Worldview Item of the Day
A bomb detonated outside the Armed Forces recruiting station at Times Square today. A few days ago, the ELF set fire to luxury homes in Washington State. These acts join a growing list of recent domestic attacks motivated by politics and ideology.
In essence, they represent a domestic insurgency.
How did it come to be that such an insurgency developed in the United States? Certainly, acts of violence like the ones cited above have been committed for almost as long as this nation has existed. Whenever the views of some political and ideological groups differ from the mainstream, the potential for violence also exists.
The major difference between historical acts of violence and the ones that have begun to happen since the mid 80s lies in their frequency, organization, and the tacit tolerance of the acts by other sympathetic but less violent groups. At the heart of this difference is the insistence on the part of many political and ideological persuasions to humanize insurgents both domestically and internationally.
This trend toward humanizing insurgents has never been stronger than in 2008. Around the world, armed groups representing extreme political and ideological beliefs roam, trying to inflict their beliefs on others by force of terror. In the United States, sympathetic groups try to justify this behavior as a response to or in support of policy.
It is no surprise, then, that domestic groups, ever more organized and learning quickly from the examples set by their international counterparts, see acts of violence as a natural outgrowth of their own radicalism. Violence brings attention to their causes, and they know they can expect support and justification from sympathetic parties, and that support will help to confound the efforts of those trying to stop their activities.
The outcome of this process of development is already known. In 2003, the insurgency–both foreign and indigenous–in Iraq was weak and disorganized, but a combination of local sympathy and a failure to take that insurgency seriously meant that by 2004 the insurgents had become a force to be reckoned with.
The United States is seeing the infancy of a similar trend. Certainly, it will develop uniquely in the US, but the process and the outcome are known. The only way for such insurgencies to be stopped is for every citizen to unite behind the effort to stop the radicalism, sympathy, and ideological extremism.
The consequences of failing to unite will be tragic for all everyone. Domestic insurgency is preventable, it simply requires everyday citizens to care and to act. Without action, the problem only stands to get worse.
Speaking of insurgencies.