



âȘ A new war on terror is brewing. Much like its George W. Bush-era counterpart, this new campaign is the product of an alliance of politicians and government officials as they seek to gain additional federal powers to fight terrorism. Unlike its previous iteration, however, this new war on terror is to be fought domestically…
Its enemy is not the Islamic State Group, al-Qaida or any other foreign threat. Rather, under the direction of the Biden Administration, this new effort seeks to end the supposed threat of homegrown, far-right, white supremacist terrorism.
In order to further this domestic war on terror, politicians and federal bureaucrats have spread false and exaggerated claims regarding the January 6th Capitol incursion, painting it as some sort of armed terrorist insurrection â as if the few hundred unarmed protesters and rioters were part of a premeditated plot to overthrow the entire U.S. government.
While inflated rhetoric is often the norm within the realm of government and politics, this specific instance is a calculated act with a specified goal, according to one national security expert.
In his view, efforts to push this supposed âinsurrectionâ are nothing more than a ploy to âinstitutionalize the use of state power to implement the woke agenda.â
âIt is a classic example of ânever let a crisis go to waste,’â Jim Hanson, president of the Security Studies Group, told The Western Journal.
Before joining the Security Studies Group, Hanson served in the Army Special Forces and conducted counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations as well as diplomatic, intelligence and humanitarian operations in more than a dozen countries.
Consequently, Hanson has seen his fair share of insurgencies â and, in his opinion, the Capitol incursion was anything but.
âIt is a riot. You know, it was definitely a tiny group of people who may have had some insurrectionist ideas, but they didnât even bring guns,â Hanson said. âYou know? I mean, how intense of an insurrection are you having if you didnât even bring anything beyond bear spray?â
Nevertheless, Democrat politicians and left-leaning media outlets (and even a select few Republicans) continue to forward a number of false claims and exaggerations to support this âinsurrectionâ narrative.
Inventing An Insurrection
The first of these claims involves Eric Munchel, a rioter seen carrying zip-ties within the Capitol. A photo of Munchel was used by various outlets including Politico, The Washington Post and The New York Times â as evidence that rioters had entered the Capitol with premeditated plans to kidnap members of Congress.
However, according to the very lawyers who prosecuted Munchelâs case, this was nothing more than a media fabrication. A Jan. 21 court filing submitted by the prosecutors found that Munchel had not brought the zip-ties with him. Rather, he found them within the Capitol and was merely attempting to keep them away from Capitol Police officers.
Another claim â that the so-called insurrectionists entered the Capitol bearing firearms â was found to be similarly dubious.
On March 3, Jill Sandborn, the FBIâs director of counterterrorism, admitted as much during a joint hearing of the Senate Rules and Homeland Security committees. âHow many firearms were confiscated in the Capitol or on the Capitol grounds that day?â Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin asked the FBI official.
âTo my knowledge, we have not recovered any on that day from any of the arrests at the scene at this point,â Sanborn answered.
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Perhaps the most egregious January 6th falsehood was the assertion that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick had been murdered by pro-Trump rioters who beat him to death with a fire extinguisher. This claim was forwarded by multiple New York Times reports and even President Joe Biden himself.
Washingtonâs chief medical examiner found that Sicknick had suffered two strokes on Jan. 7, the day after the riot and had died of natural causes unrelated to the previous dayâs events.
As journalist Glenn Greenwald pointed out in his breakdown of false claims regarding the riot, âWithout Sicknick having his skull bashed in with a fire extinguisher, there were no deaths that day that could be attributed to deliberate violence by pro-Trump protesters.â
In addition to the many false claims, Johnsonâs team made another finding that dismantles the insurrection narrative. According to security footage unveiled by the senator on June 10, as many as 300 unauthorized individuals (roughly 38 percent of the total rioters) were allowed to enter the Capitol through the upper West Terrace doorway while five Capitol Police officers stood by. One officer was even gesturing toward the door as these individuals walked past him.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that violent insurrections would not begin with police officers peacefully ushering the so-called insurrectionists inside.
In spite of all this, the Biden administration has used its influence to âcreate the appearance of a conspiracy to commit an insurrection,â according to a June 5 report in Human Events by Hanson. Titled âAn Invented Insurrection,â it details an indictment filed by the Biden Administration on May 30.
The federal indictment claimed that members of the Oath Keepers â a group of âcurrent and formerly serving military, police, and first responders, who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to âdefend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,’â according to their website â had conspired to commit illegal acts on January 6th.
