The other kind of terrorism

This shouldn't come as a surprise, but the potential has been building for awhile now:

Espionage charges filed against pair linked to white supremacists

Rafael Davila, 51, and his ex-wife, Deborah Davila, 46, are suspected of providing white supremacists and other radical organizations with sensitive materials involving the strategic response of the Guard to a variety of emergency situations, both foreign and domestic, according to a Department of Justice source.

One of the public-relations purposes of the "militia movement" of the 1990s was to recruit people from with military backgrounds, whether active or on Guard duty or retired. After all, its carefully cultivated public image was that of civic-minded military folk, and there was in fact a fetish about all things military that ran rampant, to hilarious proportions actually, within many of these militias. Jane Kramer's excellent Lone Patriot: The Short Career of an American Militiaman captures this very nicely.

The possibility that far-right moles not only are sharing information, but also are obtaining armaments and materiel through theft, has long been a concern of those who monitor such extremists. So far the evidence has been slender, so this case is decidedly noteworthy.

I picked up this snippet, from an interview on KUOW Radio with Tim Lomperis, a St. Louis University professor and former military intelligence officer:

If this Major gave this information to an adversary they would be able to figure out what our intelligence community is up to, where it's penetrating them and where it's not. So even though you would think of a national guard position as not on the front lines, as an intelligence officer he’s privvy to a lot of information, and can be damagingly revealing of how and where we got the information.

What this story underscores is the fact that Sept. 11 did not dwarf the danger presented to the nation by white-supremacist terrorists. Of course, the sheer numbers and monstrousness of Sept. 11 do dwarf the worst terrorist act committed by the far right, Oklahoma City in 1995. And so they have receded to the background of our consciousnesses when it comes to thinking about the relative dangers to the public.

But that ignores the fact that white supremacists have long hoped for an opportunity where their acts of terrorism could make an actual difference in destabilizing society. And the post-9/11 environment definitely provides that. The basic plan is to piggyback on the terrorist acts committed by Al Qaeda to create increasing social chaos. Their long-term goal is to overthrow the American system completely by creating widespread fear and a belief among the public that their democratic government can no longer protect them -- at which point they intend to present their authoritarian (and racist) selves as the answer.

Remember that William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries, spelled this out in a strategic essay he wrote before he died, saying: "Things are a bit brittle now. A few dozen more anthrax cases, another truck bomb in a well chosen location, and substantial changes could take place in a hurry: a stock market panic, martial law measures by the Bush government, and a sharpening of the debate as to how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place."

Incidentally, I note that Kirk Lyons is involved in this case. From the Seattle Times story above:

Lyons has not been charged with a crime. He told The Associated Press he barely knew Deborah Davila but that she had attended his wedding, which was performed by Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler at the group's former compound near Hayden Lake, Idaho.

I crossed paths with (though I didn't personally encounter) Lyons back in 1996. He played a crucial role in ending the Freemen standoff in eastern Montana, which I covered. Here's a portion of the text from In God's Country about him:

The talks in Jordan continued apace. The final piece of the puzzle came June 9 when the FBI flew in Kirk Lyons, director of a North Carolina legal organization called the CAUSE Foundation, and two of his colleagues. The group (whose initials ostensibly stand for Canada, Australia, United States and Europe -- everywhere that white people are established) describes itself as a defender of unpopular causes and the powerless: ``I will always support the rights of radicals,’’ Lyons is fond of saying. ``The more radical they are, the more they need to be supported for their rights. If you take away their rights, we’re all losers.’’

Actually, Lyons himself is a white separatist who sneers at the current American system. ``Democracy in America is a farce and a failure,’’ he once wrote. ``It has led us to the brink of a police state.’’ He attended Pete Peters’ 1992 gathering at Estes Park, Colorado, that is widely credited with giving birth to the militia movement. At the session, he led discussions on how to establish common-law courts throughout the country.

Lyons first made a name for himself successfully defending Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Louis Beam in his 1988 post-Order sedition trial in Arkansas. He attempted to represent David Koresh during the standoff at Waco, filing for a restraining order against the FBI that a judge abruptly refused, and after the siege ended in disaster, he took up the cause of surviving Davidians in their lawsuit against the government.

The Freemen, however, indicated to the FBI that they trusted Lyons to handle some of the legal negotiations. Lyons had previously contacted the FBI in March and told them he’d be willing to act as a mediator. On June 9, they called him and said: ``You have been elevated to a viable option.’’ Lyons and his colleagues caught a flight out the next day and arrived at the Clark ranch on June 10.

There's more, of course, but I mostly wanted to underscore the point that Atrios has already made: That is, despite Lyons' extensive background in the radical right, he likes to pose as a mainstream conservative, and it was in this guise that he recently engineered the takeover of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans by neo-Confederate forces.

Lyons' presence in the leadership of this faction confirms its white-supremacist orientation. It also further underscores the Republican Party's problem in terms of its long-term dalliance with these folks, a la Trent Lott.