Thank you, Lorenzo [Vidino], for that kind introduction.
It is an honor to be at this event, co-hosted by the George Washington University’s new Program on Extremism and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The partnership between SPLC and GW serves as a reminder that violent extremism is neither a new phenomenon, nor one that is limited to any single population, region or ideology.
Since its creation in 1971, SPLC has been an important voice on the wide range of extremist groups throughout this country. And over the past four decades, the existence of hate, violence and extremism has remained unfortunately all too constant. Earlier this year, we honored and remembered the victims of the horrific Oklahoma City bombing on the 20th anniversary of that devastating attack. Less than two months after the anniversary, we again saw unimaginable violence motivated by hate. A young man killed nine African-American men and women attending a bible class in Charleston, South Carolina. A senseless, racist act. The list goes on, past and present.
But as we gather today, new and disturbing trends loom over the horizon – trends we must understand to defeat.
New initiatives, like GW’s program, which focus on empirical research and analysis, are critical to policymakers and the interested public alike.
So although the problem set is by no means new, it is changing, and we must take lessons learned in the past and couple them with trend analysis to understand these shifts.
Today’s event is a good start to that conversation. We are here to talk about combating domestic terrorism, which the FBI has explained as “Americans attacking Americans based on U.S.-based extremist ideologies.”
Much attention has focused on those inspired by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIL) message of hate and violence spreading worldwide and reaching homes here in America through the group’s unprecedented social media recruitment efforts. And rightly so.
But today is a good opportunity to focus the conversation broadly on violent extremism here in America. The threat ranges from individuals motivated by anti-government animus, to eco-radicalism, to racism, as it has for decades.
The full spectrum of violent extremism shares a number of common elements, and our approach to disrupting them must recognize these connections.
As just one example, earlier this year, two women were charged in New York with conspiring to build a bomb to conduct an attack in the United States. While these women were motivated by Islamic extremist ideology, they allegedly conducted research into the type of bomb used in the Oklahoma City bombing, demonstrating the continuing resonance of that attack.
The Threat
The Department of Justice’s highest priority is combatting terrorism, both international and domestic, and other threats to our national security in order to protect the American public, and we strive to remain nimble so we can adjust to current threats as they evolve and new threats that emerge.
The range of national security threats is staggeringly broad. We work every day to adapt and improve our approaches to address the dangers posed by ISIL, Al Qaeda, AQAP and other terrorist groups; the threats posed by foreign terrorist fighters intent on waging Jihad abroad; and the threat of fighters who may seek to return home, trained and willing to die for their extremist cause.
Yet, while we continue to address this evolving international threat of violent extremists, we have not lost sight of the domestic terrorism threat posed by other violent extremists. Terror and extremism do not always originate elsewhere or take place outside our borders. Homegrown violent extremists can be motivated by any viewpoint on the full spectrum of hate. Anti-government views, racism, bigotry, anarchy and other despicable beliefs. When it comes to hate and intolerance, no single ideology governs.
In America, harboring extremist views is not itself a crime, nor is the expression of even a hateful ideology or association with a hateful group.
But the line between speech and violence is crossed too often, resulting in heartbreaking tragedy. The list includes:
• Plots and attacks on government buildings, synagogues and mosques, businesses and public infrastructure;
• Assassinations and planned assassinations of police officers, judges, civil rights figures, doctors and others;
• Stockpiles of illegal weapons, explosives and biological and chemical weapons; and
• Killing sprees that have terrorized local communities.
Let’s look at some of the people, and groups that the SPLC has labeled as “extremists”.
Ron Paul’s New Organization Reportedly Stacked with Extremists
by Ryan Lenz
April 26, 2013
Ron Paul, the libertarian former Texas congressman whose hard-line views are widely admired on the radical right but who claims to reject racism, [bhas started a new organization stacked with a hodgepodge of far-right extremists.
As The Daily Beast reported yesterday, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is ostensibly designed to promote a discourse about U.S. foreign policy. But its advisory board is stacked with what writer James Kirchik characterized as “a bevy of conspiracy theorists, cranks, and apologists for some of the worst regimes on the planet.”
And just who are the far-right luminaries helping guide Paul’s new endeavor?
One is Lew Rockwell, Paul’s former congressional chief of staff who now heads the Ludwig von Mises Institute, an Auburn, Ala., think tank with deep ties to the neo-Confederate movement. There’s Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News and journalist Eric Margolis, both 9/11 “truthers” who suspect that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks may have been orchestrated by the government.
And alongside them sits Butler Shaffer, a Southwestern Law School professor who similarly once asked: “In light of the lies, forgeries, cover-ups, and other deceptions leading to a ‘war’ in Iraq, how can any intellectually honest person categorically deny the possibility of the involvement of American political interest in 9/11?”
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Notice how from the beginning the SPLC claims people like Ron Paul, and others who have similar views to Paul are seen as “right wing extremists” by the SPLC, and obviously by the Obama administration.
Let’s look at another example. The SPLC labels Lew Rockwel as another “right wing extremist”. But who is Lew Rockwell?
Lew Rockwell
Llewellyn Harrison “Lew” Rockwell, Jr. (born July 1, 1944) is an American libertarian author and editor, self-professed anarcho-capitalist,[1] a promoter of the Austrian School of economics, and founder and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
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It is more and more obvious that not only groups like the SPLC, but including the Obama administration label Americans as extremists, simply on ideology, and not for a preponderance of evidence on violence of individuals.
As a matter of fact, Heidi Beirich, the SPLC’s intelligence project director, has made remarks in the past that the SPLC looks at “ideology and not on whether or not those groups are violent.”
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CNSNews.com asked Beirich about their designation of the Family Research Council as a hate group.“I think there’s a common misunderstanding about the way you get on our Hate List. We post groups on the basis of ideology, not whether they’re violent or not,” she replied.
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So whether you are a conservative, a libertarian, a constitutionalist, or simply a conspiracy theorist, you and I are labeled as “right wing extremists” by the SPLC and the Obama administration.
This should be very concerning for all Americans because we are being targeted, and viewed as “extremists” for simply having a different view than the status quo of the Obama administration and groups like the SPLC. abovetopsecret
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