10 years after terror, radical right still a threat

NEW YORK - Although it’s been 10 years since the Oklahoma City bombing, and no similar attacks have occurred on U.S. soil, experts who follow the extreme radical right say they still pose a serious threat of domestic terrorism.

"We are still experiencing a large degree of right-wing activity, including acts of terrorism," said Mark Pitcavage, who tracks the radical right for the Anti-Defamation League. "Overall, anti-government and hate groups remain very active."

But certain groups — such as the militia movement which gained widespread publicity in the mid-1990s — have declined, while others, such as hate groups, seem to be thriving. And while the top three neo-Nazi groups have suffered reversals in recent years, their troubles may actually increase the risk of domestic terrorism, said Mark Potok, who monitors right-wing militants for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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Those who follow the violent right-wing movement in the United States break it down into two broad groups — the anti-government Patriot movement, with which Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was associated, and hate groups such as the neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan, although membership in both groups often overlaps.

"When we say 'Patriot movement,' we mean groups who are desperately anti-government, and very involved in conspiracy theories such as the U.N. is going to take over the U.S.," Potok said. The Patriot movement's fears were heightened when federal agents' attempt to serve arrest and search warrants for illegal weapons at the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas, turned into a shootout, a 51-day standoff, and finally an assault, on April 19, 1993, that ended with 84 men, women and children killed. "That was seen as showing the extent to which the 'fascist federal government' will go to stop guns," said Potok.

Two years later to the day, McVeigh retaliated, blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City and killing 168 people.

Oklahoma City bombing split radical right
The Oklahoma City bombing split the radical right. "Lots of militia groups were put off by the Oklahoma City bombing," said Clint van Zandt, the chief negotiator for the FBI at Waco, who is now a security consultant and a commentator on MSNBC. Immediately after the attack, the FBI used that revulsion to its advantage, meeting with extreme right-wing groups and asking their help to identify what van Zandt calls the "fringe of the fringe."

"We told them 'We need your help in identifying those people and stopping a bloodbath like OK City,'" said van Zandt. "A lot of people in those militia groups responded."

Others did not; instead they developed new conspiracy theories claiming that the government had blown up the Oklahoma City federal building itself. "In some versions McVeigh is a patsy, in others he is innocent," Potok said.

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After the Oklahoma City attack, dozens of other terrorist plots were reported, although very few resulted in anything being blown up. But they caused many Patriot Movement sympathizers to rethink their allegiances. "I think these things frightened people greatly," Potok said. "Many people began to revise their views of what the militias were about. It was obvious that this was a movement producing high levels of violence."

The late 1990s also produced a law enforcement crackdown on the Common Law Court movement, a subset of the militant right that claimed federal and state courts and officials had no jurisdiction over U.S. citizens. At its height, movement supporters filed hundreds of liens against judges, lawyers or public officials they disliked, tying up their property in complicated litigation. But more than 30 states passed or beefed up laws against impersonating public officials or filing unjustified property liens, and hundreds of Common Law Court devotees were convicted and jailed.

"There were a lot of people going to prison, there were a great many terrorist plots coming out, and I think people started to rethink the [conspiracy theories about the] OK City bombing," Potok said.

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