OPINION:
For one year, Americans heard the term “insurrectionists” leveled against those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2020, U.S. Capitol breach — although, of the more than 700 arrested, no one has actually been charged with “insurrection.”
This week — apart from those involved in the Capitol riot — the Biden administration made clear it firmly believes there are millions of more “insurrectionists” above the fruited plains, arming themselves from sea to shining sea.
After one year in power from a highly contentious election, the administration is strategically publicizing that it is directing its law enforcement and military apparatus to target potential domestic enemies instead of foreign ones.
Only weeks after Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Oct. 4 memorandum created a nationwide panic about the prosecution of parents challenging school boards, the Justice Department is creating a special prosecutorial unit focused on “domestic terrorism.”
The unit presents logistical problems in that there is no actual “domestic terrorism” statute nor any such legal definition under U.S. Code. But apart from the administration’s continued use of imaginary words and crimes is another problem — the optics of a purportedly “republican form of government” that is more suspicious of its own citizens than foreign enemies abroad.
Asst. Attorney General Matthew Olsen told federal lawmakers about the new unit just days after the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Capitol breach, asserting that since the spring of 2020, the number of FBI investigations into suspected domestic extremists has more than doubled.
Mr. Olsen made it clear the targeted “domestic terrorists” fall on the right side of the political spectrum, testifying that, “We have seen a growing threat from those who are motivated by racial animus, as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies.”
This, like the FBI, refused to answer Tuesday in sworn testimony if plain-clothed officers were on the Capitol grounds the day of the breach and participated in the riot. In September, The New York Times reported that among those who marched into the Capitol on Jan. 6 was an FBI informant.
A similar Capitol breach plot was intercepted in Michigan months before Jan. 6, where supposed right-wing factions planned to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. As the case unfolds, it is now known that at least 12 of the 26 accused were working with the FBI and had a heavy hand conceiving the plot.
It all begs the question: Is the FBI sowing the exact discontent it’s determined to eradicate?
Last year, Secretary of Defense Gen. Lloyd Austin established the Countering Extremist Activity Working Group at the Pentagon, ordering U.S. military forces worldwide to “stand down,” as the military command inundated soldiers with a day-long presentation that focused on the dangers of right-wing extremism. During a videotaped opening speech, Mr. Austin warned viewers in a deep, ominous tone that “this dangerous ideology” was creeping across the military, infiltrating its ranks and installations across the world.
While the Justice Department plans to ramp up its prosecutions of “domestic terrorism” and the military’s command tries to filter out the “extremism” within its ranks, the Pentagon is now planning to conduct statewide training exercises to teach soldiers how to engage in military combat against “freedom fighters.”
This week the U.S. Army issued a press release to notify residents of two dozen North Carolina counties of an “unconventional warfare exercise” from Jan. 22 to Feb. 4 conducted by the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center.
Candidates of the school will reportedly face off against experienced soldiers from units at Fort Bragg as well as trained civilians who “act as realistic opposing forces and guerilla freedom fighters,” the center said.
Former President Barack Obama poignantly remarked in 2019, “Leaders who feed fear typically are also ones who avoid facts.”
We agree with Mr. Obama.
The Biden administration continues to view half its countrymen through a dark, paranoid lens that mislabels them as insurrectionists and terrorists, using their time and resources to hunt down everyday Americans rather than focus on international threats.
The real threat to democracy comes from the corridors of Moscow and Beijing, not the streets of Anytown, U.S.A. Suggesting otherwise is alienating, insulting and frightening to Americans — a fact the “Democratic” Party may learn the hard way this November.
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