Blood on their hands': the intelligence officer whose warning over white supremacy

[Guno צְבִי]

Daryl Johnson’s team faced an official backlash 10 years ago when it issued a briefing on rightwing extremism


Ten years ago, the Department of Homeland Security sent American law enforcement agencies an intelligence briefing warning of a rising threat of domestic rightwing extremism, including white supremacist terrorism.

The economic recession and the election of America’s first black president would create fertile ground for rightwing radicalization, the 2009 report concluded. Military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, in particular, would be attractive targets for recruitment.

Republican politicians and conservative pundits reacted with outrage and demanded a retraction. The report was politically motivated and unfairly demonized conservative views, they argued. “Americans are not the enemy. The terrorists are,” the head of the American Legion, a veterans group, wrote.

Since then, Johnson has watched a rising tide of white nationalist terror attacks around the world. This year, he published a book, Hateland, on American extremism.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/07/white-supremacist-terrorism-intelligence-analyst

 

[Guno צְבִי]

Why do you think the Republican Party doesn’t want to talk about rightwing terrorism and white supremacy?
Partly because they’re the ones who are arming Americans. No matter how many times you can try to blame the person for carrying out the act, they still have access to weapons that are meant for war.

And I also believe, going back to their campaign strategy for the 2010 midterms, there’s blood on their hands. They’re definitely fanning the flame and providing the fuel, and it’s all to win elections.

What was the strategy?
Their fundraising strategy was to generate fear and paranoia about having a black Democrat in the White House. They created all these memes to paint him as a Muslim, not a US citizen. All this crap.

 

[rjhenn]

Why do you think the Republican Party doesn’t want to talk about rightwing terrorism and white supremacy?
Partly because they’re the ones who are arming Americans. No matter how many times you can try to blame the person for carrying out the act, they still have access to weapons that are meant for war.

And I also believe, going back to their campaign strategy for the 2010 midterms, there’s blood on their hands. They’re definitely fanning the flame and providing the fuel, and it’s all to win elections.

What was the strategy?
Their fundraising strategy was to generate fear and paranoia about having a black Democrat in the White House. They created all these memes to paint him as a Muslim, not a US citizen. All this crap.

Good, except for the paranoia about guns. Semiautomatic rifles are not "weapons that are meant for war". There's no military in the world that issues semiautomatic rifles for use in combat.

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