As Hanson points out in his piece, however, the indictment proves the opposite. Evidence provided in the filing shows that the only action these Oath Keepers had âconspiredâ to take was to âpetition the government for redress of grievances where citizens who believed an investigation into the election was needed gathered to say so.â So then, why spread so many false claims?
In Hansonâs view, the answer is simple: Claiming that an âarmed insurrectionâ led by âdomestic extremistsâ is looming empowers the state with seemingly unlimited authority.
Infringing The Rights Of Rioters & Protesters
Already, it appears that this false âinsurrectionâ narrative is giving federal agencies authority that would otherwise be seen as an infringement of constitutional rights.
âThey have arrested pretty much anybody who took a selfie in the Capitol for federal crimes. Theyâre overcharging everything. Theyâre keeping people in solitary confinement, no bail, and basically abusing state power in a very scary way,â said Hanson.
The federal crackdown on those present on January 6th has indeed been extensive. As of March 13, 312 people had been charged in relation to the incursion, The Washington Post reported.
In many cases, it appears that those arrested for being present at the Capitol had little or nothing to do with the violence.
One couple present at the rally preceding the incursion â who never entered the Capitol, had their house tossed, their electronic devices seized and even a pocket Constitution taken from them by FBI agents.
Additionally, according to a report from Politico, one defendant housed in the D.C. jail was allegedly beaten by guards. The report also found that those being held in connection with the incursion âhave been placed in restrictive housingâ and have been subjected to â23-hour-a-day isolation.â
Many such defendants are being held indefinitely.
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn L. Rakoczy, the sheer number of cases requires âpostponementâ and âmoving too fast will make prosecution âimpossible, or result in a miscarriage of justice,’â The Post reported.
In the same story, the outlet admits that prolonged imprisonment is âthreatening defendantsâ constitutional rights to a speedy trial.â
These abuses may very well extend far beyond the events of January 6th and those involved, Hanson warns.
Turning January 6th Into The New 9/11
During the Bush Administration, the original war on terror saw the state gain unprecedented new powers.
This was thanks largely to the 9/11 Commission, an independent committee created to recommend actions the government could take to avoid terrorist attacks. Congress also passed the Patriot Act, which granted the National Security Agency the ability to spy on American citizens.
Many critics have since argued that these powers seriously violate Americansâ rights to privacy. Those pushing the new domestic war on terror are taking their cues from the 9/11 Commission.
Evan Hill, a reporter for The New York Times, confirmed as much shortly following January 6th when he tweeted that a âformer intelligence official on PBS NewsHourâ was saying U.S. officials âshould think about a â9/11 Commissionâ for domestic extremism.â
Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, formerly the head of Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq as well as the commander of all U.S. and allied troops fighting in Afghanistan, voiced similar sentiments in comparing the two wars on terror.
âI did see a similar dynamic in the evolution of al-Qaida in Iraq, where a whole generation of angry Arab youth with very poor prospects followed a powerful leader who promised to take them back in time to a better place, and he led them to embrace an ideology that justified their violence. This is now happening in America,â McChrystal said, according to Yahoo News.
Furthermore, Democrats in Congress â led by House Speaker Nanci Pelosi â are creating their own January 6th Commission to investigate the Capitol incursion.
Unlike its 9/11 counterpart, however, the January 6th Commission will not be independent. Instead, Democrats will be controlling the selection of members.
In the stated view of Democrats, January 6th was not an isolated event. Instead, it was exemplary of a larger problem the U.S. faces: right-wing, white supremacist terrorism.
All Conservatives Are Labeled As âWhite Supremacistsâ
âThey are going to use the idea that âwhite supremacyâ â which is their social engineering, you know, thatâs their woke bugaboo â they are going to use that now as a terror threat,â Hanson told The Western Journal.
âAnd, consequently, theyâre going to use that to push farther into the more moderate, you know, parts of conservatism.â Genuine acts of white supremacist extremism have become increasingly rare in the United States.
In fact, the FBIâs most recent hate crime numbers show that white people are underrepresented among hate crime offenders. While whites make up roughly 76 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Census, they make up only 52.5 percent of hate crime offenders, according to the FBI report.
However, with the rise of âcritical race theoryâ and other social justice philosophies, the term âwhite supremacyâ continues to become more vaguely defined. Those on the political left are not alone in pushing this new meaning of âwhite supremacy,â however. These increasingly vague definitions also have been adopted by high-ranking military officials.
In July 2020, a Fox News report found that an Army base in Alabama had disseminated handouts to military personnel that claimed the following were all forms of âcovert white supremacy:”
- Saying âAll Lives Matterâ or âMake America Great Again.â
- Colorblindness.
