Groups the Ku Klux Klan

¶ … groups the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), the Black Liberation Army (BLA), Army of God (AOG), and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and establish that these groups are, in fact, terror organizations. The KKK and BLA organizations can be described as "hate" groups, because their messages include hatred and violence.

The AOG and ELF do not preach hate in the same manner as the KKK and BLA, but also qualify as terrorist organizations because of their chosen strategies for the pursuit of their missions and goals. The primary difference between them is that the AOG and ELF front organizations are terrorists only in their chosen strategies and tactics to achieve underlying goal that are legal in and of themselves whereas the KKK and BLA are dedicated to specific goals that are illegal and violent from the outset.

The Ku Klux Klan and the Black Liberation Army:

The Ku Klux Klan and the Black Liberation Army (BLA) seem diametrically opposed. One seeks the equality of Black Americans through Marxism and revolt, while the other maintains white supremacy. Both use violent means to get results, which makes them terror organizations. Both of these groups are domestic terror organizations because they advocate hatred and violence against certain groups, based on their race, their religion, or their gender. They advocate domestic terror against their enemies, recruit new members to swell their ranks, and support violence as the underlying means to bring their message to the people.

The American heritage dictionary defines terrorism as "Acts of violence committed by groups that view themselves as victimized by some notable historical wrong" (Editors, 2005). Both of these groups advocate violence as part of their doctrine, and they both advocate it because of perceived "wrongs" in society or against them. The Ku Klux Klan believes white Christians are a superior race and no other races should survive, while the Black Liberation Army believed that blacks in America had been wronged and that blacks should rise up violently against whites as a form of social justice.

The Ku Klux Klan formed in 1865, and spread across the South in the late 1860s.

It calls itself a "Christian" organization, but its main beliefs include white supremacy, and the group has long been an enemy of blacks, Jews, and gay individuals. Membership is secret, and the Klan still exists throughout the American South and around the world.

One writer says of the Klan's origins, "To perhaps a majority of southerners, the Negro and white out of their places and - worse yet - reversed, was social disorder and lawlessness" (Rapoport, 2006, p. 59).

Meanwhile, in the same vein, the Black Liberation Army clearly stated its goals and objectives in their document explaining their mission. Members of the BLA wrote, "We have chosen to build the armed front, the urban guerilla front, not as an alternative to organizing masses of Black people, but because the liberation movement as a whole must prepare armed formations at each stage of its struggle" (Editors, 1976, p. 3). The BLA is most known for its attacks on police officers, both in New York and San Francisco, where members of the BLA shot and killed or wounded several police officers. Three members were recently arrested in San Francisco, and charged with the murder and attempted murder of police officers in 1971. The group "carried out a 'terror and chaos' campaign aimed at 'assassinating law enforcement officers' that began in 1968 and ended in 1973, Deputy Police Chief Morris Tabak said" (Van Derbeken, and Lagos, 2007). The BLA is no longer active, and many of its members are dead or in prison for crimes they committed while members.

It is important to note that both organizations targeted more than their stated "enemies" during their reigns of terror. For example, another author notes that the Klan targeted government officials they thought were their enemies. She writes, "If government elites were considered unresponsive to the needs and fears of the community, the Klan targeted politicians, either by trying to vote them out of office, or by running a slate of Klan friendly candidates, or both" (Erickson, 2005). Likewise, the BLA also targeted police officers, but took part in several armored-car robberies solely to finance their operations. Therefore, both organizations engaged in other activities that were aligned with but not completely defined by their terrorist goals and objectives.

Today, groups like these recruit their members online, spreading their messages of hatred and prejudice around the world. One author notes, "According to the Anti-

Defamation League (2001), hate groups have successfully used the Internet to organize hate rock concerts and to bring militia members together in real time for 'Patriot confrontations' with government officials or banks foreclosing on property" (Bostdorff, 2004). Their web sites call out for revolution and revolt against blacks, Jews, non-

Christians, and gays, and they incite people to violence as they attempt to gain members.

Groups like these are just as frightening as any other terrorist organization operating around the world, and yet, they are not controlled or shut down by the government, something that Americans could question.

