Atlantic: Despite evidence to the contrary, vets are the greater threat

| April 25, 2013

The Atlantic publishes the words of completely vacuous David Sterman, of the New America Foundation, as he breathlessly warns “The Greater Danger: Military-Trained Right-Wing Extremists“. This idiot meanderings through the English language was more than likely lifted from the moronic mind of Mark Potok, the anti-American, anti-military hate monger at the Southern Poverty Law Center who inspired Floyd Corkins II to try to shoot up the Family Research Council in DC last year.

But there’s meanwhile a more worrying danger: that right-wing extremists who have served in the U.S. military will use their training in carrying out terrorist violence.

Right-wing extremists are more likely than violent Islamist extremists–or, as they are sometimes called, jihadists–to have military experience. They are also better armed, and are responsible for more incidents. The past two decades have seen multiple attacks from right-wing extremist veterans, from Wade Michael Page, who trained at Fort Bragg, to the group of former and active-duty soldiers in Georgia, who collected weapons to carry out a plan to assassinate President Obama. In 2011, Kevin Harpham, who had served in the army, placed a bomb along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade. During the 1990s, violent extremism in the militia movement and other right-wing movements relied heavily upon those who served in the military. Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the most deadly terrorist attack on American soil before 9/11, was a military veteran whose libertarian views were also heavily influenced by a novel by a former American Nazi Party official. Eric Rudolph, the anti-abortion extremist who bombed the 1996 Olympics, had also enlisted in the army.

Wade Michael Page was the guy who shot up a Sikh temple. He was booted out of the Army in the late 90s. Kevin Harpham did fail at bombing a parade. Harpham, was also booted in 1999 from his Army job as a Red Leg cannon cocker at Fort Lewis, which is in no way related to anything that has to do with making and emplacing bombs. The Fort Stewart murderers had a plot to assassinate the President, but they were a bunch of headquarters wienies who had no skills related to the task that they planned. They murdered two people who they thought might expose their plot, but people who haven’t been trained by the military do that everyday. McVeigh was a Bradley gunner in the first Gulf War, nothing in the 11MB20 Skills Manual is remotely related to anything he did that day in Oklahoma, just like the others, including Eric Rudolph.

I have no idea why the media is so preoccupied with waving this warning flag about veterans when there are millions of veterans who don’t hurt a soul every day. I think it’s very telling that they’re so preoccupied with warning about veterans in the days after an attack by real terrorists who are violent jihadists with no relationship to the military. They have to go back to the fricken 90s to find military veteran terrorists, for Pete’s sake. Yes, they all had military training, but nothing about their training had anything to do with their deeds.

The only person Sterman interviews is our old friend Daryl Johnson, who wrote the now-famed Homeland Security Department report which warned of veterans as the greatest threat to our security. Johnson was fired soon after and his sole mission in life is to get morons like Sterman to vindicate his idiot report. The problem is that there are too many people in the media who don’t know what the military actually trains people to do, so since it sounds scary to them, it must be scary to everyone else.

Oh, yeah, wait until you read the part about scary, nutty veterans accumulate weapons, unlike jihadists, who only accumulate pressure cookers, I suppose. I guess they’re coming for our guns.

Category: Media, SPLC, Veterans Issues

38 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
MAJMike

To quote a famous movie line, “I don’t want to be afraid of my Government, I want my Government to be afraid of me.” That said, only those who wish to subvert the Constitution have reason to fear those of us who swore to uphold that same Constitution.

Took that oath 30+ years ago and it still remains in force.

Stacy0311

I’d like to comment but I’m off to my meeting of violent right wing veterans organization. Most of you know it as the VFW…..
of course, now I’m on the “List”

OWB

So, is this, like, an admission that they want to come after us??? It’s the only conclusion I can reach. They know that almost every one of us will never use our military training except defensively. Almost none of us will become actual crazy loons who go looking for targets. Ever. We know that. They know that. And they know that we know that they know it. There just is no other rational explanation for their lying about us other than we are a serious threat to their using force against us and our families, up close and personal.

Combat Historian

The slander of veterans is a timeless tradition in this and other countries, but they usually have the decency to at least wait until peacetime to do so…guess The Atlantic and SPLC and others of their ilk are jumping the proverbial gun to get a headstart here…

Al T.

IMHO, it’s pretty simple – competent people scare hell out of incompetent people.

Twist

This shit is getting old.

NR Pax

I have no idea why the media is so preoccupied with waving this warning flag about veterans when there are millions of veterans who don’t hurt a soul every day.

Because they want it to be true and they will keep repeating this idiocy. Reality is a tough thing for them.

Old Trooper

Yes, David Sterman, be afraid of me. I hope that if you ever see me that you have a diaper on so that no one can see you wet yourself. Yes, David Sterman, I’m that fucking awesome that your bowels will involuntarily evacuate in my presence and whatever woman is with you will immediately throat punch you and come over and do me right there in front of you, because she wants a real man, an awesome man, a man’s man.

