America’s 10 Worst Terror Attacks by Far Right Extremists and Christian Fundamentalists

If one only listens to Fox News and various right wing news outlets, one would quickly believe that only Muslims commit terror attacks and atrocities.  However, a post at Civil Commotion sets one on the right path:

There is something here that needs to be faced: Islam today is what Christianity once was — domineering and brutal. The Roman church ruled the West for 1000-years, and gave us the grotesque indecencies of the Inquisition, the witch burnings, and the auto da fe (sometimes claiming the lives of dozens in a single huge fire); it did not, inspired by its own teachings, end violence. It was secularism that tamed Christianity, the [Albert] Mohlers and [former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin] Cochrans of the past, and secularism is more needful than ever as they come to grips with the fact that their backward-looking worldview has lost to the progress of knowledge.

The pious Christian crowd and Fox News followers obviously won't like hearing the truth.  A piece in The Raw Story  reminds us of some of the heinous deeds done by fundamentalist Christians and elements of the far right.  Here are highlights:

From Fox News to the Weekly Standard, neoconservatives have tried to paint terrorism as a largely or exclusively Islamic phenomenon. Their message of Islamophobia has been repeated many times since the George W. Bush era: Islam is inherently violent, Christianity is inherently peaceful, and there is no such thing as a Christian terrorist or a white male terrorist. But the facts don’t bear that out. Far-right white male radicals and extreme Christianists are every bit as capable of acts of terrorism as radical Islamists, and to pretend that such terrorists don’t exist does the public a huge disservice. . . . many terrorist attacks in the United States have been carried out by people who were neither Muslims nor dark-skinned.

In fact, most of the terrorist activity occurring in the United States in recent years has not come from Muslims, but from a combination of radical Christianists, white supremacists and far-right militia groups.

Below are 10 of the worst examples of non-Islamic terrorism that have occurred in the United States in the last 30 years.

1. Wisconsin Sikh Temple massacre, Aug. 5, 2012. The virulent, neocon-fueled Islamophobia that has plagued post-9/11 America has not only posed a threat to Muslims, it has had deadly consequences for people of other faiths, including Sikhs. . . . .  On Aug. 5, 2012, white supremacist Wade Michael Page used a semiautomatic weapon to murder six people during an attack on a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Page’s connection to the white supremacist movement was well-documented . . .

2. The murder of Dr. George Tiller, May 31, 2009. Imagine that a physician had been the victim of an attempted assassination by an Islamic jihadist in 1993, and received numerous death threats from al-Qaeda after that, before being murdered by an al-Qaeda member. Neocons, Fox News and the Christian Right would have had a field day. A physician was the victim of a terrorist killing that day, but neither the terrorist nor the people who inflamed the terrorist were Muslims. Dr. George Tiller, who was shot and killed by anti-abortion terrorist Scott Roeder on May 31, 2009, was a victim of Christian Right terrorism, not al-Qaeda.

3. Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church shooting, July 27, 2008. On July 27, 2008, Christian Right sympathizer Jim David Adkisson walked into the Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee during a children’s play and began shooting people at random. Two were killed, while seven others were injured but survived. Adkisson said he was motivated by a hatred of liberals, Democrats and gays, and he considered neocon Bernard Goldberg’s book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, his political manifesto. 

4. The murder of Dr. John Britton, July 29, 1994. To hear the Christian Right tell it, there is no such thing as Christian terrorism. Tell that to the victims of the Army of God, a loose network of radical Christianists with a long history of terrorist attacks on abortion providers. One Christian Right terrorist with ties to the Army of God was Paul Jennings Hill, who was executed by lethal injection on Sept. 3, 2003 for the murders of abortion doctor John Britton and his bodyguard James Barrett. Hill shot both of them in cold blood and expressed no remorse whatsoever; he insisted he was doing’s God’s work and has been exalted as a martyr by the Army of God.

5. The Centennial Olympic Park bombing, July 27, 1996. Paul Jennings Hill is hardly the only Christian terrorist who has been praised by the Army of God; that organization has also praised Eric Rudolph, who is serving life without parole for a long list of terrorist attacks committed in the name of Christianity. Rudolph is best known for carrying out the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics—a blast that killed spectator Alice Hawthorne and wounded 111 others. 

6. The murder of Barnett Slepian by James Charles Kopp, Oct. 23, 1998. Like Paul Jennings Hill, Eric Rudolph and Scott Roeder, James Charles Kopp is a radical Christian terrorist who has been exalted as a hero by the Army of God. On Oct. 23, 1998 Kopp fired a single shot into the Amherst, NY home of Barnett Slepian (a doctor who performed abortions), mortally wounding him. Slepian died an hour later.

