How do we stop far-right extremists in the United States?
Besides not electing them to office
or launching Ted Cruz into space.
Eh?
Anyone?
Now that we know the threat to American safety
isn’t Muslims
but those who are probably screaming about Muslims on Facebook,
many are calling for a renewed so-called War on Terror.
Which is rude because
we haven’t finished our last one yet, OK?
Way to be greedy.
I’m Francesca Fiorentini
and now that we know that the call is coming from inside the house
— of Representatives —
we’re looking at how America can finally learn from its past mistakes
and get smarter about rooting out extremist violence.
[theme jingle]
White racist violence has existed since America’s founding.
It’s pretty much the story of it.
And after years of terrorizing Black and Indigenous people,
immigrants,
women,
synagogue and mosque worshippers,
and the American flag,
on Jan. 6,
it stormed the halls of power.
But of course, like any ghoul,
it cannot enter without first being invited.
And it’s been clear for years
that unlike what the right would have you believe,
it’s white radicalization that’s the greatest danger in this country:
The biggest terrorist threat here in the U.S.,
here in the homeland,
is what we would call
sort of, homegrown violent extremists.
I just love describing them as “homegrown.”
What, did we start a white nationalist microbrewery in our garage?
Mm.
You can really taste the cops
— I mean hops.
And yet fittingly, Trump ignored threats
and defunded the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts
to stop homegrown extremism,
instead diverting the same funds
to stopping homegrown marijuana.
Which makes sense,
because if there’s one person that’s never been high,
it’s William Barr.
What would that even look like?
Have you ever synched Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”
to “Birth of a Nation”?
It’s pretty sick.
Of course, it’s not surprising
Trump wouldn’t want to root out violent white supremacists
within his base. He might
not have a base left if he did that.
But it is surprising that the man
who Trump launched his political career by attacking,
would also not take the threat seriously.
Especially when his very ascendency
as the first Black man in the Oval Office
fueled so much radicalization.
Instead, in 2009, the Obama administration,
under pressure from an increasingly reactionary Republican Party,
dismantled the Extremism and Radicalization Branch of DHS
after it produced a report about
the dangers of far-right anti-government activity.
A former DHS worker, Daryl Johnson, explains what happened:
The department decided to not only
stop all of our work,
stop all of the training and briefings
that we were scheduled to give,
but they also disbanded the unit,
reassigned us to other areas
within the office,
and then made life increasingly difficult for us.
Ah, the Obama years.
Back when we naively thought that the best way to stop white nationalism
was to just give them everything they wanted,
like some sort of amateur lion tamer.
Let me be clear:
I let it nibble on my hand
so it won’t eat my whole body.
[groaning in pain]
The buck has been passed so much from administration to administration
that Jan. 6 was certainly not a surprise.
It was also not a surprise that there was law enforcement
among the rioters themselves.
Of the 150 people arrested thus far,
14% are current or former military
— which according to former FBI Michael German,
checks out.
It has been a persistent problem that
law enforcement, including the FBI
and the Department of Justice,
have long acknowledged,
and in fact, even in their 2015 counter-terrorism
policy guide,
directed agents to alter their methodologies
in cases...
uh, domestic terrorism cases against
white supremacists and far right militants
because they found
that the subjects of these investigations
often have links
to law enforcement.
Wait, so you’re telling me that some of those that work forces,
are in fact, the same that burn crosses?
Wow.
Big, if true.
Take the group the Oath Keepers,
one of the many that took part in the Capitol riots.
Two-thirds of its members have a background
in the military or law enforcement,
and 10% are active-duty.
The very name “oath keepers”
comes from the oath that members of the military take
to “support and defend the Constitution
against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Yikes.
Talk about being caught in a prison of your own making.
I’m sure after Jan. 6, they’re all home
beating the sh*t outta themselves.
So what have U.S. security agencies been doing this entire time
far-right extremism was gaining steam,
even within some of their ranks?
Shock and anger pulsed through the crowd
after discovering their mosque was targeted
by the NYPD,
recording their license plates,
photographing worshippers.
The NYPD’s assistant chief has admitted in court
that none of its monitoring
led to a single terrorism lead or investigation.
Obama said he will send an additional
30,000 troops to Afghanistan
over the next six months.
At least seven Americans have been killed
by U.S. drone strikes.
