhvI9c/SF_OmF5Wb5I/AAAAAAAAAlM/a19fuVGgGRw/s320/Haw+haw.bmp)

Haw haw!

CannibalCrowley wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

I just hope the police department used up their flashbang and teargas budget on that raid. The least these asshats should get for their trouble is asthma and tinnitus.

Including the innocent members of their families?

To my knowledge, there were none. Hutaree's core was David Stone, his wife, and his two sons. Even one of the son's fiancee's is now on record saying she doesn't "think Hutaree is dangerous."

As more details come out, I'm actually less willing to compare Hutaree with right wing militias and more to Fred Phelps and his crazy cult of haters.

JC wrote:

If they had succeeded I think it would have been given the label of "terrorism."

An awful lot of people in Iraq and Afghanistan are arrested, detained indefinitely, or killed under suspicion of being terrorists, or for planning to commit acts of terrorism. On the one hand it's a war zone. On the other, it wasn't until we made it one.

CannibalCrowley wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

I just hope the police department used up their flashbang and teargas budget on that raid. The least these asshats should get for their trouble is asthma and tinnitus.

Including the innocent members of their families?

That would be one of the reasons our police use non-lethals. Though I do think the world could use more of this sort of compassion.

More on these folks.

link

I think the label of terrorist is being tossed around the way communist used to be. In the 50's and 60's if you want to label someone as an enemy of the United States "and everything we stand for" then they were communist. Now in the 10's we use terrorist. Maybe in another 50 years we'll have Presidential elections where one candidate openly calls the others bills terrorist in nature. At this point we can only imply it.

hey thanks for this link. I mentioned earlier that I was looking for concrete examples of far-left violence from prior generations, but hadn't been able to find any. This mentions several.

I don't think it's possible anymore for right wing pundits to condemn the actions of their violent side without losing credibility among their own audience. That the far left violence largely hasn't existed for a decade or more just makes it more difficult for them to admit that there is no "balance" of crazies -- the truly insane are almost solely right wing nowadays.

LobsterMobster wrote:

An awful lot of people in Iraq and Afghanistan are arrested, detained indefinitely, or killed under suspicion of being terrorists, or for planning to commit acts of terrorism. On the one hand it's a war zone. On the other, it wasn't until we made it one.

Afghanistan became a war zone as soon as the folks they were hosting decided to attack the mainland of the US.

Seth wrote:

hey thanks for this link. I mentioned earlier that I was looking for concrete examples of far-left violence from prior generations, but hadn't been able to find any. This mentions several.

I don't think it's possible anymore for right wing pundits to condemn the actions of their violent side without losing credibility among their own audience. That the far left violence largely hasn't existed for a decade or more just makes it more difficult for them to admit that there is no "balance" of crazies -- the truly insane are almost solely right wing nowadays.

I think the reason there are more violent Right Wing crazies is partially because they are more tolerated. If a Democratic politician encouraged a crowd of violent Left Wing crazies to beat up, run out, intimidate, or assault Republican lawmakers, there would be immediate impeachment proceedings. But if a Republican does it, folks snicker on Youtube.

Paleocon wrote:

I think the reason there are more violent Right Wing crazies is partially because they are more tolerated. If a Democratic politician encouraged a crowd of violent Left Wing crazies to beat up, run out, intimidate, or assault Republican lawmakers, there would be immediate impeachment proceedings. But if a Republican does it, folks snicker on Youtube.

Can you imagine that?

Hillary Clinton: "It's clear that big Pharma is going against what the American people want. Maybe PETA used the wrong methods when they bombed that animal research center, but the anger of the People is justified."

So much for turning the other cheek..

Kehama wrote:

I think the label of terrorist is being tossed around the way communist used to be. In the 50's and 60's if you want to label someone as an enemy of the United States "and everything we stand for" then they were communist.

That label was applied to purely political viewpoints. Once you start talking about killing people over politics, chances are you're a terrorist of some kind (if you do it for money, you're just a crook).

I personally think their being white has everything to do with the reluctance to label them as terrorists.

White people have the benefit, as the majority, of displacing themselves from teh crazies. So the Unabomber is a "crazy old mountain dude". McVeigh and Nichols and Hutaree are "crazy militia dudes". Dahmer is a "crazy serial killer". And the list goes on. None of their craziness is attributed to their being white. None of their craziness is viewed as indicative of white people in general.

Yet let a black or hispanic or Muslim do something on the news and many white Americans will consider the actions of those individuals as indicative of the larger racial/religious group they belong to. That's why whenever you watch or read the news you will read something like "The suspect, a black male in his 30's..." but you will rarely see, when a white commits a crime, "The suspect, a white male in his 30's...". White folks never feel like they have to "hold it down" for other white folks. Indeed, we know that if we screw up no one is going to attribute our errors to white people in general. Not the same for non-whites.

So if a black kid gets caught in school, it's indicative of the violent nature of black youth. If Klebold and Harris shoot up Columbine High (or any number of white children who have shot up their schools in the past 20 years, and there are many), they were just bullied and disturbed young men.

If a black guy shoots a cop, it's indicative of the violent nature of black men in general. If Hutaree aims to kill cops, they're just wild crazy militia people and it has nothing to do with their whiteness.

If blacks riot in LA because of the acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King, it's attributable to the savage and wild nature of black folks in general. If white kids riot at any number of college campuses and destroy millions in public property after their team du jour wins a championship, it's just college kids letting off some steam.

If 19 Muslims attack the WTC, all Muslims are terrorists. If McVeigh, Nichols, Eric Rudolph, the Unabomber, and the over 167 bombings of family planning clinics since the 80's - some of which provide abortion services, most of which do not - are mostly carried out by, according to FBI data, self-identified Christian white males, these are just crazy dudes...not indicative of the white Christian population of this country.

This country is full of sh*t and until we start taking the #1 threat of terrorism in this country seriously - that from extremist white Christian males - it will not stop and we will continue to read news stories like this and not all of them will have happy endings.

Profiling blacks and hispanics for traffic stops in the War on Drugs hasn't worked (whites are 6 times more likely to actually have drugs on them when stopped) and profiling of non-whites, be it Arab-Muslim Americans after 2001 or Japanese Americans in 1942, hasn't made this country any safer either.

One of these days we will bring the war on terror to the real threats like evangelical Christian churches and Hutaree-esque militia groups.