7. Planned Parenthood bombing, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1994. Seldom has the term “Christian terrorist” been used in connection with John C. Salvi on AM talk radio or at Fox News, but it’s a term that easily applies to him. In 1994, the radical anti-abortionist and Army of God member attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts, shooting and killing receptionists Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols and wounding several others.  . . . .  The Army of God has exalted Salvi as a Christian martyr and described Lowney and Nichols not as victims of domestic terrorism, but as infidels who got what they deserved. 

8. Suicide attack on IRS building in Austin, Texas, Feb. 18, 2010. When Joseph Stack flew a plane into the Echelon office complex (where an IRS office was located), Fox News’ coverage of the incident was calm and matter-of-fact. Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa seemed to find the attack amusing and joked that it could have been avoided if the federal government had followed his advice and abolished the IRS. Nonetheless, there were two fatalities: Stack and IRS employee Vernon Hunter.

9. The murder of Alan Berg, June 18, 1984. One of the most absurd claims some Republicans have made about white supremacists is that they are liberals and progressives. That claim is especially ludicrous in light of the terrorist killing of liberal Denver-based talk show host Alan Berg, a critic of white supremacists who was killed with an automatic weapon on June 18, 1984. The killing was linked to members of the Order, a white supremacist group that had marked Berg for death. Order members David Lane (a former Ku Klux Klan member who had also been active in the Aryan Nations) and Bruce Pierce were both convicted in federal court on charges of racketeering, conspiracy and violating Berg’s civil rights and given what amounted to life sentences.

10. Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing, April 19, 1995. Neocons and Republicans grow angry and uncomfortable whenever Timothy McVeigh is cited as an example of a non-Islamic terrorist. Pointing out that a non-Muslim white male carried out an attack as vicious and deadly as the Oklahoma City bombing doesn’t fit into their narrative that only Muslims and people of color are capable of carrying out terrorist attacks. . . . . Prior to the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing McVeigh orchestrated was the most deadly terrorist attack in U.S. history: 168 people were killed and more than 600 were injured.

The foregoing is not intended to diminish the heinous nature of the terror attacks in Paris last week.   But, if one reads the excerpts above, one thing becomes quickly apparent: most of the terror attacks, like in the Paris attacks, were motivated at least in part by fundamentalist religious belief.   Yes, we need to rid the world of Islamic extremism.  We also need to rid the world of fundamentalist Christian extremism as well.

Operation Rescue Reportedly Needs Money, Close to Shutting Down

According to the wingnut news site CNSNews.com Operation Rescue, founded by pro-life extremist Randall Terry, is close to running out of money and shutting down. Could it just perhaps be because would be donors do not want to be associated with an organization whose founder and former leader has never denounced the murder of abortion providers and who has in fact comp licitly condoned the actions of the murders? The most recent example is the murder of Dr. George Tiller and Terry's extremist remarks at the time. While most folks do not know that Terry and Operation Rescue have parted ways some years back. Like it or not, Randall Terry - who is also an extreme homophobe - continues to be the face associated with Operation Rescue. The other irony is, of course, that due to their opposition to contraception, birth control and sex ed education, groups like Operation Rescue actually cause the number of abortions in the USA to fail to fall to rates similar to those in Europe where there are comprehensive sex education and birth control projects. Here are some story highlights:

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Wichita, Kan. (AP) - Operation Rescue, one of the nation's highest-profile groups in the anti-abortion movement, has told its supporters it is facing a "major financial crisis" and is very close to shutting down unless emergency help arrives soon. The group's president, Troy Newman, blamed the economic downturn for its money woes in a desperate plea e-mailed Monday night to donors. But the Wichita-based organization has also been under attack from both fringe anti-abortion militants and abortion rights supporters since the May 31 shooting death of Dr. George Tiller.

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Tiller's killing has also been a public relations nightmare for the group - despite its public condemnation of the slaying - since the name and phone number of the group's senior policy adviser was found in Roeder's car when he was arrested. A television crew zoomed in on the scrawled note inside the car in images that made their way to the Internet.

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The Internal Revenue Service revoked Operation Rescue's tax-exempt status in 2006 for prohibited political activity during the 2004 election. That means donations to the group are no longer deductible on taxes. Newman has said the IRS revocation did not affect donations. Meanwhile, other groups in the abortion fray have not noticed a similar decline in contributions.

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"They have publicly denounced his murder, yet they move their headquarters to Wichita and spend years harassing and trying to put him out of business," Saporta said. "And people involved with Operation Rescue had also been in communication with Scott Roeder so their hands aren't necessarily 100 percent clean in this scenario." Abortion rights supporters contend some of Operation Rescue's activities contribute to the atmosphere that encourage people like Roeder to take the law into their hands.