Ex-PH2

I feel so left out. No one in my generation of highly-trained, fully-skilled female veterans has been singled out or defined as a threat.

Damn! Hey, I did NOT ask to be a shore duty puke! It ain’t my fault the Navy had me sitting at a Movieola editor for hours on end, or working in a darkroom printing 16x20s of destroyer escorts all day long.

I tried. I asked for a ship. I was denied because I didn’t qualify: I didn’t have a third leg.

I’m so ashamed.

Stacy0311

@9-don’t worry, we’ll let you play. Somebody has to document the revolution. Maybe we can find a mimeograph machine for you to use……

valerie

“….and are responsible for more incidents. ”

I’d like a credible cite for that. Here’s one for the Islamist terrorist acts.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/TheList.htm

The simple fact is that Americans know they don’t have to resort to terrorism, and as a result, when a member of a radical group resorts to terrorism in the United States, support for the group melts away. Such was the fate of Bill Ayers and the Weathermen after his buddies blew themselves up, and with the survivalist movement after Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building.

Ex-PH2

@10 – I have a film camera somewhere. There’s film in the icebox I can use, too.

I’m on it!

TSO

That article must have taken minutes to write.

Cut. Paste. Ah done! Miller time!

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Sterman should stick to screwing investors with his financial “analysis” reporting….yeah there’s a lot of military mechanics, bureaucrats, IT guys, truck drivers, tank drivers all trained in the fine art of military grade explosives construction….

Doesn’t Sterman or anyone over there at the Atlantic have a f#cking internet connection? Those two 4ssholes right here in Boston learned how to build bombs from their friends on the Al Qaeda website without any formal instruction whatsoever…amazing isn’t it? I’m not sure how post basic training schools function these days, I went to AIT at Benning 35 years ago and we didn’t learn how to make a single bomb. We did learn to point the side of the claymore that says “towards enemy” away from our faces….but we didn’t have an IED class that I can recall….I guess they save those classes for the non-infantry soldiers like vehicle repair personnel and administrators…every day 40 non-veterans kill someone in the US….this 4sshole names 4 in the last 20 years and that equates to a viable large format credible threat…based on the stats you are far more likely to be murdered by a non-veteran than a veteran so I’ll take my chances hanging around all the crazy ex military guys I know instead of hanging around with regular civilian pukes any day…

Ex-PH2

Bill Ayers? Oh, he helped raise campaign money for da prez. You didn’t know that? Bodaprez got himself all irritated because he didn’t like being connected to Bill Ayers’ pipe-bomb episodes in the 1970s, but he still took money from Ayers for his campaign and went to a campaign party at Ayers’ house in Hyde Park.

http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/bill-ayers-confirms-what-obama-has-denied/

ComancheDoc

I don’t know much about explosives but my knowledge of field san should be a cause of concern for all those antiamerican pukes!

Eric66

But wait…SPLC is a great organization doing superb, outstanding work. That is…if you are affiliated in any way, shape, or form with leftist philosophy.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/fbi-video-domestic-terrorist-says-he-targeted-conservative-group-for-being-anti-gay/article/2528072

Jim

This has nothing to do with party. It has too deal with “you were supposed to die in a war”. Therefore the pentagon should not have to pay for the retirements, health insurances, oor anything outside of its own pandering too “american” industry. Ayers should be still in jail, for his bombs, you or I would have been, but someone with monies, thought it woould be better to have him free? Who?
The Atlantic is a rag that “promotes” other ideas. One of those ideas are freedom of speech. Also freedom of association, doon’t cooomplain too visously. Remember your Oath to protect the constitution, from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Keep vigalant.

OldSoldier54

@6 Twist: Yep.

@11 Valerie: Please don’t confuse the lemmings with facts. It causes them a great deal of mental pain and confusion when reality crashes into that faery land construct they reside in, what with the unicorns, skittles raining out of the sky into their sweaty little palms, and Chanel No.5 flatulence …

I wonder if these dingleberries have ever heard of a self-fullfilling prophecy?

Eric66

Unfortunately, the SPLC has *everything* to do with philosophy and ideology…and it’s not a conservative one…

Nik

I have no idea why the media is so preoccupied with waving this warning flag about veterans when there are millions of veterans who don’t hurt a soul every day.

They don’t understand us. We scare them because we’re trained in something they don’t understand and have motivations they can’t get their heads around. All they know is we’re trained in something scary and dangerous and we’re motivated by feelings and ideals they don’t “get”.

Either that, or it’s purely political. “If I can get people to believe right wing extremist veterans are dangerous, maybe I can paint all right wing extremists with the same brush. And then, maybe I can get people to believe all right wingers are dangerous. Sure, I won’t get everyone to swallow my line, but if enough people believe my bullshit, that makes winning elections much easier as those people won’t want to be associated with right wing people or ideologies.”

