A Terrorist By Any Other Name...

Following up on my post from yesterday, it's come to my attention the Department of Homeland Security may also be having a hard time seeing dangerous rightwing extremists as terrorists:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not list right-wing domestic
terrorists and terrorist groups on a document that appears to be an internal
list of threats to the nation's security.

According to the list - part of a draft planning document obtained by
CQ Homeland Security - between now and 2011 DHS expects to contend primarily
with adversaries such as al Qaeda and other foreign entities affiliated with the
Islamic Jihad movement, as well as domestic radical Islamist groups.

It also lists left-wing domestic groups, such as the Animal Liberation
Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), as terrorist threats, but it
does not mention anti-government groups, white supremacists and other radical
right-wing movements, which have staged numerous terrorist attacks that have
killed scores of Americans. Recent attacks on cars, businesses and property in
Virginia, Oregon and California have been attributed to ELF.

DHS did not respond to repeated requests for comment or confirmation of
the document's authenticity.

The conspirators behind the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah
Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and wounded more than
500, were inspired by radical right-wing movements. Eric Rudolph, the man
charged with carrying out the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, which killed
one woman and injured more than 100, was a member of the radical anti-abortion
group Army of God. Initially, Rudolph was the object of a massive North Carolina
manhunt in connection with a Birmingham, Ala., abortion-clinic bombing that
killed a police officer and seriously maimed a nurse.

Another Army of God member, James Kopp, was convicted in the 1998
shooting of a doctor who performed abortions.

Individuals affiliated with such groups have also been involved in many
smaller terrorist acts, including mailing hundreds of bogus anthrax letters to
abortion clinics, and in plots to obtain and use conventional, chemical and
nuclear weapons against civilians. In 2003, for instance, a Texas man
prosecutors say was a white supremacist and anti-government radical pleaded
guilty to charges of possessing a weapon of mass destruction. Authorities had
discovered enough sodium cyanide bombs to kill hundreds of people; machine guns
and several hundred thousand rounds of ammunition; 60 pipe bombs; and
remote-control explosive devices disguised as briefcases in a storage space he
rented. The man, William J. Krar, was sentenced to 11 years in federal
prison.

Thanks to Think Progress for the pointer.