- Denial of white privilege.
- Anti-immigration policies.
- American exceptionalism.
- Meritocracy.
- Celebration of Columbus Day.
- Claiming reverse racism.
- English-only initiatives.
In more recent news, on June 23, the highest-ranking general in the U.S. military admitted to supporting the study of critical race theory â the very philosophy responsible for broadening and obfuscating the definition of âwhite supremacy.â
âI want to understand white rage, and Iâm white. And I want to understand it,â Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, said while testifying before the House Armed Services Committee.
He went on to say that critical race theory âmatters to our military and the discipline and cohesion of this military.â
During an appearance on CNN, retired Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling defended Milley, saying, âHeâs faced with extremism in the ranks. Heâs faced with an enemy that is based on white rage.â
âHeâs trying to get to know the enemy,â Hertling said. These officials are taking their cues from Bidenâs âwoke agenda,â Hanson explained.
âThey literally talk about how they will stop domestic terrorism by stopping racism and stopping inequity and stopping all of these other buzzwords that come from the woke agenda,â he said.
âThey think those are essentially the root causes of domestic terrorism, and so theyâre going to conduct a combined social engineering and thought police implementation thatâs going to give them power against all these things.
âAnd itâs quite possibly the most grotesque abuse of state power Iâve ever seen.â
The Domestic War On Terror
The government already has announced several plans for confronting the supposed forces of white supremacy and right-wing insurrection.
âTerrorism is the threat that gives them, you know, the ability to go beyond, to go, actually, counter-constitutionally and start freezing free speech and start freezing freedom of association and other things,â Hanson explained.
Indeed, the label of âterrorismâ gives government officials more authority. The Daily Beast quoted one âsenior Justice Department officialâ as saying the legal definition of domestic terrorism serves to âexpand a lot of authorities we can use,â possibly including nationwide search warrants, expanded law-enforcement access to education and tax records and harsher sentencing.
On Feb. 26, Bidenâs deputy attorney general, John Carlin â citing the events of January 6th â promised an âenhanced responseâ to domestic terror groups.
Americans were given a glimpse into that response in a June 15 âNational Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorismâ report released by the Biden Administration that detailed plans to confront âracially or ethnically motivated violent extremists who promote superiority of the white raceâ (a strict definition that excludes antifa militants and Black Lives Matter-inspired racial justice rioters).
The âNational Strategyâ goes on to say that âthe U.S. Governmentâ will âaddress online terrorist recruitment and mobilization to violence by domestic terrorists through increased information sharing with the technology sector.â
In other words, the government will enlist the aid of Big Tech companies â companies well-known for labeling mainstream conservative opinions as extreme forms of âhate speechâ â to help identify right-wing extremists.
âIn the guise of protecting us against domestic terrorism, theyâre going to work to counter mis- and disinformation with the social media companies,â Hanson said.
âNo, you know? Thatâs literally, right there, crossing that First Amendment line. Theyâre just trying to outsource it,â he said.
The End Game
No one person has covered this new âdomestic war on terrorâ more extensively than Greenwald. The award-winning journalist, lawyer and author made his bones confronting and exposing what he viewed as attacks on civil liberties propagated by the federal government during the Bush and Obama Administrations.
In his opinion, the aim of this new war on terror is to shut down the speech of everyday Americans by loosely applying labels such as âextremistâ and âwhite supremacist.â
âThey never say, almost certainly because â just as was true of the first set of new War on Terror laws â their real aim is to criminalize that which should not be criminalized: speech, association, protests, opposition to the new ruling coalition,â Greenwald wrote in January.
âThe answer to this question â what needs to be criminalized that is not already a crime? â scarcely seems to matter. Media and political elites have placed as many Americans as they can â and it is a lot â into full-blown fear and panic mode, and when that happens, people are willing to acquiesce to anything claimed necessary to stop that threat, as the first War on Terror, still going strong twenty years later, decisively proved.â
In summary, politicians, military personnel and other government officials are creating an antiterrorism campaign aimed at targeting white supremacist extremists. It began with the Capitol incursion but aspires to extend much further.
While the prevalence of white supremacist groups wanes, the definition of âwhite supremacyâ continues to broaden, with an increasing number of mainstream conservative and even classically liberal ideas becoming identified as âextremist.â
If Hanson and Greenwald are to be believed, conservatives need to prepare themselves. Otherwise, civil rights, civil liberties and other American freedoms may soon become a distant memory. âȘ

















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