Hitch nails it (as usual) in this Slate piece:
I suppose that it is possible that he has never before come across “International ANSWER,” the group run by the “Worker’s World” party and fronted by Ramsey Clark, which openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and the “resistance” in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Clark himself finding extra time to volunteer as attorney for the génocidaires in Rwanda. Quite a “wide range of progressive political objectives” indeed, if that’s the sort of thing you like.
It’s only a matter of time before these nutjobs stop marching in the streets and spray-painting “Anarchy” A’s everywhere, and start killing people in terror attacks here.
The more shrill they get, the more ignored they become, making them up the level of their rhetoric and becoming more shrill still. Eventually they will reach a point of burn-out, where the majority will walk away and settle down to jobs as baristas at coffeeshops – or go back to grad school where they can replace the geriatric hippies that brainwashed them.
However a small minority will do what the Manson Family and the SLA did in the USA, the Red Brigade did in Italy and the Bahder-Meinhoff Gang did in Germany in the 1970s: they will turn to violence. Today’s nihilists are tomorrow’s terrorists; they just don’t realize it yet. They think they are on a new path, ignoring the footsteps (and bloodstains) of those who passed before them.
Like the Muslims who suffer the most at the hands of terrorists who claim to be fighting on their behalf, these terror cells will target the very people they claim to represent: the anti-war “majority” of Americans. They will “shit where they live” in the same way Al-Qaeda does today in Saudi Arabia and Iraq – so expect the attacks to occur on the West Coast – most likely in LA, San Francisco and Portland – three of the most anti-war cities in the USA. The attacks will be small scale – an attack on a mall, bank or government facility – but they will shock the Media that has supported their propaganda efforts and therefore, make a huge splash.
But when will they happen? Going out on a limb I would guess 2007 or ’08 - because by that time their extreme agenda will have run its course and leave them hungering for the limelight. The political cycle will be in full swing, and the public will be paying more attention than usual to politics.
It will be interesting to see if this prediction pans out. I pray it does not, but given history of the Manson clan, Red Brigade, Red Army in Japan, and Bahder-Meinoff I believe that it is only a matter of time that these nihilists create the anarchy they crave.
