Tuesday, April 14, 2009

First they came for half the country...

More on that DHS document, from various spots on the web:

Extended comments at Powerline:

Of course, there are crazies of all stripes, and it's possible that a small group of "right wingers" could pose a terrorist threat. In principle, there is nothing wrong with assessing such threats from whatever direction they may come. Still, this report is an odd document. It is almost entirely unmoored to any empirical reality and appears to be heavily influenced by the political views of its (unidentified) authors. This is the central theme of the report:

The whole point of the report is that "right wing" extremism is undergoing a "resurgence" as leaders of extremist groups take advantage of the down economy and the Obama administration to recruit new members. Weirdly, however, the report makes no effort to document any such increased recruitment or extremist activity of any sort. As far as one can tell from the report, "right wing" militias and similar groups may be dying out rather than growing.

What do abortion and gay marriage have to do with white supremacy? Nothing. Many millions of Americans oppose abortion and a majority oppose gay marriage, yet these commonplace views are somehow associated in the minds of the report's authors with "white supremacists." This tells us more, I think, about the people who wrote the report than it does about abortion and gay marriage opponents.

There you have it: a whopping 19 actual or alleged veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan have joined the "extremist movement." (The FBI notes that some of these "may have inflated their resumes with fictional military experience to impress others within the movement.")

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that this Homeland Security report is politically motivated, and reflects the authors' political prejudices more than an objective evaluation of a significant terrorist threat. In that context, the report's conclusion seems a bit ominous:

....

Nope. If you want to read the conclusion, you have to follow the link.

Reason Magazine's Hit And Run blog has noticed the report as well.

And the folks at The Corner are all over it.

As is Michelle Malkin.

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