Scott Stewart
A string of incidents over the
past month has served as a reminder that despite the intense, decadelong focus
on the jihadist threat, domestic terrorism is still an issue in the United
States. On Aug. 5, Wade Page opened fire on the congregation of a Sikh temple
in Oak Creek, Wis., killing six and wounding three others. Though Page killed
himself and did not leave any evidence explicitly listing his motives for the
attack, his long association with the white supremacist movement was clearly a
factor in his target choice.
On Aug. 15, Floyd Corkins shot
and wounded a security guard in the lobby of the Family Research Council's
office in Washington after the guard blocked him from entering the office.
Corkins reportedly was carrying a bag containing a box of ammunition and a
number of Chick-fil-A sandwiches. He apparently targeted the Family Research
Council because of its public support for Chick-fil-A in the wake of the
controversy over statements made by the fast food chain's founder regarding gay
marriage. According to media reports, Corkins said, "I don't like your
politics," before opening fire.
And on Aug. 16, an off-duty
sheriff's deputy was shot and wounded while working as a security guard at an
oil refinery in St. John the Baptist Parish, La. When two other deputies
responded to a nearby trailer park where a vehicle reportedly associated with
the shooting was spotted, the trailers' occupants ambushed and killed the
deputies. An additional officer was wounded, along with two of the suspects
involved in the shooting, Brian Smith and Kyle Joekel. Seven people have been
arrested in connection with the incident, including Smith's father and brother.
News reports indicate that the group was associated with the sovereign citizen
movement, and members of it were under investigation for weapons offenses and
previous threats to law enforcement officers in other states.
All three of these incidents
stem from distinct ideological streams: the white supremacist skinhead
movement, the radical left and the Posse Comitatus/sovereign citizen movement.
While unrelated as far as timing and motive, when taken together they show that
extremist ideologies subscribed to by certain individuals on the fringes of
U.S. society continue to radicalize some to the point that they are willing to
take violent action in accordance with those ideologies. Domestic terrorism is
thus alive and well.
Old Streams
First, we need to remember
that terrorism is a tactic practiced by actors from a wide array of ethnic and religious backgrounds who
follow various ideologies stretching from anarchism to neo-Nazism. Terrorism
does not equal jihadism. Long before jihadism reared its head in the United
States, anarchist Leon Czolgosz assassinated President William McKinley, white
supremacist James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King Jr., and Posse
Comitatus member Gordon Kahl killed three law enforcement officers in a
multistate spree of violence.
Indeed, as we look at all of
the recent attention being paid to lone assailants and small cells, it must be
remembered that anti-government and white supremacist leaders in the United States embraced the leaderless resistance model of operations long before jihadist groups began to
promote it.
In 1989, William Pierce wrote
his novel Hunter, which detailed the exploits of a fictional
lone wolf named Oscar Yeager and was loosely based upon real-life lone wolf
Joseph Paul Franklin. In 1990, Richard Kelly Hoskins published a book titled Vigilantes
of Christendom, in which he introduced the concept of a "Phineas
Priest," or a lone wolf militant chosen and set apart by God to be his
agent of vengeance upon the earth. In 1992, former Ku Klux Klan leader Louis
Beam published an essay in his magazine, The Seditionist, that
provided a detailed outline for moving the white supremacist movement toward a
leaderless resistance model. Jihadists such as Abu Musab al-Suri first began to
promote leaderless resistance only after the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks
began to severely affect al Qaeda. But even so, groups such as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula did not really embrace
al-Suri's concept of leaderless resistance until late 2009, and the al Qaeda core did not follow suit until 2010.
The recent spate of incidents
is also not all that unusual. Other examples stand out in recent years of
different streams of domestic radicalism leading to a confluence of attacks by
different types of actors. For example, on April 19, 1995, a large truck bomb
built by anti-government extremists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols detonated
outside the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.
Five days later, on April 25, timber lobbyist Gilbert Murray became the third
fatality and final victim of Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski's long Neo-Luddite
bombing campaign.
Another such convergence
occurred in the summer of 1999. After conducting arsons at three
Sacramento-area synagogues, brothers Matthew and Tyler Williams killed a gay
couple in their home in Happy Valley, Calif., on July 1. On July 2, World
Church of the Creator adherent Benjamin Smith began a multistate shooting spree
that killed two and wounded nine and that only ended when he killed himself
July 4. On Aug. 10, former Aryan Nations member Buford Furrow mounted an armed
assault against a Jewish day care center in Los Angeles, during which he
wounded five people before killing a Filipino-American mailman on the street.
