AP Investigation finds a growing number of military and veterans are following a path to radicalization, extremism and deadly violence.
  • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    26 days ago

    The country is the US

    MOUNT OLIVE, N.C. (AP) — The U.S. military trained him in explosives and battlefield tactics. Now the Iraq War veteran and enlisted National Guard member was calling for taking up arms against police and government officials in his own country.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    16·
    25 days ago

    Standing in the North Carolina woods, Chris Arthur warned about a coming civil war. Videos he posted publicly on YouTube bore titles such as “The End of America or the Next Revolutionary War.” In his telling, the U.S. was falling into chaos and there would be only one way to survive: kill or be killed.

    People making videos like this should be flagged and investigated automatically.

    After leaving the Guard, he also turned his attention to local politics. Arthur, a former deputy sheriff himself, backed a “constitutional sheriff” candidate who believed sheriffs, not federal or state law enforcement, held ultimate authority in the U.S. He tried to enlist county officials, according to court documents, to aid in creating a militia to guard against the “tyrannical government.”

    Constitutional sheriffs are hardcore far-right threats. See https://sheriffs.substack.com and https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/constitutional-sheriffs.

    He’d called the North Carolina National Guard previously with his concerns, and not seen any action. So Powell told his supervisor at the Utah Army depot about Arthur, and showed some of the videos. Still, there was no response. The North Carolina National Guard and the U.S. Army said they did not have any records of discipline involving Arthur. Heather J. Hagan, an Army spokeswoman, would not comment on the particulars of Arthur’s case but said “we do forward all information to our law enforcement partners when appropriate.”

    Why the fuck are these pleas for intervention being ignored?! Because it’s a white guy.

    Indeed, federal law enforcement agencies have a questionable recent history assessing domestic terrorism threats accurately. The FBI assessment of domestic violent extremists written before the Jan. 6 attacks reported, incorrectly, the participants’ “low willingness to take action in response to a disputed election result” and “those who are interested lack the capability to carry out anything beyond a simple attack.”

    Sorry, did Timothy McVeigh not happen? They put more credence to far-left actors committing acts of violence, according to the article. We’re such a brainwashed rightwing country that the people in control can’t recognize actual threats.