Millions of Americans watched in horror last summer as Black Lives Matter (BLM), Antifa, and other radical Marxist groups burned and pillaged their way through 200 American cities. Those Americans might well expect that the Biden administration’s new “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism” would address those acts of domestic terrorism, but alas, Biden’s plan focuses only on “terrorism from white supremacy.”
Two weeks after the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue declared that “terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today,” his administration is unveiling a plan to combat that nonexistent threat. The plan — outlined on the website of the White House (here and here) — includes training for men and women leaving the military to prevent them from becoming radicalized “domestic terrorists” practicing “violent white supremacy.” The plan also calls for purging the Internet of extremist content.
So, the Biden administration sees veterans as potential threats and wants to censor the Internet. And the plan includes $100 million for the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security for analysts, investigators, and prosecutors.
Continuing the constant drone of “the insurrection of January 6,” the Biden administration released a report by the National Security Council, citing that event as a “domestic terrorist attack.” The report spends 32 pages conflating facts and pretending that “Individuals subscribing to violent ideologies such as violent white supremacy” are “responsible for a substantial portion of today’s domestic terrorism.”
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For instance, the report’s introduction states:
Domestic terrorist attacks in the United States also have been committed frequently by those opposing our government institutions. In 1995, in the largest single act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history, an anti–government violent extremist detonated a bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people — including 19 children — and injuring hundreds of others. In 2016, an anti-authority violent extremist ambushed, shot, and killed five police officers in Dallas. In 2017, a lone gunman wounded four people at a congressional baseball practice. And just months ago, on January 6, 2021, Americans witnessed an unprecedented attack against a core institution of our democracy: the U.S. Congress.
But a cursory look at the events used to support the claim of “white supremacy” as the “most lethal threat” shows that the report is based on fallacy. The Oklahoma City bombing — though long touted as an example of “white supremacist terrorism” was carried out by Timothy McVeigh — who had ties to Islamic terrorism. The “anti–authority violent extremist” who “ambushed, shot, and killed five police officers in Dallas” was black and heavily under the influence of BLM. The “lone gunman” who “wounded four people at a congressional baseball practice” was a liberal who was trying to kill conservatives.
But the report appears to list those events in an effort to paint the crowd at the Capitol building on January 6 as “guilty by association” — though it both fails to show that association and fails to show how the January 6 crowd was in any way made up of “white supremacists.”
In a speech Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland repeated the claim that the events of January 6 were the work of domestic terrorists. He also said, “In the FBI’s view, the top domestic violent extremist threat comes from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocated for the superiority of the white race.”
This writer readily agrees with the first part of that claim: Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists are indeed likely to be the top domestic violent extremist threat facing America. Last summer saw more than 200 American cities under siege to racially motivated domestic violent extremists who caused more than $1 billion in damage, took the lives of scores of Americans, and boldly stated that the violence would only come to an end once their racially-motivated demands were met.
But far from “white supremacists” being the culprits in that summer of terror, “whiteness” itself was the intended — and stated victim.
To ignore that and claim that “white supremacy” is the great threat facing America is not only mistaken and irresponsible, it is dangerously counter-productive to the stated goal of national security. As Merrick pointed out in his speech, in the 160 days since January 6, the federal government has tracked down and arrested more than 480 people accused of being involved. But how many of the thousands of BLM foot soldiers who burned, looted, and murdered their way into being media darlings have been hunted down and arrested?
A statement on the White House website reads, “Together we must affirm that domestic terrorism has no place in our society. We must work to root out the hatreds that can too often drive violence.” But it is difficult to take such saccharine pablum at face value when the entire background of the statement is that “white supremacy” (which is nearly non-existent) is not just a threat, but the greatest threat, while black supremacy, which actually takes violence in hand to accomplish its goals, is treated as “peaceful protest” and a hallmark of democracy.
Even the “Fact Sheet” on the White House website shows the dishonesty of treating January 6 as a “terrorist attack” while winking and nodding at the summer of terror. The document states:
Under Federal law, “domestic terrorism” is defined as “activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”
This writer has trouble seeing how trespassing on the Capitol (which this writer has previously condemned as reckless, criminal, and counter-productive) could even be construed as fitting that description, since it did not involve “acts dangerous to human life” or “appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population” or “to influence the policy of a government intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.”
What BLM and Antifa spent months doing a year ago fits that definition perfectly, though. And while the Marxists who actually perpetrated terrorist acts get a pass, January 6 has become the battle cry for eradicating “white supremacist terrorism” whether it exists or not.
