The jihadists who call themselves the Islamic State (formerly ISIS or ISIL) are Islamic fundamentalists who, convinced that the apocalypse is imminent and that they are its agents, are committed to purifying the world in the name of Allah by killing vast numbers of people. (See “Major U.S. magazine breaks with Obama admin by calling ISIS Islamic and apocalyptic“)
But Barack Obama simply refuses to call the Islamic State, who now controls a third of Syria, as either Islamic or a state. Instead, in his speech of Sept. 10, 2014 and since, he calls ISIS jihadists — who have been slaughtering Christians in Iraq, Syria, and most recently beheading 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya — generic “terrorists.”
Incredibly, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf recently proclaimed that America can’t win against the Islamic State “by killing them” and ought instead to focus on addressing their root problem of a poor economy and a lack of job opportunities.
While treating the jihadists with denial and kid gloves, Obama doesn’t hesitate to identify millions of “right wing” Americans as “extremist terrorists,” the latest example being an intelligence assessment by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Evan Perez and Wes Bruer report for CNN, Feb. 20, 2015, that a new intelligence assessment, circulated by the DHS this month, focuses on the “domestic terror threat from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists,” who reject government authority, carry out sporadic terror attacks on police, and threaten to attack other government buildings.
Some federal and local law enforcement groups view the domestic terror threat from sovereign citizen groups as equal to — and in some cases greater than — the threat from foreign Islamic terror groups, such as ISIS.
Note: The sovereign citizen movement is a loosely affiliated group of Americans who believe they are free people and reject many elements of federal, state and local governance, including, but not limited to, taxation. According to Colorado Prowers County Undersheriff Ron Trowbridge, he was told at a Colorado State Police training session on April 1, 2013, that sovereign citizen groups include Americans who believe the United States was founded on godly principles and “fundamentalist” Christians who take the Bible literally. (See Trail Dust’s “Have you ever heard of a ‘Sovereign Citizen’?“)
The DHS report, produced in coordination with the FBI, defines sovereign citizens as “extremists” who believe they can ignore laws and that their individual rights are under attack in routine daily instances such as a traffic stop or being required to obey a court order. The report counts 24 “violent” sovereign citizen-related attacks across the U.S. since 2010, including:
- In 2012, a father and son allegedly engaged in a shootout with police in Louisiana in which two officers were killed and several others wounded. The confrontation began with an officer pulling them over for a traffic violation. The men were sovereign citizen “extremists” who claimed police had no authority over them.
- In 2013, a man who held anti-government views carried out a shooting attack on three Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees at Los Angeles International Airport, killing one TSA officer.
- In 2014, a couple killed two police officers and a bystander at a Las Vegas Walmart store.
Other findings in the DHS intelligence assessment include:
- An expectation that sovereign citizen “violence during 2015 will occur most frequently during routine law enforcement encounters at a suspect’s home, during enforcement stops and at government offices.”
- “Law enforcement officers will remain the primary target of (sovereign citizen) violence over the next year due to their role in physically enforcing laws and regulations.”
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, said that by some estimates, there are as many as 300,000 people involved in some way with sovereign citizen extremism, with a core of perhaps 100,000. Potok says sovereign citizen groups have attracted support because of poor economic conditions. Some groups travel the country pitching their ideology as a way to help homeowners escape foreclosure or get out of debt by simply ignoring the courts and bankruptcy law.
While groups like ISIS and al Qaeda garner the most attention, for many local cops, the danger is closer to home. A survey last year of state and local law enforcement officers listed “sovereign citizen terrorists” as the top domestic terror threat, ahead of foreign Islamists and domestic militia groups. The survey was part of a study produced by the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.
The DHS intelligence assessment coincides with the Obama administration’s convening of a White House summit on fighting “violent extremism” last week.
Penny Starr reports for CNS News, Feb. 19, 2015, that the second day of the summit had opened with a Muslim prayer by an imam, Sheikh Sa’ad Musse Roble of the Minneapolis’ World Peace [sic] Organization, following remarks by Obama administration officials and Democratic members of Congress. No other faiths were represented.
This is not the first time that the DHS identifies “right wing” Americans as “domestic terrorists.
In 2012, a DHS-funded study, Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970-2008 — by the same University of Maryland National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism that conducted the 2014 survey of state and local police officers — characterized Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority” and “reverent of individual liberty” as “extreme right-wing” terrorists.
In fact, University of Maryland’s National Consortium was launched with the aid of DHS, that is, taxpayers’, funding to the tune of $12 million.
See also:
- Do you love freedom? Obama just designated you a terrorist
- DHS training video depicts gun-owning militia as terrorists
- US Army targets Tea Party movement as extremists in 2016 civil war scenario
- West Point study demonizes “far right” as terrorists
- Obama’s civilian army and secret police: DHS Protective Security Service
- Eric Holder Announces Task Force to Focus on “Domestic Terrorists”
- Rep. Steve Cohen Calls Tea Party Republicans “Domestic Enemies” on MSNBC
- New Hampshire City Requests a Tank to Deal with “Domestic Terrorist” Groups Like Occupy Wall Street and Libertarians
- The New Orwellian Term for Americans that Disagree with Government: “Paper Terrorists”
H/t ZeroHedge and FOTM’s dee
~Éowyn
