Homegrown Terrorists

My colleague Harkonnendog, writing at the Unpaid Punditry Corps blog, thinks that the idea that "Muslim fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists are basically the same- and equally dangerous to freedom loving people" is nuts. He says to illustrate his point he is going to link to the "occasional Islamist rant" and then says he challenges "my fellow pundits to post links to Evangelists or Christian fundies spouting equally abhorrent crap."

So I did - about a dozen to start with in the comments.

Now, I am not fervently anti-Christian but I AM fervently anti-fundie, of whatever strip or persuasion. The differences in death tolls between Christian and Moslem extremists are more a matter of resources than of ideology, in my opinion.

However, for the record, I think there are probably just as many moderate Christians as there are moderate Moslems, it's just that moderates don't make the news.

So in the context of this discussion, I was interested to find, on one of my weekly reads of the Jane's website, an article on domestic terrorism. If you don't read Jane's then you should, registration is free and it is the definitive word on all things defense and security related. If it's in Jane's, it's an unimpeachable source.

The article begins by noting that although international terrorist groups are getting all the attention and all the resources, indigenous small groups and lone wolves still comprise a major threat. It illustrates this by pointing out that:

The only lethal case of bioterrorism in the US to date is the anthrax mailings in October 2001, which remains unsolved. Five people died as a result of the mailing of military-grade anthrax spores, 18 others were infected and 35,000 people had to take prophylactic antibiotics. It is not known whether the perpetrator intended the recipients to be mortally infected or whether he or she is a 'patriot' who wanted to demonstrate that the US was badly prepared for bioterrorism.

Whichever it was, the various agencies involved are certain it was a homegrown plot.

Then it examines the case of "Dr. Chaos", an American called Joseph D Konopka who in 2001 admitted to possession of the ingredients to make canide gas which he had stashed in the subway tunnels leading to Chicago O'Hare Airport, followed by the case of fundementalist Christian, William Joseph Krar, the white supremacist and militia weapons-maker who pleaded guilty to possession of a sophisticated cyanide bomb capable of killing thousands in Texas, 2003.

Apart from having hidden materials for fabricating a sophisticated sodium cyanide bomb capable of killing thousands, Krar had amassed 30 kg of Kinepak solid binary explosives (ammonium nitrate); 66 tubes of Kinepak binary liquid explosives (nitromethane); military detonators; trip wire; electric and non-electric blasting caps; an arsenal of 500,000 rounds of ammunition; cases of military atropine syringes (antidote for nerve agents); more than 60 pipe bombs; various machine guns; as well as instructions for making toxins and chemical and biological weapons.

In a final, ironic, sentence, Jane's notes:

To put the actions of both criminals into perspective, by the time Krar pleaded guilty to possession of a chemical weapon on 11 November 2003, between them Krar and Konopka were accountable for far more chemical weapons than had been found in post-war Iraq.

I will never understand why the US allows organised armed militias with dangerously crackpot religious and political affiliations to exist within it's borders, simply because some piece of paper - written over 200 years ago by humans who are like all humans, fallible - can be interpreted as saying it should. Now that is really nuts.