Posted on 11/24/2001 6:22:04 AM PST by Clara Lou
Within minutes of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Internet sites dedicated to the overthrow of the U.S. government came alive with congratulations for the mass murderers.
"A damned good start!!!!!" one site exulted.
"Anyone who is willing to drive an airplane into a building to kill jews [sic] is alright by me," wrote another.
And a third: "What is wrong with just accepting the fact that a handful of very brave people were willing to die for whatever they believed in and did it?"
These endorsements celebrating the deaths of thousands did not come from Muslim extremists. They came from people claiming to be American patriots who love their country but hate their government.
The first was written by Martin Linstedt of Granby, Mo., who bills himself as director of political warfare for the 7th Missouri Militia, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, which monitors hate groups.
The second came from Bill Roper of the neo-Nazi National Alliance in Hillsboro, W.Va. And the third was written by Rocky Suhayda of Eastpointe, Mich., chairman of the American Nazi Party.
While most Americans were horrified by the attacks, domestic hate groups and some anti-government organizations have used Sept. 11 to push their own agendas, whether anti-government, anti-Jew, anti-black or anti-foreigner, say experts.
Georgia a hotbed
In Georgia, the number of those groups has increased, said Mark Potok, a researcher for the Southern Poverty Law Center and editor of a quarterly journal on extremist groups.
"Is Georgia a hotbed of hate?" he said. "Georgia has a relatively large number of these groups."
The Sept. 11 attacks gave these groups "an excuse to spew more hatred," said Kris Elwood, a researcher with the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. "They perceive it as a validation of their position."
But unlike Ruby Ridge and Waco, the Sept. 11 attacks have not produced a unified voice, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
"There has not been this call to arms. I think it caught many of these people off-guard," said Levin. "There is no unanimity out there."
Some groups claim the U.S. government perpetrated the attacks to impose martial law. Similar claims were made about the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
Other groups insist Jews were responsible, while others say Arabs did it because of the government's support for Israel. And some blame the country's lax immigration policies, which they say have led to multiculturalism and a destabilization of traditional American values.
Not all the groups advocate violence or the government's overthrow. Some support the U.S. government and have offered their services for the homeland defense forces.
Typical of the varied opinions about who is responsible is that offered by Jimmy Wynn of Lawrenceville, head of the Militia of Georgia.
"Within hours after it happened, I said this is a CIA enterprise," said Wynn. "It's impossible that Osama bin Laden could pull this off."
Copycats feared
Although government officials believe the attacks were carried out by members of the al-Qaida terrorist group under bin Laden's orders, they say some domestic groups remain a threat to national security. They still have not ruled out the possibility a domestic bioterrorist is responsible for the anthrax-laden letters that showed up in New York and Washington.
Some law enforcement officials express surprise the most extreme groups have not been inspired by Sept. 11 to commit similar acts of violence.
"I expected them to take advantage of the situation," said Vernon Keenan, assistant director of the GBI. "There's a tendency -- when they see a terrorist act that gathers public attention, creates concern and causes government to react -- to copy the action."
Keenan would not divulge which groups in Georgia agents might be keeping tabs on. But he said that only those groups that break the law are labeled as terrorist.
"It is not against the law to be anti-government," Keenan said. "It is against the law to be anti-government and commit criminal acts."
Hate groups on rise
One hate group that has been making inroads in Georgia recently is the National Alliance, says Jay Kaiman, Southeast regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. Considered a neo-Nazi group, the National Alliance is headed by William Pierce, an Atlanta native now living in Hillsboro, W.Va. Pierce is the author of "The Turner Diaries," described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "racist fantasy novel" that helped fuel anti-government sentiment during the 1980s and '90s.
Kaiman said that shortly after Sept. 11, fliers from the National Alliance began showing up in mailboxes and in libraries in Gainesville and the north Atlanta suburbs. The leaflets are headlined "Let's stop being human shields for Israel" and feature a picture of bin Laden next to one of the burning World Trade Center towers.
"Basically they are promoting that Israel is to blame for the attacks," Kaiman said.
Nationwide, 100,000 to 200,000 people are involved in extremist hate groups, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, and their numbers are rising. Groups that cater to racist skinheads, Ku Klux Klansmen, neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, black separatists and other extremists went up 10 percent to more than 600 from 1999 to 2000, the center says.
League denies listing
In Georgia, the number nearly doubled from 16 in 1999 to 30 in 2000, Kaiman said. The jump may reflect the center's recent decision to include neo-Confederate groups, such as the League of the South. By the center's count, Georgia is home to 15 active chapters of the league.
