John Foley for BuzzFlash: There Must Be Consequences for Those in the Military Who Participated in the January 6 Insurrection
January 12, 2021
The Three Percenters are one of the armed domestic terrorist groups threatening the national security of the United States (Andrew Aliferis)
By John Foley. Lt. Colonel (Retired)
The January 6 attempt at armed insurrection against the US Capitol should come as no surprise. The insurrectionists have spent years agitating for just such an act against our federal government. The various groups, The Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, VDare and others in the Qanon movement, et al erroneously claim to be “constitutional patriots”. In fact, they are nothing more than dangerous anti-government extremists built around a radical anti-federal ideology.
Two main anti-government groups, the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers reared their ugly heads after the first Black man, Barack Obama, was elected president. It is no coincidence both groups bear a decidedly white supremacist, Neo-Confederate slant to their organizations. They serve as the chief opposition to the African-American social justice movement and chief defenders of Confederate monuments. The Proud Boys and VDare focus on Neo-fascism and anti-immigrant bigotry under the flag of white supremacy.
I have long argued that these groups pose a clear and present danger to our nation. They are centered around the heavily armed militia movement and they have dangerously close ties to our military and law enforcement. It is no surprise the one insurrectionist who was shot and killed was a female Air Force veteran. These groups have an inordinate amount of membership by current and former military and law enforcement members. They also have a wide appeal in the military because of the gun culture often associated with the military. Military membership in these groups brings a dangerous level of capability often absent in early-stage insurgent groups that one might find abroad.
So, what should be done about these insurrectionists?
The US government has broad powers and effective tools to deal with the dangerous extremists, both foreign and domestic. In the aftermath of 9-11, these tools were expanded and applied to a foreign extremist threat, now we face a similar domestic extremist threat.
First, America needs to shore up loyalty in our armed forces since both the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, participated in the insurrection and have made serious inroads in subverting our armed forces. This might come as a shock, but the armed forces have openly allowed these extremists to reside in the ranks and on military installations. Since the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers originally focused on 2nd Amendment rights, until now they avoided hate group designation by operating in the gray area of Department of Defense (DOD) guideline on hate group affiliation. Now they have exposed their true intentions as open insurrectionists and enemies of our Nation. The Oath Keepers have literally violated the constitution they swore an oath to protect. The fraud of the “constitutional patriot” movement is now fully exposed.
Several years ago, part of our military, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) created a web bot to crawl through a popular social network that focuses on professional networking. It was looking for DIA employees who may have posted resumes online contain sensitive or classified information. As a result, DIA discovered hundreds of employees’ data and posted resumes which contained sensitive and classified information. We now need a repeat of this tool to do a security sweep of our armed forces on various social media platforms. We need a deep review of our armed forces for sympathies and association with these insurrectionists and associated extremists.
As with the DIA example, once people were identified as violators, they received administrative disciplinary measures. The goal should not necessarily be termination, but administrative action and retraining. Also, as armed forces members are identified with extremist links, they should be given the choice of cooperation or disciplinary measures. The goal should be cooperation since it will go a long way in solving the problem and give excellent insight into these networks. This DIA model is perfectly legal and could easily be implemented to the rest of DOD in search of disloyal insurrectionists’ sympathies on all social media platforms. DOD does not allow foreign militant extremist ideologies and they should not allow domestic militant extremist ideologies either.
Our nation has numerous other tools from our years of counte- terrorism efforts to deal with these extremists. Ironically, for years these insurrectionists supported our surveillance state when it targeted people of color, people of different national origins, or other religions. I have been a critic of our current surveillance state, but this is the system we currently have so why not use it on these extremists too?
For example, these unlawful insurrectionists and members of anti-government extremist groups should be added to the data bases maintained by the Nation Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC). They should be placed on No Fly or Watch lists maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. This is not an overreaction since these domestic extremists are already closely following tactics, techniques, and procedures of those practiced by Islamic extremists, such as vehicle ramming. It is only a matter of time before these domestic extremists graduate to al Qaida style attacks, so prudent measures are warranted.
Finally, we need to work with foreign partners to consider designating these groups as “terrorist entities”. Such a designation as a “terrorist entity” carries international legal recognition. Some of our closest allies, such as Australia and Canada, are likewise struggling with some of these same groups and such a designation would go a long way to curb their influence and growth. It would also allow cutting off funding, limiting travel and a host of other measures to occur.
This attempt at armed insurrection calls for justice and a reassertion of the rule of law. America is a nation of laws and it is the duty of government to protect our citizens against such threats to our democracy. These insurrectionists wanted to overthrow our government, but now it is time for our response by those of us who value the rule of law and democratic principles. We are a government by and for the people and this attack on our democracy should not stand.
Lieutenant Colonel John Foley is a retired U.S. Army officer and career Intelligence Officer. He served 27 years in the U.S. military service with both the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army. He had multiple combat deployments to Iraq with the 5th Special Forces, 101st Airborne Division and 1st Cavalry Division. His last duty assignment was with NORAD-USNORTHCOM. He currently lives in Colorado.
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