Georgia Arrainment Shows Danger of Far Right Domestic Terrorists

No one can forget the carnage that hit Norway when a far right wacko went on a bombing and shooting spree earlier this year. While those events were thousands of miles away, events in Georgia back in June indicate that similar far right terrorist threats are alive and well in America. Indeed, but for the FBI's success in arresting a group of would be terrorists, who knows what the death toll might have been. The proposed terror attackers (one is pictured at right) have been documented to have been regurgitating the usual extremist bile that passes for reasoned discourse in far right and all too many GOP circles. Atlanta and other major cities were intended targets as were federal officials. It is truly frightening just how deranged many on the far right have become. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution looks at the chilling plot that was fortunately derailed. Here are some highlights:

It was June 9, and Frederick Thomas believed he was meeting with a dealer in black market weapons at a Lavonia restaurant, according to FBI affidavits. . . . . Neither Thomas nor his colleague, 67-year-old Dan "Cobra" Roberts, knew the arms dealer was an undercover informant for the FBI.

A story grew clearer Wednesday through federal affidavits, interviews and court statements accusing Thomas, Roberts and two other men -- Ray H. Adams, 65, and Samuel J. Crump, 68 -- of planning to unleash the toxic agent ricin across Atlanta and other major U.S. cities, bomb federal buildings and take innocent lives. Documents say the men intended to launch their plot within a year.

It was a plan based on a novel by Mike Vanderboegh, a former militia leader and blogger, that detailed killing Justice Department attorneys, Thomas said, according to the FBI affidavits.

FBI documents allege that beginning in March and as recently as last week, the men -- whom federal officials have not identified as part of a larger militia -- met at their homes and North Georgia restaurants. Some had made trips to Atlanta federal buildings to conduct reconnaissance. The affidavits describe Thomas and Roberts as working to obtain explosive devices and silencers, while Adams and Crump seemed largely tasked with developing ricin, a toxin that can be fatal if inhaled or ingested, from easily obtained castor beans.

Documents allege that Crump planned to disperse the ricin in various U.S. cities including Atlanta, Newark, N.J., and Washington. In Atlanta, the documents said, the plan was to unleash the powdery substance on I-285, I-75 and U.S. 41.

These people are scary. What's even more scary is that there are many more of them out there being motivated by the hate speech of the far right (e.g., Rush Limbaugh) and the Christian Right.