Initially defenders of Southern culture, the league has "moved into the world of race hate," said Potok, adding that there is more hate group activity in the Midwest than in the South. "Fundamentally, it's racism that underlies the ideology of this group."
But Jim Arp of Dalton, chairman of the Georgia chapter of the League of the South, disputes that characterization. "We're not a racist group. We're not a bigoted group. We're not a hate group," Arp said.
Arp said members of his organization are "a little mystified why we went from being classified as a Southern cultural group to a hate group. We didn't do anything that we're aware of to merit that. We guess that the Southern Poverty Law Center just needed some more bad guys to raise more money."
Other groups in Georgia include three chapters of the Council of Conservative Citizens, three different black separatist groups, the National Alliance and a skinhead group called Hammerskin Nation.
Potok says the growth in hate groups in the United States tracks a similar rise of right-wing extremism in Europe.
"They're both violent reactions to the globalization of Western culture and society," he said.
Like the GBI's Keenan, Potok said that with Sept. 11, "there's probably the danger that one of these groups will piggyback onto the atmosphere of terror."
In essence, that's already happened, he said, with the mailing of bogus anthrax letters to more than 250 abortion clinics. Those letters, Potok said, most likely came from an American.
"What abortion clinics in America could interest a Muslim terrorist?" he said. Potok said his center does not consider paramilitary organizations such as the Militia of Georgia as hate groups, but rather classifies them as patriot groups.
Militias in decline
Unlike the hate groups, the nation's militias have declined from 858 groups at their peak in 1996 to 94 this year.
"The militia movement is a pale shadow of its former self," Potok said, although militia members dispute those figures.
He said several factors have contributed to the decline, such as doom and gloom predictions about the millennium that never came true. Many expected the Clinton administration to impose martial law. When that didn't happen, they became disillusioned.
"Across the board, these groups are weak," he said. "They have trouble getting people to go to the meetings."
But it's not the numbers that matter, said ADL's Kaiman. "I'm not worried about the guys in the front of the room making speeches and handing out fliers," he said. "It's the quiet guys in the back of the room who are frustrated and try to take action."
Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the Oklahoma City federal building, killing 169, was moved to action by the rhetoric of anti-government groups, law enforcement officials have said.
At the same time, domestic groups may be less dangerous than international groups, which tend to be better coordinated and are run like a business conglomerate, said Levin of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
"The domestic movement is more like mom and pop independent operators who sometimes might share some common goals but they don't coordinate well," he said. "I think the risk from the domestic movement is more from the autonomous cells and lone wolf ticking time bombs."
This seems like a fair assessment to me. Hopefully this crowd won't go off the deep end and decide that everyone from Georgia is a potential terrorist or traitor.
I'd forgotten about that! Was there any discussion here on FR after he didn't do it? I'll have to admit that while I'm not a tin-foil hat type, some of the Freepers here had me nervous about that one! LOL
Certainly not an unbiased source.
Still, having said that, it makes me feel proud to see all of the Freepers here signing on and so totally and strongly condemning the position of the American Nazis and some of the milita groups for their glee over the terrorist attack on America.
I think it is great Freepers come to the defense of the Republic and soundly smack down the traitorous whackos (as the media would say, "on the far right") who also hate this country and have a low regard for freedom and the American way of life!
Thanks Freepers!!!
Ahh, yes! I didn't need to read further.... let's see what we can find:
The Church of Morris Dees - How the Southern Poverty Law ...
... The Church of Morris Dees - How the Southern Poverty Law Center profits from intolerance
Crime/Corruption News Source: Harper's Magazine Published: November ...
Excuse me, but who's the real `extremist' here? [Free ...
... commercial use. Your April 22 article on militias quotes freely, as have many other
media sources, from the Southern Poverty Law Center run by Morris Dees. If ...
Media Research Cyberalert on the Million Mom March [Free ...
... To: sordo. Could someone confirm whether or not Dees/etc is a sister of Morris Dees
of the Southern Poverty Law Center? This is the left-wing propaganda group ...
The Dees Money Machine [Free Republic]
... I've long regarded Morris Dees and his Southern Poverty Law Center as collectively
one of the greatest frauds in American life. The reasons: a relentless ...
Criminalizing Dissent [Free Republic]
... organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Southern Poverty Law
Center (SPLC), which regularly furnish law enforcement agencies with lurid ...
Just a sampling!
I got over 150 returns just searching Free Republic for their name!
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