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Operation Rescue's fundraising letter hinted at a secret project it hoped to launch in the next 30 days that would be a "new phase in the pro-life fight." But while the group's fundraising efforts are often tied to some new anti-abortion activity, its latest letter had an unprecedented tone of desperation.

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Sometimes people and organizations reap what they sow and Operation Rescue has historically taken extreme positions and engaged in over the top actions that have now apparently come back to haunt it. I will not shed a tear if the organization shuts down.

The Increasingly Vile GOP Messengers

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker has a column in the Washington Post that looks at the growing problem for the GOP that those who most loudly shout its message are nutcases who increasingly cause moderates and the non-insane to run for the Democrat Party. Some years back the powers that be in the GOP decided to sell the party's soul to the Christianists in order to win elections. Now, the Christianists more or less control the party and rational thought and moderation are a thing of the past. Oh yes, candidates like Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell try to masquerade as moderates but they are anything but that. Listen to the fanatics in the party and there you will see the true agenda of its candidates. Unless and until the GOP totally disavows these nutcases and ejects them from places where they can influence party platforms, the GOP needs to rejected by voters. Here are highlights from Parker's column:

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Before recent events, I intended to write about the GOP's message problem with the headline: "Shoot the Messenger." Sunday's fatal shooting of abortion doctor George Tiller makes my title inappropriate, but the idea remains relevant. . . . By grotesque coincidence, Tiller's murderer furthers the point.

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It has long been a problem for the GOP that some of the party's cherished positions are embraced most enthusiastically by people whose grip on reality is sometimes . . . tenuous. This is especially true with regard to abortion.

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Rather than persuading people to think differently about abortion, the Terry-Keyes act makes one want to write checks to Planned Parenthood. And smart Catholics, who were perfectly capable of articulating their objections to the president's invitation to America's premier Catholic university, were suddenly stuck in the frame with rabble-rousers who demean the message. Such is the continuing dilemma of the GOP: How do you get out the message when the messengers keep getting in the way?

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[F]ire-breathers on the right don't help, whatever the cause. They may warm the base, but the Republican base is becoming a remote island in mainstream America. Everyone else is paddling away.

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Accurately or not, the right-wing wacko contingent increasingly dominates the public perception of the GOP. And, fairly or not, that perception makes it easier for characters such as Scott Roeder, the suspected shooter, to become associated with the party.

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Some Internet commentary even refers to Roeder as a "Christian terrorist." Let's see: Christian, pro-gun, anti-government, pro-life. Sounds like a Republican, right? Oh, and he's suspected of being an assassin. Connect them dots.

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One can convincingly argue that the media have a hand in perpetuating the conservative caricature, but the Republican Party has contributed to the distortion by pandering to its less rational elements. Still fresh in our minds is the last presidential election -- a strange season that might be attributed to GOP desperation if not for a prior history in times of political prosperity.

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Two words: Terri Schiavo. During that 2005 Operation Rescue debacle -- complete with death vigils and lamentations -- Bill Frist, then the Senate majority leader and a practicing physician, lent credibility to the circus performers by diagnosing Schiavo's condition via video and challenging other medical opinion that she was in a persistent vegetative state.

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[U]ntil the Republicans marginalize those who belong in the margins, they won't be attracting many new recruits. And the messengers will continue to obscure the message.

Portraits of Zealots

As more information on Scott Roeder (pictured at left) - the shooter who shot Dr. George Tiller to death Sunday morning - comes comes out, the picture is increasingly one of a religious fanatic of the worse kind. Unfortunately, Roeder is more representative of the Christianist far right than most Americans want to admit. These people are obsessed with unborn fetuses but frankly do not give a damn about living humans as typically evidence by tax cuts that would de-fund children's health care and other programs they deem socialist/communist. I am not a supporter of abortion - but believe it should be legal and combined with nationwide comprehensive sex education and other measures that would significantly reduce abortion as a contraceptive measure - but I oppose the terrorist tactics of the extreme "pro-life" crowd. Belief Net has some information on Roeder that is most telling:

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Anti-abortion and anti-government, Scott Roeder appears to be a bomb with a short fuse. The Wichita Eagle has the best profile up so far:

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The suspect in custody in connection with the slaying of abortion doctor George Tiller was a member of an anti-government group in the 1990s and a staunch opponent of abortion. Johnson County sheriff's officials said Scott P. Roeder, 51, of Merriam, was arrested on I-35 near Gardner about three hours after the shooting. In the rear window of the 1993 blue Ford Taurus that he was driving was a red rose, a symbol often used by abortion opponents.

