Red-baiting white paper

Now CIA Director George Tenet and Defense Intelligence Agency top gun Lowell Jacoby are all over the news telling us that, beyond Al Qaeda, we face an even greater threat from as-yet-unknown terrorists groups who are being spurred on in the wake of rising anti-Americanism.

Gee, I wonder why we're ticking so many people off? In any event, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the dots and predict that because there's a rising tide of rage against the United States, there is likely more fuel being thrown on the fire of terrorism.

But what isn't being asked often enough in the media is what the current administration was focusing on prior to 9/11 in terms of perceived terrorist threats. A little-notice report prepared for the Department of Energy (DOE) some five months prior to 9/11 offers some clues.

It seems, according to that report, that some elements of the Bush administration were concerned about a potential rise in "left wing" terrorism. The title of the report says it all: Left-Wing Extremism: The Current Threat. From the report's executive summary:

Left-wing extremism often has developed from working-class movements seeking in theory to eliminate, not preserve, class distinctions. Communism evolved from left-wing extremism. The threat from left-wing extremists did not die with the collapse of the Soviet Union, however. Domestic groups and state-sponsored cells and individuals have continued their espionage activities and the planning of terrorist actions against the U.S. government.

Leftist extremists were responsible for three-fourths of the officially designated acts of terrorism in America in the 1980s. From an international perspective, of the 13,858 people who died between 1988 and 1998 in attacks committed by the 10 most active terrorist groups in the world, 74 percent were killed by leftist organizations.

Although the current domestic terrorist threat within the United States is focused on right-wing extremists and white supremacists, left-wing extremists are alive and well...

Mentioned by name in the report are Latin American groups such as Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC); the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) and the Shining Path (SL) of Peru; and of course Cuba.

Groups opposed to free trade and global capitalism also appear to be on the radar screen, according to the DOE report:

First … anticapitalism is alive and well and … it has an international, loose-knit infrastructure. The various individuals and groups associated with the movement organize and communicate using the Internet. When they take to the streets, most of their actions are limited to protests and trespassing. However, as London learned on June 18, 1999, these protests and demonstrations can quickly transform into a riot. According to Lord Levene, the lord mayor of London, the people arrested there were terrorists -- so-called peaceful protesters who ended up throwing bricks and scaffolding at the police….

So there you have it. Despite all the indicators that pointed to right-wing nuts (Oklahoma City) and religious zealots (the USS Cole) prior to 9/11, the current administration saw fit to sanction a report on the "left wing" terrorist threat.

Given how history played out shortly after this DOE report was released, it makes sense that there might be an incentive on the part of the executive branch to bury this bit of counter-common-sense intelligence analysis -- for now.

But who’s to say this red-baiting document couldn't be dusted off and put to good use down the road, say in a second Bush administration?

The DOE-commissioned report concludes:

Extremism runs in cycles. Leftist extremists are very active for a decade or more, and as they fade, right-wing extremists become active. During the late 1960s to the middle 1980s, leftist extremism was the greatest threat in the United States. From the mid-1980s to the present, the major threat of domestic terrorism has been primarily from right-wing extremists. If the cycle theory is correct, then left-wing terrorism will increase within the next few years.

Leftist extremism presents two threats. The first threat is terrorism. Left-wing terrorists have been responsible for bombings, assassinations, robberies, and planned attacks on infrastructure targets. The second threat is their potential support of espionage conducted against the United States by supporting countries such as Cuba.

While it is important to counter the current domestic threat from right-wing groups, it would be a mistake to ignore the leftist threat. If the threat from left-wing extremism does increase, responding to it early will help to prevent similar problems the United States experienced during the 1970s and 1980s.