Home Grown Terror

In an earlier post I expressed my concern about terrorists within the United States- people who, for one reason or another, are willing to harm others to advance their agenda.

MSNBC reports that Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez has described the terror group arrested yesterday for planning to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago among other sites as "home grown" terrorists. Fortunately these individuals, if they are what they are presented to be, were arrested before they were ready to do harm. However, their arrest should be a warning to us all.

We need to examine our nation to try and understand why we have people who are willing to go to such extremes to push their political causes. Is it because they are so marginalized that the philosophy of al-Qaeda sounds reasonable to them? Is it because of their economic circumstances, which cause them to see a threat in any minority group? Is it hateful indoctrination, such as by people associated with the Westboro Baptist Church, that gives them a sense of certitude in their righteousness and leads them to a willingness to cause suffering to others?

My guess is that it is a combination of factors. But, while our attentions are focused on international terrorism and on Iraq, we may be missing a critical opportunity to deal with problems at home- problems of poverty, disenfranchisement, racism, religious hatred, and a maliciousness in political dialogue- that may be presenting a threat to our nation greater than anything ever posed to us by Iraq.

We need to deal with these domestic challenges. The terror cell disrupted by law enforcement yesterday is not likely to be the last. And we may not be so lucky as to catch them next time. We need to go at the root causes of our home grown terror threat. If we do not, we simply do not have enough law enforcement resources to deal with the threat.

GP