Thoughts on Terrorism

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

When we think of brazen acts of terrorism, September 11th is usually the first thing to come to mind. Middle easterners with dark skin hijacked four passenger planes and flew them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. It was unimaginable that these madmen could get away with such an outrage inside the borders of the world's mightiest country!

In point of fact, however, September 11th was not the first attack by terrorists on the United States of America, nor was it the first to occur within our borders. As noted earlier in this blog, lynchings were still happening in this country fifty years ago. Some find it hard to let go of those "good old days." Earlier this week the Secret Service was investigating a sign that was posted on a tree in Vay, Idaho, with Barack Obama's name on it and the offer of a "free public hanging."

Idaho has a long history of being infested with terrorists. A white supremacist group headquartered near Coeur d'Alene called the Aryan Nations achieved notoriety a few years back when some drunken guards at their main compound opened fire on a car that had backfired. The inebriated fascists captured the lady and her son who had been in the car and held them at gunpoint while terrorizing them into near insensibility. The Southern Poverty Law Center and their founder, Morris Dees, sued that Aryan Nations on behalf of the two victims and won a $6.3 million settlement - which resulted in all of the group's property and assets being seized and turned over to the plaintiffs.

Today the Southern Poverty Law Center was in the news again. This time they brought suit against America's premier terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan. Those stupid Klan bastards beat the hell out of a Panamanian/Native American youth (who was also an American citizen) named Jordan Gruver because they thought he was an illegal Latino immigrant. The incident occurred at a Kentucky county fair where the Klan was recruiting. They knocked the 16-year-old Gruver to the ground and proceeded to give him a severe kicking and beating that resulted in the boy having a broken jaw, broken arm, two cracked ribs, and assorted cuts and bruises. The SPLC and Mr. Dees won a judgement against the Imperial Klans of America and two of its leaders in the amount of $2.5 million. Kick that, morons!

Who says that Courts can't serve up justice?

These home grown terrorist groups conflate their idiot-ologies with religion, usually that of the angry Christian stripe. Take for instance, the case of Eric Robert Rudolph who roamed the American South bombing family planning clinics and also set off a bomb at the Atlanta Olympics.

But the king of all American terrorists has to be Timothy McVeigh - the man who brought down the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. His act of madness killed 168 people, including children who were in a daycare center on the premises, and wounded eight hundred others. McVeigh was one of the Posse Comitatus creatures who don't recognize any government above the county level. His anti-government beliefs were his undoing because he was picked up shortly after the bombing for driving his vehicle down the highway without license plates.

Our government went crazy after September 11th, quickly going to war in two countries, one of which had nothing to do with the attacks, but completely ignoring the home of most of the terrorists - Saudi Arabia. Nothing like that happened after McVeigh's attack on the Federal Building. There was no rounding up of crackpot militia members, no weapons seizures, no exhaustive investigations, no all-out war declared on Idaho or the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was all laid on the backs of two men, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, and the case was closed.

What a shame that we didn't just go get Osama bin Laden after September 11th, bring him to trial, and close that sad chapter of our history. If we had targeted the man responsible instead of turning our wrath (or our greed) on the whole Middle East, our treasury would still be relatively full, our prestige around the world would be intact, our military would be strong, and thousands of lives would have been spared.

Our country has not seen the last of terrorism, from home or abroad. When the next awful act happens we need to react with a calm and measured response. If it can be handled as a law enforcement issue, it should be. And if it is an act sponsored by a foreign nation that requires a military response, that response should be quick, targeted, and to the point. We literally cannot afford another quagmire like Iraq. When we march into quicksand and can't get out, it is the terrorists who have won.