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Those who know Roeder said he believed that killing abortion doctors was an act of justifiable homicide. "I know that he believed in justifiable homicide," said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City abortion opponent who made headlines in 1995 when she was ordered by a federal judge to stop using a bullhorn within 500 feet of any abortion clinic. "I know he very strongly believed that abortion was murder and that you ought to defend the little ones, both born and unborn."

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Among the publications Roeder subscribed to is Prayer and Action News, which seems to be linked to the radical anti-abortion Army of God. The magazine once printed the AOG Manual, which makes the case for killing abortion providers. Here are highlights from Spiritual Politics which look at the publication's reaction to Tiller's murder:

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At the top of its website is this reaction to the killing of George Tiller: A great day for unborn children scheduled to be murdered by Babykilling Abortionist George Tiller. Now those children lives are spared from the Kansas BabyButcher, George Tiller.George Tiller reaped what he sowed and is now in eternal hell. Psalm 55:15 Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them. Further down, the website lionizes Paul Hill as "American Hero." Hill was executed in Florida in 2003 for the murder of two abortion providers in Pensacola in 1994.

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Then there's Lou Engle who organized "The Call," the anti-gay, anti-gay marriage rally in San Diego last year who has been ecouraging "Christian martyrs" in opposition of abortion:

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Rick Warren and Randall Terry are not the only high-profile leaders on the religious right who employ inflammatory antiabortion rhetoric. Footage from TheCall San Diego, taken November 1, 2008 by video documentarist Michael W. Wilson [author of Silhouette City] shows Engle and his disciples exhorting a Qualcomm stadium crowd to acts of Christian martyrdom against legalized abortion: rhetoric that serve as thinly veiled exhortation towards violent acts of terrorism against abortion clinics and abortion providers.

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The simple truth is that these Christian extremists are a clear and presnt danger to medical providers and abortion counseling services and, on a larger front, to the religious freedom of other Americans.

Hate Speech Kills

UPDATED: The Washington Post is reporting that Scott Roeder, identified Sunday as the possible shooter in the murder of George Tiller, has a history of supporting lethal violence to stop abortions. Here are a few highlights from the Post story:

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Scott Roeder, identified Sunday as a possible suspect in the slaying of prominent Kansas late-term abortion provider George R. Tiller, is known in anti-abortion circles as a man who believes that killing an abortion doctor is justifiable.

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Two abortion opponents who had previously encountered Roeder, 51, said the Merriam, Kan., resident expressed support for their view that lethal force is not a criminal offense if it protects the lives of unborn children.

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This morning George Tiller, the operator of a clinic in Wichita, Kansas, was shot to death in the lobby of Reformation Lutheran Church (pictured at left and a member parish of the ELCA) this morning where he was serving as an usher handing out bulletins. The killer has been captured and it will be interesting to see whether the shooter is a Christianist extremist as many suspect. As Andrew Sullivan has noted, Tiller has been targeted by Christian extremists before and also targeted by a segment on Bill O'Reilly's the O'Reilly Factor. Andrew rightly notes that Tiller's murder would appear to be "the culmination of a campaign of domestic terrorism against him.

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Hate speech DOES have real consequences and the sooner the media stops refusing to expose just how much like the Taliban the Christianist extremists are in this country, the sooner violence against gays, the murder of abortion providers, etc., will cease. There is NOTHING Christian about these people except their use of the name Christian. While President Obama has decried the killing, when is he going to stop cuddling up to Christianist hate merchants and start condemning their religious poison? Here are highlights from the Wichita Eagle:

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A suspect in this morning's fatal shooting of abortion doctor George Tiller is in custody and on his way back to Wichita, Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said at a news conference late this afternoon. The 51-year-old male suspect was arrested without incident on Interstate 35 in Johnson County about three hours after the shooting, Stolz said.

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Tiller, 67, was shot once just after 10 a.m. in the lobby of Reformation Lutheran Church at 7601 E. 13th St., where he was a member of the congregation. Stolz said Tiller was shot in the foyer of the church. There were three or four eyewitnesses, he said. Six to 12 people were in the foyer at the time of the shooting.

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Tiller has long been a focal point of protest by abortion opponents because his clinic, Women's Health Care Services at 5107 E. Kellogg, is one of the few in the country where late-term abortions are performed.

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A portion of the statement released by nutcase Randall Terry of Operation Rescue reads as follows:

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George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions.

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For a sampling of more of the delusional reactions of the unhinged far right, check Andrew's blog here. This people are down right scary. I'd also note that many of them view the ELCA as not being Christian because it doesn't vehemently condemn gays and adopt the lunatic fringe views of the extreme evangelicals.