America's terrorist group

[Upchurch]

So, I was checking out the History channel (as I've become increasingly fond of doing), when I came across a two hour special called "The Secret History of the Ku Klux Klan". As I get sucked into this thing, I become more and more amazed at how they sound just like Al Queda in style, purpose (albeit with a different target), and tactics.

What really scares me is that they've been around for something like 150 years in various different incarnations. Getting rid of one batch of them does not stop another independant batch of them forming later, as has happened at least three times, IIRC. (Scarriest of all, one of the modern factions has a military training camp where they train for the "upcoming race wars". Thing looked just like the Al Queda training camp videos we saw coming out of Afghanistan before we invaded it, but with trees.)

The part that really gets me is that the KKK has a constitutionally protected right to do all the legal activities that they do, including military training. If they were to then go to, say, Africa and conduct terrorist activities, would we be partially responsible? If they were to do so, I believe our law enforcement would do everything possible to shut that particular group down, but what about another such KKK group who played no part in the first's?

I won't go so far as to suggest that the KKK is state sponsored terrorism, in that the state does nothing to stop them, and I'm not sure they should, but are we not setting ourselves up for a kind of morally/ethically ambiguous crisis for coming down so hard on countries who allow terrorists within their borders when we do next to nothing about our own?

 

[crimresearch]

I'm happy to see that you seem to have absolutely no allergy to straw.

In the real world, the last century's Klan of terror has been replaced by a trailer park full of Dale Gribbles, while the enforcement efforts of the US authorities have caused the membership of a number of far more dangerous groups to take up extended residence outside the US.

But don't let a little reality get in the way of your scaremongering rants.


ETA:

"The modern Klan is small, chronically fragmented, and prone to internal conflict over matters of policy and personal rivalry. Groups differ in their readiness to embrace violence. "
http://www.answers.com/topic/ku-klux-klan

"Around the country, white supremacist groups were increasingly Nazified. Fewer groups clung to specifically “American” forms of hate like the Ku Klux Klan and the anti-Semitic Christian Identity religion. Racist forms of pre-Christian religions like Asatrú and Odinism made major inroads among the young, while the “hatecore” music scene continued to swell within the same demographic. "
http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_hate.jsp?id=120

 

[LostAngeles]

OK, letting the skeptical part of the brain take over for a bit so I can post something more substantial than, "Erf..."

-Are you basing this on the information from the program alone or are there other resources and this was just the trigger?

I know, especially in the United States, that that's mostly a rhetorical question. Learning about the KKK, even briefly, is part of the history text books. I'm just trying to come up with a more vaule response.

Because I think Upchurch's touched on something here.

I mean, do we curtail our liberties so these guys can't do what they're doing? Is that even remotely a consideration? Can they hate us because of our's and their freedom?

 

[Tmy]

Hey, if we can float amendments to ban flag buring, how about amendments to ban racial slurs!

You know whats funny about the klan. For years they were tolorated if not empowerd by local govts. Much like terror groups around the world.

 

[Manny]

It's actually very odd, now that you mention it. Not only do foreign terrorist groups like al Qaeda hate America, domestic terrorists hate America too!

I've been wracking my brain and checking out the FBI site on domestic terrorism, but I can't think of a single domestic terrorist group which has significant international ambitions. There are groups which support international terrorism outside the United States, such as various alleged Islamic "charities", without directly engaging in terrorism themselves; the government has indeed taken very aggressive steps to find and eradicate those groups. The United States has extensive laws and law enforcement infrastructure to monitor and, where appropriate, prevent financial transactions between US terror supporters and foreign terrorist groups.

There are some black Muslim separatist groups which claim fealty to al Qaeda, but none of those has executed a significant successful attack in or out of the United States -- they're mostly just talk. The various white separtist groups consider themselves super-patriots -- they want to "cleanse" the United States and couldn't care less what happens in other countries. You're right that some of them have camps that look a lot like al Qaeda camps (though that has declined significantly since Tim McVeigh showed them what getting what they think they wanted actually looked like). But again their aims are entirely domestic. There haven't been plots to attack places which send the US a disproportionate share of immigrants, for example. The environmental terrorist groups also seem to have ambitions entirely within the US.

If one did want to engage directly in international terrorism? We've tightened up our borders immensely since the 80's on the outgoing side. It would be terribly difficult to smuggle a meaningful amount of arms out of the country, for example.

If someone got around that? Yeah, I think we'd have to cooperate. We turned a blind eye to New York-based fundraising for the IRA during the 80's; I'd like to think our relationship with Britain is good enough now that we'd be more eager to shut that down, but it was a pretty good relationship back then too and Mrs. Thatcher didn't really make a big deal out of it so I don't know. I guess it would depend on what the target country or countries wanted us to do. If a situation such as you described were to happen and the targets wanted us to act the US may have to reevaluate some of its limitations on domestic law enfocement and allow something like COINTELPRO to reinstitute.

 

[Upchurch]

Are you basing this on the information from the program alone or are there other resources and this was just the trigger?

I did look up some of it, but mostly the historical aspects of the Klan rather than it's modern activities, which is what interested me at the time.

I'll admit I have a psychological aversion to attempting to look up any information on the modern KKK online. I'm afraid I couldn't stomach what I would probably find.

I mean, do we curtail our liberties so these guys can't do what they're doing? Is that even remotely a consideration? Can they hate us because of our's and their freedom?

I guess that's another way of looking at it. It's more a hypothetical question than anything. I don't honestly believe that KKK members will commit any crimes outside the US, but the possibility is there.

 

[Manny]

Ah, here we go. In 2000, the Cambodian Freedom Fighters, a pan-national group whose leader lives in the United States, carried out a coordinated attack on government buildings in Phnom Penh. The US did not extradite the group's leader as it did not have an extradition treaty with Cambodia.

However, he was arrested here in the United States last month and faces a host of terrorism-related charges which could lead to life imprisonment.

 

[David Carroll]

The KKK and other white supremist groups in this country are more of a dormant threat than an active one at this time but they are being watched very carefully by the FBI, not to mention various NGOs, and that is about all that can be done at this point without treading on our larger rights to free speech and assembly.