Will The Real Slanderous Homeland Security Report Please Stand Up?

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sun May 03, 2009 at 15:00

Black Colleges Profiled as Suspected Havens for "Extremists"

[Summary] Don't let the apolitical facades fool you. Virginia's four Black colleges are hotbeds of "militancy and rebellion" and magnets for "a wide variety of terror or extremist groups." So says a government-funded outfit called the Virginia Fusion Center, which also cautions against the national security dangers inherent in diversity. "While the vast majority of these individuals are law-abiding, this ethnic diversity also affords terrorist operatives the opportunity to assimilate easily into society, without arousing suspicion." Safe, secure communities are uniformly white and English-speaking.

There aren't many other places you will hear about this bogus homeland security report--in rather sharp contrast to the accurate report released just over two weeks ago--"Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment" (pdf)--which discussed very real potential threats posed by rightwing extremists, including white supremacists, getting whipped up back into their 1990s/Clinton Era anti-government frenzy. that was when Iraq War vet Timothy McVeigh spearheaded the terrorist bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building, the most devastating single act of terrorism inside the US in decades, right up until 9/11.

That earlier report was savagely attacked by movement conservatives for supposedly "profiling conservatives" as terrorists (Michelle Malkin, Washington Times: "the Obama Homeland Security report is an overarching indictment of conservatives.}) even though the word "conservative" did not appear in the report.  They also attacked it for supposedly citing returning veterans as potential terrorists (like Timothy McVeigh, no?), (Malkin: "the report relies on the work of the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center to stir anxiety over 'disgruntled military veterans'") when the report actually said--directly under the heading "Disgruntled Military Veterans" "DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat."

In short, the DHS "Rightwing Extremism" report was attacked with a typical onslaught of rightwing lies and distortions--and the Clinton Obama Administration ended up apologizing for what they had not actually done.

Here, on the other hand, the same Homeland Security apparatus (though not the federal department directly) has produced a truly baseless report that does rely on group stereotyping, in sharp defiance of the actual entities being discussed, and there's barely a blip on anyone's radar, at least so far.  It couldn't be because the targets here are black, could it?  No, of course not.  Just not possible in today's "post-racial" America.

Yeah.  Right...