The Growing Threat of Terrorism
April 16th, 2008 by Wil Robinson
Major media outlets reported that a man arrested yesterday in the United States possessed a cache of illegal firearms, anti-government propaganda calling for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, and a substantial amount of a deadly biological weapon that was also found in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.
According to the FBI, the man hails from a region in the world known for its support of conservative, fundamental, and sometimes extreme religious views.
Despite holding American citizenship, there is no word yet if the suspect will be transferred to Guantanamo Bay, a military installation that harbors some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists.
FBI investigators have searched additional bases of operation around the U.S. that were owned or rented by the suspect, and found extensive equipment used in the manufacture of deadly biological weapons. There were also signs that other deadly chemical weapons may have been under development.
The suspect confessed to federal officials that he had been working on developing biological weapons “since the 1990s,” and that he also was involved in counterfeiting. This is not the first threat to come from this area of the world; a former member of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted also hails from the biological weapons suspect’s home region.
Federal authorities have also charged the man’s brother with failing to report the threat, suggesting a wider ring of conspirators. Despite not knowing if there is any other members of the suspect’s cell that may be planning to carry out an attack, the Department of Homeland Security has not raised the threat level.
UPDATE: The suspect in the case who was found with biological weapons, illegal firearms, and anti-government propaganda calling for the violent overthrow of the U.S government has been charged in federal court and will not be transferred to Guantanamo Bay.
Additionally, FBI investigators claim the case is “criminal in nature but has no nexus to terrorism.”
One FBI official, who wished to remain anonymous, said the FBI “does not believe the public was ever in any danger, nor do we believe that there was ever any terrorist plot.” The FBI determined there was “no connection to terrorism” within one day of discovering the plot.
How can this be? Have the bleeding-heart Democrats already taken over the White House and initiated their weak-minded, naïve, and deluded policy of appeasement with the terrorists?
How can a man found with biological weapons, anti-U.S. propaganda calling for a violent overthrow of the government, and illegal firearms not be connected to terrorism?
Because his name isn’t “Jafar” or “Abdul” or “durka-durka“ or “Mohammed” or “jihad.”
His name is “Roger Von Bergendorff.” And if that doesn’t sound like a WASP name, I don’t know what does.
Von Bergendorff is not Muslim. He’s not from the Middle East. He’s not brown.
Von Bergendorff is, in all likelihood, Christian (or more likely/specifically, Mormon). He’s from Utah. He’s white.
And therefore, unlike the tens of thousands of other “suspects” that have been rounded up in their own “sovereign” countries and spent time at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, or been “renditioned” to other Middle Eastern dictatorships that are more than willing to do our torturing for us, Von Bergendorff is given the benefit of the doubt.
The FBI said Von Bergendorff claimed making the extremely lethal biological weapon ricin was only an “exotic idea.” The suspect also confessed that “there have been people who have made him mad over the years and he had thoughts about causing them harm to the point of making some plans. However, he maintained that he never acted on those thoughts or plans.”
Well, shucks, mister. Why didn’t you say so? If you say you weren’t going to use the deadly biological weapon against anyone, well, then, we believe you.
How many terrorist suspects are going to try this defense in Guantanamo? I can hear them now:
“We weren’t really going to blow ourselves up in the middle of a café among women and children. It just sounded ‘exotic!’”
Somehow I don’t think it will work.
If the racial and religious profiling of “terrorist suspects” continues, and the words “terrorism” and “Islam” become increasingly intertwined in our national consciousness, we may see a day when the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing is reclassified as merely a “criminal act” instead of the second worst act of violent terrorism against the U.S. in history.
While Von Bergendorff is given a fair trial, a lawyer, habeas corpus, and every other right guaranteed by our Constitution (including the right not to be tortured), those people with the wrong skin color or religion are denied such rights, whether they are American citizens or not. (See Jose Padilla vs. John Walker Lindh.)
Can we really expect the rest of the world to believe this is really a “war on terror” and not a “war on Islam?”
Real and equal justice would go a long way toward winning “hearts and minds.”
Tags: fear, Roger Von Bergendorff, Jose Padilla, united states, brown
I don’t know what the thinking is on Von Bergendorff, and I, too am waiting the outcome. I do not think this is a “war on Islam.” I think it is Islam’s war on infidels.