Domestic terrorism in the
United States is a cyclical phenomenon. There are discernable peaks in that
cycle, like those we've discussed -- and like the one the country is currently
experiencing. The intense political polarization that has occurred in recent
years in the United States, the widespread distrust of the government on both
the extreme right and the extreme left, and the current election-year rhetoric
will further inflame political passions. This means that the current cycle of
domestic terrorism plots and violence is likely to continue for at least the
next several months.
Implications
While domestic terrorism is
currently at the peak of the cycle in the United States, it is important to
remember that most domestic terrorism cases tend to be simple attacks conducted
by a lone actor or small cell. There are far more instances of simple bombings,
such as those conducted by Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph or animal rights bomber Daniel Andreas San Diego, than the sort of large truck bomb
attack committed by McVeigh and Nichols, which was an anomaly. Even more common
than bombing attacks are the armed assaults that we've seen recently, and they
are generally implemented against soft targets -- something we've talked about in relation to other terrorist threats.
And that means that the
implications for domestic terrorist threats are essentially the same as they
are for the jihadist or Iranian threat. First, it is critical for people to
remember that terrorist attacks do not appear out of a vacuum. Individuals planning
an attack -- no matter what their motivation or ideology -- follow a
discernable cycle, and that cycle involves behavior that can be identified and detected before the
attack is conducted. Indeed, it appears that the Smith family and their
associates involved in the Louisiana shooting were known by authorities in
several jurisdictions and were considered armed and dangerous.
It is also important for
individuals to understand that it is physically impossible for governments to
protect all potential targets from every sort of attack. This means that many
places are vulnerable to an attack, should an assailant choose to strike and
should the assailant's preoperational activities go undetected. Therefore,
citizens need to assume responsibility for their own security. This involves
citizens not only reporting suspicious activity to the authorities, but also practicing good situational awareness and having updated and appropriate contingency plans in place for their families and businesses.
Scott Stewart, Strafor, 24-8-2012
"Domestic Terrorism: A Persistent Threat in the United States is republished with permission of Stratfor."
1.2- Fundamentalismo norte-americano
ResponderExcluirA primeira vez que o termo fundamentalismo veio à tona foi no início do século XX, época na qual protestantes norte-americanos pregavam a necessidade de recorrer aos ensinamentos fundamentais, especialmente aqueles contidos na bíblia . A sociedade estava diante do desenvolvimento industrial e científico.
Era a expansão do liberalismo numa cultura de massa e que segundo os fundamentalistas da época havia a necessidade de criar um ambiente moldado nos valores cristãos, a fim de aguardar o retorno de Jesus.
No contexto de hoje,é comum relacionar o fundamentalismo ao Islã, faz-se necessário abordar outras vertentes como a direita fundamentalista cristã, num panorama atual no qual tem-se uma relação maniqueísta, o bem representado pelo maior país democrático do mundo frente o mal, liderado pelos terroristas do Oriente Médio.
A política estadunidense promove o chamado Terrorismo de Estado, verifica-se uma reação dos Estados Unidos frente aos ataques de 11 de Setembro, o acontecimento que possibilitou a luta contra os extremistas de grupos como a Al Kaeda de Osama Bin Laden.Trata-se de uma ação na qual o Estado promove o terror e faz um paralelo com As Cruzadas.
Outra análise é a intensificação da xenofobia causado por esse tipo de terrorismo.Qualquer pessoa com traços semelhantes ao povo árabe torna-se potencial suspeito de ações terroristas.Prova disso, tem-se o caso do brasileiro Jean Charles de Menezes morto em 2005 pela polícia londrina.A execução do eletricista confundido com algum militante terrorista mobilizou parte da sociedade mundial.
O fundamentalismo cristão nos Estados Unidos está inserido na campanha de invasão do Iraque em 2003.Pode ser identificado ações de fanatismo como a destruição de monumentos milenares da antiga babilônia, por parte do exército norte-americano,durante a derrubada de Sadan Houssein.
Outra observação é a idéia pregada dentro dos grupos cristãos fundamentalistas e que tende a isentar a política de ocupação israelense em territórios palestinos.Na visão deste extremismo trata-se da recuperação de terras bíblicas e que por direito pertencem ao povo hebreu,é o que muitos denominam como a direita cristã- sionista, a construção do Estado Judeu.
No período da Guerra Fria o fundamentalismo norte-americano concentrava suas forças no combate ao comunismo, líderes religiosos pregavam a necessidade de lutar contra qualquer ameaça socialista. Após o fim da bipolaridade, uma das bandeiras de luta se direcionarampara temas como combate aos direitos femininos e homossexuais, além da polêmica obrigatoriedade de incluira disciplina de Ensino Religioso nas escolas, significa substituir a Teoria da Evolução das Espécies pela Criação sob a óptica da bíblia.
* Trecho do Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso/ Jornalismo
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