I’m betting it’s mostly political, but probably both.

Flagwaver

Remember, they want to take our guns because we are dangerous. However, they give guns to drug cartels and the Muslim Brotherhood (as well as fighters and tanks) because they are allies.

A_Proud_Infidel

Liberal media pukes must be very proud of their idiocy and hypocrisy, they display it 24/7/365!!!

Old Trooper

This whole exercise by the left fringe is designed to instill fear in the low information types of our society in order to demonize a block of society that people like spermin Sterman could never measure up to, so they take a couple of examples that have nothing to do with the reason for their crimes and paste the entire bloc of society with the sins of a very few. They don’t want to engage in actually looking at the facts, but rather tie in loosely connected threads from outside the motivation. They want to ignore that jihad is the motivation and is fed by a religion and instead want people to believe that military training is the sole motivation for these others to commit their crimes. I noticed in the excerpt that Johnny Muhamed (the DC sniper) wasn’t mentioned as an example; I wonder why?

SGT Ted

What we are witnessing is the application of old USSR anti-US/anti-Free World propaganda techniques by our domestic “news” industry against their own country.

It is Leftwing Narrative Maintenance; Only “rightwingers” are to be discusses as possible terrorists with no humanity left in their shriveled souls, while Muslim terrorists will be humanized and portrayed as “victims” of racist Amerikkka and the rest of us are to be blamed for their extremism and violence, while the actual bombers are to be excused, as long as they have the correct America hating ideology or religion or skin color. With the Chechen Muslim bombers, two out of three ain’t bad.

There are already a raft of opinion articles trying to do just that: excuse the bombers, because they belong to a protected “other” group, which is Islam.

The other angle being pushed is that Islam is not to be held accountable for Muslim terrorists, unlike the press narrative that the Roman Catholic Church is completely responsible for child molesters who happen to be priests.

Claymore

To a run-of-the-mill media shitbag, basic training equates “murder school”, so if you’ve made it that far in the military, you are de facto considered “highly trained”. You can find this in the narrative handbook right next to “assault clips”, “high-capacity bullets” and “machine guns”.

MGySgtRet

I don’t know, I guess I am kind of flattered that they are so seemingly scared of a 52 year old, balding guy. But I am a trained scout sniper, so there is that…….

pete

us veterans are the 21st century Jews being targeted for extermination. i don’t think we will be as compliant as they
were in the 30’s

mark

In ten years so far in the active and reserve Navy, I have not once touched anything explosive. Still hoping too, but seeing as how the Navy does everything they can to remove all the fun from, well, everything, I’m sure i’d be disappointed.

I had to become a professional ski bum (pro ski patroller) to learn how to use explosives. We use a wide variety of them to mitigate avalanche hazards on a daily basis.

Haven’t heard the media warning about ski bums…

CC Senor

@14 We mechanics took the same CTT as everyone else, so no, no special training. The closest we ever got to learning how to blow up anything was the chapter in the 10 manuals on how to destroy equipment that had to be abandoned. Only saw that happen once with an M578 and the grunts totally screwed that up.

Eggs

I learned how to blow stuff up in the Coast Guard – little electrolytic capacitors that didn’t take too kindly to 110VAC going into them. You turn the power to the workbench outlets off, stick the leads in, and when an unsuspecting tech flips the switch – Bang!!

That’s probably enough to put me on death row in NYC.

2/17 Air Cav

Yes, Davey, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Ex-PH2

I got a Gilbert Chemistry set for Christmas when I was 10.

And I took two semesters of chemistry in high school. I mixed some chemicals together in a test tube and heated them and they sprayed sparks all over the classroom. Mr. Johnson had to clear the room and open all the windows, and it was snowing outside.

Now I have many, many sharp knives in my kitchen drawers.

Obviously, I am a very dangerous person.

pete

i drank a lotta beer and ate a bunch of hard boiled eggs in Germany one night. the next morning i cleared out our entire formation with my weapon of ass destruction!

i love being a bad guy

MAJMike

I freely admit that I’m no where near as awesome as Old Trooper. However, I am capable of making the Lib-Cong crap their pants by just seeing me at a 100 meters.

I, too, am tired of this s*it. Let the Lib-Cong back up their concerns with direct action. My schedule is very flexible and I have a sufficiency of ammunition.

Old Trooper

@35: You know that I was being absurdly sarcastic in that post; right? I wanted to capture the essence of what that bed wetting momma’s boy probably thinks and fears.

MAJMike

@36 — Heh. You’re closer to the truth than you know. The Lib-Cong rely upon the weak and easily fooled to do their dirty work.

I was supporting your comment.

Ex-PH2

If someone will be kind enough to point me in the general direction of this Chicken Little pseudo-author, I will be more than happy to ingest mass quantities of beans with Polish sausages and onions, and stop by his table at a restaurant just to tell him what I think of his article, and his writing in general.

I will be quite sincere when I say these things, too.