I believe the OKC bombing has always been classified, wrongly, as a “criminal act,” and the official line is that McVeigh was not aligned with Islam or any terrorism other than “domestic”. There is much that about the OKC bombing that is ignored.
You visited my place yesterday and left a comment about Hamas and CAIR. I’m asking you to come back and read the post that generated the Hillary piece. I think you’ll understand my point, which was: In this case Hamas and CAIR are connected at the heart through Marzook.
The Meat: Jeremiah Wright Publishes CAIR Founder’s Manifesto.
I usually do not leave a link when I comment, but lest you not come back for my answer, I felt it apt that you know that my information holds up.
Thanks for the visit.
Maggie
Maggie’s Notebook
I appreciate your comment and was glad to read your post further. I hope despite our disagreements, you will read my comment here in full, and not dismiss it out of hand.
While I can understand your concern about a relation between Hamas and CAIR (which is dubious, at best), what I cannot understand and which keeps Americans from a real debate on foreign policy is the paranoia and propaganda that influences “facts.”
We can keep going like we are, and wait until a complete genocide has taken place and the Palestinians have been wiped from existence. We can use guns and bombs and hate to build a future free of Palestinians. But the problem is that the paranoid and misinformed will not be happy to end it there. The war will continue and expand, until the Muslim religion ceases to exist.
At which point, then who do the paranoid and xenophobic turn their attention to? Given the biblical prophecy, it’s a good bet many fundamentalists Christians will turn on the Jews, since the Christians need 1/3 of them to convert to Christianity before the rapture/end of times, at which point Jesus will supposedly wipe out the other 2/3.
In the Israeli-Palestinian debate, there are two sets of facts. There are the “facts” that BOTH sides use to justify their actions. BOTH sides mold facts into propaganda and attempt to put the blame on the “other.”
And there are real facts. They are out there, but buried deep in a sea of mainstream media that only cares to publish what it feels coincides with their own world view. This means delving beyond the propaganda perpetrated as “facts” by Palestinian extremists and the propaganda deemed as “fact” by the Israeli/American extremists.
I believe in a future of peace. I cannot have a discussion with someone who has already made up their mind who should and who shouldn’t be killed in the race to the rapture. Closed-mindedness and paranoia are not the solid foundation for a progressive discussion on world politics. Paranoia, fear, and xenophobia are the safety net of the hateful. When hateful acts perpetrated by racist and xenophobic white Americans (McVeigh) cannot be dealt with because the public believes there has to be some Islamic connection, it is evident that substantive debate has ended.
These are NOT the things that the prophet Jesus taught. (additionally, from the prophet Mohammad, but to understand this one needs an open perspective that is untainted by “talking points,” “color-coded threat levels,” and a war for oil and religion disguised as a “war on terror”.) To read and understand these teachings one has to look past the violent fringe minority sect that has captured the West’s attention.
This means looking past the “Islamic extremists” that are the subject of so many Americans’ nightmares, and looking past the “Christian extremists” that make government policy and vote based on hatred of the “other.”
A few months ago, I sat in a cold, concrete room in Kabul among a council of Mullahs who issue Fatwas in Afghanistan. I sat and talked for more than 90 minutes with the Head of the Dar-al-fatwa about many things. We talked of hope, cooperation, God, Mohammad, Jesus, terrorism, and love. This Mufti, who has spent his whole life living in a Kabul warzone and devoted it to following, studying, and interpreting the teachings of the Quran, is a member of the Afghanistan Elimination of Violence Against Women’s council. He risks his life to speak out for women’s rights, and teaches that these rights are guaranteed in Sharia law. He hopes for a day when the West no longer sees every Afghan or every Muslim as a terrorist.
We ended this conversation with a discussion about Abraham, father to Issac and Ishmael. We talked about Abraham being a father to all people of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish faiths.
He took my hand, wished peace upon me, and told me with a smile “we are all children of Abraham.”
He is not an exception; he is the majority. We have to be able to look past the violent fringe that wishes to taint our vision of a peaceful future. We have to look deep into ourselves and our own religion to understand what the meaning of love is.
To do this we have to understand the “other” - not create a false frame of reality around them.
We have to separate “fact” from “fear.”