Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on April 26, 2009

By Vicki McClure Davidson * Frugal Café Blog Zone

Last Thursday, Department of Homeland Security did the unthinkable. The department attempted to justify its stance that returning US military veterans are potential threats to our country. Why our government considers them to be “rightwing extremists” who need to be watched closely.

It appears that the weight of their “evidence” rests squarely here: on Timothy McVeigh, on his military career as a gunner, and on his involvement in the horrific Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building, 14 years ago as of the date of this writing.

One man. Consider that.

One man with a military background (less than four years) as a gunner is the sole justification and only evidence provided by DHS in its report to conclude that national security could be compromised by thousands of men and women returning home from overseas military deployment.

This despicable report spits on our military. And, because DHS believed McVeigh to be a rightwing extremist, all rightwing conservatives, especially Christians, are also considered by DHS to be potential threats to the nation.

The DHS’s arguments and conclusion are flawed and laughable. They fall into classic fallacious argumentation.

Fallacious argumention, as it applies to the report, goes something like “If A is B, and B is C, then A is C” – here’s an example:

“A dog has four legs. A dog is an animal. Therefore, all animals have four legs.” Another: “John is a student at Boston University. John doesn’t like pizza. Therefore, students at Boston University don’t like pizza.”

DHS report: “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” (PDF format). Read the report. It’s important that you don’t take just my word or anyone else’s about what it contains. Knowledge is power, after all.

Opponents in Congress have torpedoed DHS’s “evidence”.

McVeigh was not a rightwing extremist, as Homeland Security has claimed. They jumped to that conclusion with no evidence. There is compelling evidence, however, that McVeigh associated with Islamic jihadists; his partner met several times prior to the OKC bombing with people who had ties with al-Qaida. Way back, the Clinton administration could never establish that McVeigh was linked to any rightwing extremist group.

Federal authorities claim that there as many as 1 million gang members in the United States, with there being about 50,000 gangs. These gang members have extensive criminal records and long histories of violence. There is no mention of gangs being national threats in the DHS report.

There is no mention in the DHS report of jihadists or al-Qaida or any other known terrorist group. Only military veterans are targeted as threats. The only religion mentioned in the report as being a national risk is that of Christian.

From Washington Times:

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

The training McVeigh received from the military was for that of a gunner and did not include bomb-making. This information was inexplicably left out of the report, but since it would disprove the veiled implication that the military’s training was responsible in McVeigh’s terrorist bombing attack, its omission is suspicious.

Shoddy research, conjecture-driven, blatantly biased documentation: you get an F, DHS. An 8th-grader would have done a better job on a school report as far as citing substantive facts, authoritative sources, and conclusive evidence. Where is your hard proof of your outrageous allegations, Napolitano? You’re a lawyer. You of all people should understand the importance of having solid evidence. I’ve read your report. There isn’t any.

This slipshod report has more holes in it than imported Swiss cheese. And this is OUR GOVERNMENT putting forth this document. Not a corrupt banana republic in a third-world country. Not a post-holocaustal world in a futuristic sci-fi. Our government. Ours.

What words describe how this makes many Americans feel? There are many, but here are just a few: Astounded. Disappointed. Outraged. Betrayed. Stunned. Wary. Targeted.

You have many questions to answer, Homeland Security and Janet Napolitano. And you might want to start packing your bags.

As DHS head, Napolitano reports directly to Pres. Barack Obama. I cannot imagine that she released this report without Obama being aware of its contents. With her political background, she knows to notify her chain of command with her department’s findings before going public. Perhaps Obama personally did not read the report. However, a senior staff member should have and Obama would have been notified of its contents. And then approval would be given for its release. Napolitano would not, unless she’s insane, release it without her boss’s (Obama’s) approval. Some text in the report sounds eerily like statements Obama made during his campaign. Did he indeed write some of the report?

We may never know. The White House is trying to distance itself from the it that there is great outcry, act like they were in the dark. But the facts are on the table.

So, to Pres. Obama, I ask: why have these massive groups of American citizens been, during your watch, targeted by Homeland Security? Why are known terrorist groups and gangs omitted from the report?

Footnote, DHS Document, page 2: “Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”

Entire news story, reported by WorldNetDaily:

From WorldNetDaily

Feds’ ‘McVeigh excuse’ prompts response
David Schippers contends OKC bomber part of Islamic, not ‘right-wing,’ plot * April 23, 2009

Responding to the Obama administration’s attempt to justify a controversial “right-wing extremism” report by citing Timothy McVeigh, a counter-terrorism group has posted a video statement by a prominent Democrat investigator who contends the Oklahoma City bomb plot was hatched not by right-wingers but by Islamic jihadists.

David Schippers, the chief counsel for the 1998 impeachment trial of President Clinton, probed the bombing with investigative reporter Jayna Davis, author of “The Third Terrorist: The Middle Eastern Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing”, by WND Books. Davis asserts McVeigh and Terry Nichols were not the lone conspirators but part of a greater scheme involving Islamic terrorists and at least one provable link to Iraq. The explosion April 19, 1995, at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killed 168 people, including 19 children, and injured another 684.

In the video, released by America’s Truth Forum, Schippers says there’s “no question the Oklahoma City bombing was a part of a state-sponsored attack on the heartland of the United States.”

“I have been asked about the Oklahoma bombing and whether there was any kind of federal cover-up. The simple and direct answer is yes,” he said. “Unquestionably, a federal cover-up beginning in 1995 and continuing to today.”

As WND reported last week, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security cited McVeigh as a reason that “right wing” interests must be monitored closely by his agency.

Agency spokesman Sean Smith told talk-radio host and WND columnist Roger Hedgecock, “There was a very tragic example of a threat that was realized and materialized in this country, almost 14 years ago to the day, in Oklahoma City. I’m talking about Tim McVeigh.”

