.
If you thought the capture of
Saddam Hussein might help in the war on terrorism, you
should think again. The terrorists in Iraq aren`t the
real problem, according to Daniel Levitas writing in the
New York Times recently. The real problem is
right here in River City, and it`s not
Muslims or
Arabs or
Iraqis. It`s the
"Far
Right."
Ever since
9/11, there has been an almost compulsive effort on
the part of the left to "link" the right of one
kind or another to that atrocity in particular and to
international terrorism in general, for the purpose of
demonizing virtually any right-of-center activism,
bringing it under
federal and local
police surveillance and perhaps eventually outlawing
it altogether.
That`s precisely the direction Mr.
Levitas is trying to drive.
Mr. Levitas,
author of a
recent book on
"the militia movement and the radical right,"
starts off with the tale of a chap named William Krar,
who recently pled guilty to the very real crime of
possessing a chemical weapon. Mr. Krar, he says, is
"a right-wing extremist," and for all I know he may
be. Mr. Krar, it seems, possessed "neo-Nazi and
antigovernment literature," as well as a stockpile
of illegal weapons, ammunitions and explosives.
No "isolated incident," Mr.
Levitas assures us. Why, "federal authorities served
more than 150 subpoenas in the case, and are still
searching for others who may have been involved."
Therefore, it must not be isolated.
They also rounded up Mr. Krar`s
female companion and one of his buddies, a member of a
"paramilitary group called the
New Jersey Militia."
From this and similar cases Mr.
Levitas deduces that the "far right" in this
country is out of control, reading "antigovernment
literature" and who knows what else, and he demands
that "Americans should question whether the Justice
Department is making America`s far-right fanatics a
serious priority."[Our
Enemies at Home, By Daniel Levitas, New York
Times, December 13, 2003]
What he doesn`t tell us is that
when Mr. Krar and his pals were arrested, local news
sources quoted federal authorities as saying they
"don`t believe Krar was planning to commit terrorism."
"I have no specifics of a plot," the FBI special
agent who made the arrest
said.
Nor was there any further evidence
of a plot. Mr. Krar was a gun manufacturer and arms
dealer, and much of his arsenal and associations may
have been related to his business, as federal agents
acknowledged.
But in the No Isolated Incident
Department, Mr. Levitas rounds up several other of the
usual suspects:
Eric Rudolph, accused of bombing abortion clinics
and the
1996 Olympics, and a few others, one of whom
actually seems to have murdered somebody and all of whom
have "links to" or "associations with" "far-right"
groups—"white supremacists," "anti-abortion
extremists," and anti-Semites.
But nowhere does Mr. Levitas show
that—or even consider the question of whether—these
individuals are part of organized conspiracies to commit
terrorism.
The issue is important because if
they are simply lone nuts, having the Justice Department
launch more intensive scrutiny of right-wing groups
would do nothing to stop potential violence.
The fact is that not since the
early 1980s has there been any serious terrorism from
the "far right" in the United States, and none of
the "incidents" in recent years involving
violence by far-right individuals was the work of an
organized group—unlike the violence routinely committed
by such movements as
animal rights nuts,
eco-terrorists and
Jewish nationalists.
There is every reason for
police and the
FBI to keep any group that advocates violence, let
alone practices it, under investigation.
But what Mr. Levitas and a good
many others like him are demanding has less to do with
what such groups do than with what they think.
It`s not violent groups or groups
that advocate or cultivate violence they want under
surveillance.
It`s
"America`s far-right fanatics."
His standard is political pure and
simple.
Most of the people he wants the
Justice Department to
make a "priority" may actually need to be under
investigation, but the problem is that distinctions
between violent types on the right and law-abiding
right-wing or conservative dissenters get lost.
Professional
witch hunting groups like the
Southern Poverty Law Center and the
Anti-Defamation League don`t hesitate to "link"
all of the above, and most law enforcement people don`t
know the difference.
That, of course is exactly what the
witch hunters want: To round up the usual suspects.
The truth is that the usual
suspects have done very little that merits being rounded
up or even investigated. But what some on the left
really want is simply a crackdown against their
political adversaries on the right.
With the new state powers the Bush
administration already has and the hysteria about the
"far right fringe" cranked up by people like Mr.
Levitas, that may be
starting to happen.
COPYRIGHT
CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
[Sam Francis [email
him] is a nationally syndicated columnist. A selection
of his columns,
America Extinguished: Mass Immigration And The
Disintegration Of American Culture, is now available
from
Americans For Immigration Control.
Click here
for Sam Francis` website.
Click
here to order his monograph,
Ethnopolitics: Immigration, Race, and the American
Political Future and
here for
Glynn Custred`s review.]
