The Real War On Terror did not begin on September 11, 2001.
In fact, it has yet to begin. (Update: I’m not the only person who thinks so.)
The real War On Terror will begin once far-right Republicans realize that Democrats are about to seize all political power in Washington, and there is nothing they can do to stop it.
There is precedent for my writing this. The Clinton years were filled with incidents of right-wing terror, and threats of terror for which law enforcement took the blame. Ruby Ridge (which actually happened in August, 1992, during the first Bush Administration). Waco. Oklahoma City. The Olympics bombing.
Notice how the early incidents became excuses for those which followed. Notice, too, the faces of the terrorists involved. Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph were white. McVeigh was a Gulf War Veteran. Rudolph continues to harass his victims from prison. (Do authorities shrug their shoulders when Osama bin Laden does the same thing?)
I fully expect Rudolph to become a t-shirt in the next War On Terror, kind of a fascist Che Guevara.
It gives me no pleasure to write this. We have now had six
years in which radical rightists have held all or most of the power in
this country. Most Americans now reject that path. A consensus of
Americans reject its premises. A consensus among conservatives rejects
the whole concept of violence (although some, as a campaign premise, play with the idea of violence under cover of authority).
There is further precedent for this, going further back. Remember how leftists like the Weather Underground committed
violence during the early Nixon years? When those who have taken a
Thesis to extremes face their ultimate rejection, violence is going to
be their natural reaction.
But what percentage of active insurrectionists does it take in order
to create the kind of "system disruption" John Robb writes about in Global Guerillas?
What percentage of a population needs to be even mildly supportive of
the insurrection’s goals in order to make it self-sustaining? Most people in western
North Carolina didn’t like Eric Rudolph, yet while on the run there he
became a kind of folk hero to many. And he managed to hide-out for years. Multiply the sense of outrage a
hundred-fold, add in tactical and practical knowledge gained in
watching Islam’s own Holy War over the last years, then mix ligh
tly
with our own Second Amendment, and you get an incendiary brew indeed.
In order to fight domestic terrorism I fully expect the next
Democratic government to pursue policies which, while useful, will only
fan the flames of insurrection even more. National ID cards. Gun
control. Neighborhood watch. Principled conservatives will argue that
our Constitutional Rights are being violated — as though the
destruction of habeus corpus by this Administration never happened, as
though the Patriot Act were some left-wing plot.
They will have to watch what they say. When extremists within your
own movement are engaged in violence your own words are going to be
carefully measured, both by advocates of the new order seeking to
de-legitimatize you, and those among your political allies seeking some
hint of support. It’s a long way from "protect our Constitutional
rights" to "off the pigs," but in a time of crisis people listen most
intently. Each step you take down that road will be carefully examined.
It wasn’t just far-left movements who were tarred for a
generation by the violence of the late 1960s. It was every single
liberal impulse, and it doesn’t take a detailed content analysis to
hear how this de-legitimization by association continues in our
political discourse.
So the same thing will happen to the Right as happened to the Left a
generation ago. I just happen to think there will be a lot more
violence attendant to it this time around. Humans have gotten
better at it. The nature of the outgoing Nixon Thesis of Conflict guarantees it.
Pray that we as a nation survive it.
