{"id":10885,"date":"2007-05-23T10:30:23","date_gmt":"2007-05-23T14:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10885.html"},"modified":"2007-05-23T10:30:23","modified_gmt":"2007-05-23T14:30:23","slug":"bomb-plot-thwarted-at-falwells-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bomb-plot-thwarted-at-falwells-funeral\/","title":{"rendered":"Bomb plot thwarted at Falwell’s funeral"},"content":{"rendered":"

At first blush, this<\/a> almost seems comical, but it’s actually quite scary. Law enforcement officials yesterday arrested a Liberty University student for having several homemade bombs in his car — which he planned to use at Jerry Falwell’s funeral.<\/p>\n

The student, 19-year-old Mark D. Uhl of Amissville, Va., reportedly told authorities that he was making the bombs to stop protesters from disrupting the funeral service. The devices were made of a combination of gasoline and detergent, a law enforcement official told ABC News’ Pierre Thomas. They were “slow burn,” according to the official, and would not have been very destructive. <\/p>\n

“There were indications that there were others involved in the manufacturing of these devices and we are still investigating these individuals with the assistance of ATF [Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms], Virginia State Police and FBI. At this time it is not believed that these devices were going to be used to interrupt the funeral services at Liberty University,” the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office said in a release. <\/p>\n

Three other suspects are being sought, one of whom is a soldier from Fort Benning, Ga., and another is a high school student. No information was available on the third suspect.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Where to begin. There’s obviously the hard-to-fathom question as to why anyone would think detonating bombs might “stop protesters from disrupting the funeral service.” I’m no expert, but I think bombs are pretty disruptive in their own right.<\/p>\n

I’m also can’t help but consider the political dynamic. When Americans were first hearing about the Virginia Tech massacre, some conservatives wasted no time in speculating about whether the gunman was a Muslim, whether he had any connections to the Middle East, whether al Qaeda might have been involved in coordination, etc. In the aftermath, we heard quite a bit about the inherent dangers of immigration.<\/p>\n

And yet, here we are, a month later. A Virginian had five bombs in his car that he planned to use — and he was a white Christian American who studied at Falwell’s college. Will the right recommend profiling others like him? Indeed, as Tim F. noted<\/a>, “Ten bucks to the first reader who finds a major media outlet referring to this kid as a ‘terrorist.’ He had real bombs, right? That makes him farther along than the last several terror busts combined. The New Jersey paintball gang couldn’t even burn a DVD. Twenty to anyone who points out a rightwing blogger arguing that since detergent is a chemical, the kid technically<\/i> made a chemical weapon.”<\/p>\n

There’s also the broader trend to consider here.
\n
\nDavid Neiwert noted<\/a>, “Here’s a reality check: Terrorism comes in all shapes, ideologies, and colors. In this country, in fact, as we’ve remarked often, you’re far more likely to be harmed in an attack by a right-wing domestic terrorist than anyone from Al Qaeda.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, Rick Perlstein added<\/a>, “Stop pretending Islamicists — or environmentalists or animal rights activists (which are, ridiculously, federal law enforcement and non-governmental terrorism-watchers’ next most obsessive concern) — are the only imminent terrorist threats to our nation.”<\/p>\n

* Late in April, 150 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers carried out simultaneous raids in four Alabama counties in a sweep that yielded 130 grenades, a rocket launcher, and 2,500 rounds of ammunition.. In the town of Trussville, it took a U-haul truck to cart away all the materiel. At the Collinsville camper belonging to militia “major” Taymond Dillard, agents first had to defuse trip-wires rigged to explode hand grenades to kill intruders.<\/p>\n

* Right-wing vigilantes arrested in a scuffle at one of the May 1 immigration marches, in Washington D.C., was found to have a stash of automatic weapons and explosives in his home.<\/p>\n

* Now this, the violence allegedly thwarted at Falwell’s funeral. One of the suspects is a soldier at Fort Benning – yes, he traveled all the way from Georgia with his munitions. Another was a high school student.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m also reminded of last month’s reports<\/a> about planned terrorist attacks on abortion clinics.<\/p>\n

I hope it’s obvious that I’m not suggesting that all, or even most, white Christian conservative males are as dangerous as the Oklahoma City terrorists. I am, however, suggesting that if we’re looking for trends and correlations between political ideology, ethnicity, hate, and propensity for violence, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if there’s a domestic trend.<\/p>\n

For my friends on the right, consider a question: if I told you that Virginia law enforcement had apprehended a young religious man who was caught with five bombs in his car — bombs which he intended to use — wouldn’t your very first question be about his faith tradition and nationality? Wouldn’t you necessarily label him a terrorist?<\/p>\n

Post Script<\/i>: The ABC report didn’t go into detail, but the only protestors I’m aware of at Falwell’s funeral were the Phelps family, who believed Falwell wasn’t hateful enough. In other words, the bombs were going to be used by a far-right religious activist to target further-right religious activists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At first blush, this almost seems comical, but it’s actually quite scary. Law enforcement officials yesterday arrested a Liberty University student for having several homemade bombs in his car — which he planned to use at Jerry Falwell’s funeral. The student, 19-year-old Mark D. Uhl of Amissville, Va., reportedly told authorities that he was making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}