Another writer notes, "During the U.S. civil rights movement's use of nonviolent action in the 1950s and 1960s, violence by the Ku Klux Klan and police in southern U.S. cities was highly counterproductive, putting pressure on the federal government to intervene" (Martin, 2004, p. 37). The government has intervened at times, and Ku Klux Klan members have been tried for many crimes, but the group still exists, and that says something about the longevity of terrorism and its practitioners.

Therefore, both of these groups definitely qualify as terrorist organizations. They tout violence as a way to solve problems, and members of both organizations have murdered people in the past. One no longer exists, but the other does, and they are no better than the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

They are a violent, hate-filled organization that believes violence is the only way to "rid" the world of their enemies, and they should be hunted down and removed just as the U.S. is trying to hunt down Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. Members of the KKK are ruthless in their hatred of others, and they are just as frightening and dangerous as any other terrorist organization, which is why they should be stopped and banned once and for all.

The Army of God and Earth Liberation Front:

The Army of God (AOG) is a radical anti-abortion group that uses violence and advocates murder to stop abortion. Since the early 1980s, they have published and disseminated informational manuals to promote and teach techniques like arson and the bombing of abortion clinics and the abduction and mutilation of physicians who perform legal abortion services by cutting off their hands to prevent their future involvement in any additional surgical abortions (NAF, 2009).

The group actively supports individuals who participate in violent attacks on medical facilities, such as the 1993 attack by Presbyterian minister Paul Hill who killed two employees at a Florida abortion clinic, James Kopp who murdered a physician in New York, and Eric Rudolf who is suspected of several Atlanta bombings including the 1996 Olympic Park bombing. In principle, the group justifies its violent activities by the rational that abortion is nothing more than legalized murder and that their efforts are directed against those who commit murder against innocent (unborn) children under the authority of unjust law.

Since (in their view) God's law supersedes any man-made law that sanctions murder in the form of abortion, they believe that their actions are justified by higher authority than fallible man-made laws. According to their beliefs, future generations will applaud their efforts much the same as contemporary society regards the unlawful actions of northerners who established the underground railroad throughout the American South prior to the emancipation of American slaves in 1865 and the Christians who risked life and limb during World War II in Europe by sheltering Jews from Nazi extermination squads (Horsley, 2009).

In recent years, factions of the AOG have expanded their campaigns to include anti-gay activism including the verbal harassment and physical attacks of gay individuals.

Just as their perceived justification for attacks on abortion clinics is predicated on the notion that the organization is following God's law in opposition to the flawed laws of man-made institutions, their justification for attacking gays and gay rights organizations is the same: the Bible prohibits homosexuality and the AOG is following God's laws against homosexuality (NAF, 2009).

Clearly, the AOG is a domestic terrorist organization, regardless of their objectives, simply by virtue of their chosen illegal and violent strategies, methods, and tactics. Unlike the KKK and BLA, the underlying goals of the AOG (i.e. To stop abortions in the U.S.) are not inherently illegal and their furtherance would not be illegal or constitute terrorism if they were pursued in a different fashion. However, because of their chosen methods of attempting to implement their policies by force, violence, and murder, they are no more innocent of the characterization of a domestic terrorist organization than any group whose fundamental goals are illegal in and of themselves irrespective of their methods.

The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) is also a domestic terrorist organization for the same reason, although it also maintains affiliations outside the U.S. (ELF, 2009). Like the AOG, the ELF preaches a message that would be perfectly legal if it were pursued strictly by nonviolent, legal means. Specifically, the ELF is dedicated to the economic sabotage of entities that, according to their definitions, are engaged in destroying the planet's environment and its biological organisms. The group was originally founded in England in 1992 and substantially modeled after the structure and organization of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) dedicated to the rescue of animals from laboratories and other institutions they believe are exploiting animals for profit.

More importantly, the ELF mirrors the decentralized, leaderless organizational structure of the ALF as a means of avoiding apprehension and infiltration by law enforcement. Specifically, both organizations consist of loose affiliations of otherwise unconnected independent organizations and even solitary individuals who conduct their own independent operations without direction or direct assistance from the organization (ATI, 2009). Their tactics include arson, and numerous other forms of so-called "ecoterrorism" designed to attack the profitability of any activity the organization considers harmful to the environment or to any of its living creatures inhabiting it.