Hedgecock was the first to expose the Department of Homeland Security report on “right-wing extremism” that pointed to a potential threat from returning war veterans, abortion opponents, gun-rights advocates and supporters of third-party candidates, among others.

Smith emphasized the Oklahoma bombing was carried out “by someone who unfortunately was a returning vet.”

America’s Truth Forum President Jeffrey Epstein was among the critics of the DHS report.

“Taking a lesson from history, one can clearly gauge the health of a nation by the way it treats its servicemen,” he said.

Epstein called Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano’s targeting of “our nation’s heroes” a “revolting and groundless assertion based solely upon the government’s flawed OKC bombing investigation.”

“In doing so, Napolitano recklessly ignored the fact that despite Bill Clinton’s best efforts, ties couldn’t be established between Timothy McVeigh and right-wing extremist groups,” Epstein said. “Perhaps, the ‘real’ enemies of our state are at the helm.”

Epstein said the Schippers video was produced several years ago, but it has been publicly released for the first time. Schippers, a Chicago-based attorney, recently affirmed that he stands by the statements, Epstein said.

Schippers says in the taped interview the FBI inexplicably closed its probe into the infamous “John Doe No. 2″ suspect despite numerous witnesses he interviewed who identified a “foreign-looking man” with McVeigh immediately before the bombing.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., who produced a report two years ago on the alleged foreign-link to the bombing, told WND he experienced a “high level of frustration” during his own investigation “with how many people, from local newspapers to the FBI, to just even other members of Congress, who are just anxious not to even give another look at this monstrous crime that really appears to be unresolved.”

Rohrabacher attributes some of opposition to people in a bureaucracy trying to cover up incompetence and bad decisions. But his report offers insight into the mindset of the Clinton administration, suggesting the former president did not want to confront the possibility Islamic terrorists – and ultimately a Middle Eastern state – were involved.

It’s now clear, Rohrabacher told WND at the time, that the Clinton administration had “an aversion to any type of efforts by our government that would in some way require the use of force against foreign enemies, and especially in the Middle East.”

Schippers points out McVeigh partner Nichols made several trips to the Philippines prior to the bombing, and there is evidence he met with Islamic jihadists tied to al-Qaida.

Former Clinton counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke notes in his book “Against All Enemies” that Nichols was in the Philippines in the same city at the same time as Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted of participation in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

“We do know that Nichols’ bombs did not work before his Philippine stay and were deadly when he returned,” Clarke writes.

Schippers also points out Yossef Bodansky, the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, issued a warning two months prior to the Oklahoma City bombing that Iran-sponsored Islamist terrorists had recruited ‘two lily whites’ – people like McVeigh and Nichols – to carry out the bombing of an American federal building.

Schippers contends the FBI failed to establish a tie between McVeigh and right-wing militias. Some independent investigators dispute that, including Jesse Trentadue, a Salt Lake City attorney who believes McVeigh was aided by a white supremacist group that had been infiltrated by the FBI.

Trentadue obtained FBI documents in his Freedom of Information Act suit against the agency, which he says bolster his belief the FBI had prior knowledge of the bombing.

Davis, who began her investigation while covering the bombing as a local TV reporter, dismisses the theory centered on a German national who was in the U.S. illegally in 1995, Andreas Carl Strassmeier, and domestic neo-Nazis at a white supremacist compound in Oklahoma called Elohim City.

“FBI agents have testified the neo-Nazi, Elohim City connection is nothing more than a dry hole,” Davis argues. “There’s not one motel log, one phone log, one fingerprint or eyewitness account that can tie any of these Nazi conspirators or Strassmeier to overt commission of a crime.”

Worthwhile reading:
Audrey Hudson, Washington Times: Obama Admin Distances Itself from DHS “Rightwing Terrorist” Report
Pamela Gellar, Atlas Shrugs: Shocking New Report! Obama’s Real Terrorists: Targeting Patriots and the Right
Greg Gutfeld, Big Hollywood: Daily Gut: War Vets and the People Who Play Them
The Liberty Papers: The White House responds to DHS report
Tarheeltalker: Homeland Security Holds The Line
The Liberty Sphere: Special Liberty Alert
Macsmind: Worse than Carter?
Michelle Malkin: Defining domestic extremism and Janet Napolitano screws up again and Janet Napolitano said what?
The Right Side of Life: DHS Thinks Constitutionalists are Extremists
The Betrayal: WHITE HOUSE DISTANCES ITSELF FROM ITS CAMPAIGN TO CRIMINALIZE PATRIOTS, CONSERVATIVES AND LOVERS OF FREEDOM
Vets On The Watch: There Is A Reason The Stupid DHS Report Came Out
Frugal Café Blog Zone: Oliver North Speaks Out Against DHS Anti-Right-Wing Report: “I Am an Extremist” and Say It Ain’t So… Obama’s Homeland Security Targets Conservatives as Potential Terrorists
The Barton Bulletin: Honoring America’s Veterans November 11, 2008
A Conservative Edge: OBAMA Administration Begins To Show Its Contempt For Veterans, As Illegal Aliens Flood Hospitals
Pat Dollard, Youngs Americans: Resign: Napolitano Under Pressure Over DHS Terrorist Attack On Dissenting Americans
The Final Hour: 1 Million Gang Members Have America In Their Violent Grip
Gribbit’s Word: When Someone Can’t Do the Job They Have – Promote Them

Categories: Bless Our Troops, Conservatism, Freedom of Speech, Government, Law & Constitution, National Security, Social and Political Climate
Tags: Bush, Christ, Christianity, Christians, Clinton, conservative, Department of Homeland Security, DHS, extremist, Janet Napolitano, left-wing, military, military veterans, Obama, right-wing, Timothy McVeigh