The most famous example:
radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
The fourth,
Alwaki’s 16-year-old son, killed
just two weeks after his father.
Ahmed Mohammed brought the clock
to his high school in Irving, Texas, on Monday
to try to impress his teacher.
But instead of praise, the teacher was frightened
that the clock might be a bomb.
Michelle Catalano had
searched for pressure cookers,
she was going to cook something up,
and her husband had searched for backpacks.
They get a knock on the door from six people
in the joint terrorism task force,
and they got pulled in
and they started asking them questions.
“Do you own a pressure cooker?”
My husband said, no, but we have a rice cooker.
“Can you make a bomb with that?”
My husband said, no,
my wife uses it to make
quinoa.
Thank you, quinoa.
“What the hell is quinoa?” they asked.
OK, but everyone knows what quinoa is,
especially after that episode of “24.”
You’ve got 5 seconds to tell me what quinoa is!
Where are the grains?
The U.S.counter- terrorism strategy
has been myopically focused on Al Qaeda and ISIS,
and put Muslims and Muslim countries
in the crosshairs,
with two ground wars, drone strikes,
killing of innocent civilians including Americans,
torture, lawless imprisonment at Guantanamo,
warrantless wiretapping
and the massive surveillance and demonization
of the American Muslim community.
Not only has all that not worked,
but the blowback has arguably been worse
– things like creating a breeding ground
for groups like ISIS in Iraq.
Plus, the FBI has relied on some incredibly questionable tactics,
like entrapment operations,
that actually create the crimes they’re supposedly stopping.
Just listen to author Trevor Aaronson of “Terror Factory”
explain how the FBI cultivated its own suspects.
Many of the men that are being prosecuted for
for committing an act of terrorism
or conpsiracy to commit an act of terrorism,
are like Mohammed Mohammed.
They aspire to commit some sort of act of terrorism,
they said hateful and odious things,
but on their own,
they never had the capacity
to commit an act of terrorism.
It was the FBI
informant or it was the FBI undercover agent
who provided the bomb
and all of the logistical means they needed
to commit their crime.
I don’t know if you can congratulate yourself
on catching so- called terrorists
that you devoted millions of dollars, man-hours and under-cover agents
into convincing to do terrorrism.
It’s like when a magician wants applause for putting the woman back together.
You sawed her in half buddy,
you’re not the hero!
Meanwhile, they were missing tips on actual attacks.
And yet, the people who are committing the —
the real offenses, the real acts of terrorism,
the Tamerlan Tsarnaev or
Faisal Shahzad, who —
the Faisal Shahzad, who — who
delivered a bomb to Times Square
that fortunately didn’t go off,
the really dangerous guys aren’t being
trapped in these sting operations
in part because, in a way,
they’re not dumb enough to go
into the local mosque or into the community
and talk to an informant
about how they want to commit an act of terrorism.
The FBI has been narrowcasting to only the dumbest people.
Not every extremist will be fooled into joining your
“Al Qaeda Crimes Club” Facebook group.
That only works on white extremists.
But even with 20 years of blowback,
the loss of innocent lives,
trampling of civil liberties,
there are still those who believe
that we should use the “war on terror” framework
to go after white extremist violence.
Even just the language that’s being used is telling:
We cannot allow these domestic terrorists
and these enemy combatants to win.
When people stand up against the evil-doers,
people always win.
And I’d say to the Democrats,
it’s time to roll out a terrorism era
choice for — for Republicans,
and this should come from every Democrat,
you’re either
with them or with us.
“Enemy combatants,” “evildoers,” “with us or against us”
— all this is the same bogus language used during the “war on terror.”
We’re just missing someone claiming that they’re “jealous of our freedoms”
and that their women need to be freed of their patriarchal role
sewing Q flags.
On a gut level, it is deeply satisfying
to finally hear white extremism being treated in the same manner that
far too many Black, brown and Muslim Americans have been treated for decades.
It’s like affirmative action for the “war on terror.”
But if we actually want to win this war on white extremism,
why use strategies that have failed?
And, worse yet, have led to more extremism?
It’s chilling to think about what the blowback might be,
especially since white extremists are already using ISIS tactics, like
like running cars into crowds.
Beyond the failure, the “war on terror” and all of the propaganda around it
is deeply racist and militaristic.
