Crises, Hate and Returning Veterans

The Office of Homeland Security (OHS) has been in existence for seven years now, and for seven years it has been warning Americans about terrorists. Islamic terrorists, naturally. And now this: The OHS is now directing the attention of police and sheriff departments toward the “good guys” who are returning home from military service in Iraq. It warns that right-wing extremists will try to recruit these experienced military veterans and indoctrinate them. By OHS estimate, a minimum of one in 100 veterans already belongs to a right-wing extremist organization. Most often mentioned are the Ku-Klux-Klan, Aryan Nations and the National Socialist Movement.

A Secret Service study concludes that the American Nazis will find easy pickings in recruiting returning soldiers for two reasons: First, returning vets have already been dealt a poor hand in the job search game due to the economic crisis. Second, for the first time in U.S. history, an African-American is now President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief over the troops he is sending into an uncertain future in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even as the OHS seeks to downplay its own fears, the memory of Nazi bomber, Tim McVeigh, who killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, has been resurrected. In 1991 he, too, returned home from Iraq and couldn’t find a job.