Letters to the Editor
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Apologies for the OT Anthrax post on this thread
I found this at Chip Berlet's PRA:
http://www.publiceye.org/fascist/third_position.html#black-nationalism
Some of you liked PRA's sectors of the American Right.
http://www.publiceye.org/research/chart_of_sectors.html
An excerpt from:
Racial Nationalism, the Third Position, and Ethnoviolence
Including a Discussion of Possible Connections Between Militant Islamic Fundamentalists and the U.S. Extreme Right
There is no hard evidence linking domestic U.S. right-wing groups to either the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01; the mailing of real anthrax letters, or other acts of domestic terrorism. For example, the list of potential suspects in the real anthrax mailing cases is long, and the evidence is missing. Claims about a connection between the Oklahoma City bombing and Middle East terrorists are based on dubious speculation. Some U.S. Extreme Right groups praised the 9/11 attacks along with some militant Islamic fundamentalists. Most Muslims around the world denounced the attacks.
In considering potential suspects for terrorism, however, possible connections between the U.S. extreme right and certain elements of militant Islamic fundamentalism cannot be dismissed. There is also a possible connection between these sectors and some Black Nationalists, the Third Position, and Antisemitism. Racial nationalism is a core building block of fascism. Most Black nationalists do not ascribe to the Third Position tendency. The matter of mental illness also needs to be considered.
If right-wing domestic groups are shown to be involved in the live anthrax letters, it may well be rank opportunism based on one of the first two ideological affinities with the terrorists. The intriguing ideological link of Third Position ethnonationalism deserves special scrutiny because it explains one reason why U.S. and European Extreme Right White supremacist activists have already forged an alliance with Islamic supremacists or Arab supremacists that goes back over two decades.
(...)
U.S. White Supremacist Groups and Militant Islamic Fundamentalists
11.15.01 NPR senior correspondent Howard Berkes:
Some investigators and researchers believe Osama bin Laden might still be getting help from within the United States. They suggest that help might not be coming solely from people with extreme views about Islam. It could also be coming from white supremacy groups." Hear the story using Real Player -- from Thursday's All Things Considered.
According to an article in the Washington Post:
A remote possibility is a collaborative effort. U.S. monitoring groups cite increased contacts between Middle Eastern radicals and some Americans on the far right. Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center protested a planned meeting this year in Beirut between neo-Nazis and members of militant Islamic organizations. The gathering was shifted to Jordan, he said, and later canceled.
"It's a long, long way from rubbing elbows and giving hateful speeches to acting out or inspiring others to act out," Cooper said. "But those connections are there."1
In a Financial Times online article "Far-right has ties with Islamic extreme," by Hugh Williamson and Philipp Jaklin, Berlin, November 8 2001:
Ahmed Huber, a 74-year-old Swiss businessman and former journalist who converted to Islam in the 1960s, is a board member of Nada Management, a financial services and consultancy company which is part of the international Al Taqwa group. The US says this group has long acted as financial advisers to al-Qaeda.
Mr Huber, who is based in Bern, is known in Switzerland and Germany as an Islamic fundamentalist who attempts to forge links to far-right and neo-Nazi movements.
A spokesman for Germany's office for the protection of the constitution, the internal intelligence agency, said on Thursday that Mr Huber "sees himself as a mediator between Islam and right-wing groups". He also belongs to the revisionist movement, which believes the Holocaust did not take place, the spokesman said.
Klaus Beier, spokesman for the NPD, one of Germany's main far-right political parties, said Mr Huber has often addressed NPD events...