And it’s indoctrinated American society into an
“if you see something, say something” psychology,
effectively asking us to all be self-deputized G-men
— sniffing out the sleeper cell in our midst.
So it’s no surprise
that 20 years later and enough
Claire Danes ugly crying,
we have white extremist militias,
many of them former military,
who see immigrants and Muslims as the enemy.
What did we think was going to happen?
Did we think that all the racists were just
collecting guns to use in a big art installation
that depicts people of the world holding hands,
but all those people are made of guns?
That’s awesome, but
racists hate art.
So what should we be doing from a security standpoint?
The Biden adminsitration has hired a “war on terror” veteran
who seems serious about domestic threats,
and the Senate is looking to pass a Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act,
which would create three new offices within DOJ, DHS and the FBI.
But too often, new terrorism laws risk further endangering communities
that have always been in the crosshairs of the security state.
History shows that having anti-terrorism laws
just affect people like myself.
We don’t need new laws to deal with
white terrorists.
The laws are there, it’s
whether you want to apply it
to certain people or not.
Yeah.
And that also happens to be experts’ opinions as well.
Law enforcement has all the authority they need.
Obviously, there’s no type of violence
that’s legal.
So — so they have all the authority they need,
they just need to direct the Justice Department
and the FBI to prioritize the investigation
of white supremacists and far right violence.
This isn’t hard because
most of it has been in the public
over the last four years.
So many of the people who were at the Capitol
were actually committing violence
in cities across the United States.
Yeah, you don’t need new laws or elaborate schemes to make arrests.
You pretty much just need a Facebook account
and a weird uncle no one talks to anymore.
‘Cause if there’s one thing these people love to do, it’s
telling on themselves.
When it comes to white extremism in law enforcement itself,
it turns out that doing what the Black Lives Matter movement has called for
— which is basic tracking of officers’ brutality and racial bias
and enacting consequences for it
— works.
Not doing that ensures that white nationalists
remain in law enforcement.
When there is an incident of alleged police brutality,
that the law enforce —
the FBI will often investigate that very narrowly,
much the way they do hate crimes.
Are we able to prove that there’s some kind of bias
or — or some, uh,
intention to violate civil rights in this case?
Rather than
looking comprehensively
at that police officer’s past
to know whether that bias could
be proven by other means.
And then those cases are sent to
Justice Department prosecutors,
and the vast majority of them
are declined for prosecution.
“The vast majority are declined for prosecution.”
Amazing how it’s all connected.
Almost like it’s some kind of
...system
...of racism
System-racism.
system
systemic
systemic racism.
Oh my God.
There are also organizations that work with people
who are either being swept into
or trying to leave the white nationalist movement.
Like Life After Hate, which was receiving a grant from DHS,
of course, until Trump assumed office.
Life After Hate has built a successful model
that combines our unique experiences,
professional training
and evidence-based practices.
This in-person training empowers local professionals,
law enforcement, mental health and social services,
to recognize emerging threats within their community
and to effectively engage with that person or group.
Money for that kind of training should be reinstated two-fold.
I want my tax dollars going there
and not to the war in Afghanistan.
Can I just write that on the check?
Don’t spend it all on one war.
[laughter]
This isn’t about going easy on extremists because they’re white
— the system already does that.
This is about better utilizing the tools we already have,
learning from our country’s past mistakes
and preventing the most vulnerable from being further victimized.
It’s about seeing white supremacy as a question of security
but also education, media literacy, the internet and,
most importantly, democracy.
Because the right is openly calling a democratic election “tyranny”
on top of years of grooming its base toward violence.
And as long as the Republican Party sees a mob
beating a police officer to death with an American flag and thinks
— Ooh!
Voters!
– then we will never be safe.
What I’m trying to say is, we might still
need to launch Ted Cruz
into space.
[sings] This is ground control to Major Cruz.
We do not miss your face!
[background laughter]
Thanks for watching Newsbroke, everybody.
This is our last episode for the next little while,
but please subscribe to AJ+
and get all the good content that is coming your way.
And if you want more from me, I’ve got a podcast called “The Bitchuation Room,”
and you can find me there.
And let me know in the comments below what you think about this episode.
Do you think that we need new counterterrorism laws to go after white extremism?
Let me know your thoughts, and we will see you hopefully very soon.
[end theme]