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Regarding the sabotage in Washington State, it doesn't make a lot of sense to attack four substations simultaneously just to steal from the cash register of a s
by panarky 4y ago
Regarding the sabotage in Washington State, it doesn't make a lot of sense to attack four substations simultaneously just to steal from the cash register of a small business.
If I fancied myself to be an antigovernment militia leader who had read all the white supremacist literature from the last 40 years that repeatedly describes attacking critical infrastructure like pipelines, telecoms and electricity pylons and substations to create chaos and ignite the race war, I'd definitely teach my inexperienced acolytes to add a little petty theft to their sabotage to avoid a terrorism enhancement when they're caught probing the defenses and response times of utilities and law enforcement.
- kcatskcolbdi 4y agoImagine writing this unhinged mental fanfiction for every news article you read. Headline: Man Steals Car "Well, if I fancied myself a racewar enthusiast of course I would _say_ it was for money but it would obviously be in support of creating chaos and undermining the government institutions to allow for our brothers to rise against".
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- LarryMullins 4y agoHe's right about this much at least: > white supremacist literature from the last 40 years that repeatedly describes attacking critical infrastructure like pipelines, telecoms and electricity pylons and substations to create chaos I've seen such advocacy posted many times on 4chan. That doesn't prove much, but I think it validates that line of speculation.
- mc32 4y agoBut so do some people who fantasize about getting rid of fossil fuels --and they typically are polar opposites to the ones you are referring to... which goes to show extreme right and extreme left are like the head and tails of ouroboroses.
- LarryMullins 4y agoHeck, it might even be both. Ecofascist acolytes of Ted K, they exist too. We won't really know until they're caught.
- barbazoo 4y agoWhat nonsense. One is a much more serious threat than the other.
- LarryMullins 4y agoI didn't equivocate anything..
- secondcoming 4y agoTIL the Russian Army is inspired by 4chan
- ilyt 4y agoIsn't that like terrorism 101 ? Those are like the most obvious targets if all you do is to generate some mayhem
- backtoyoujim 4y ago[flagged]
- mc32 4y agoTerrorism has a specific meaning. All these are what one would call sabotage. It would be terrorism if the saboteurs disabled the substations in support of an attack terrorizing civilians. Example, they shoot up a substation so that police are unable to respond to a siege on some government agency or a hostage situation at a bank.
- JauntyHatAngle 4y agoYou can absolutely sabotage as a terrorist though. They aren't mutually exclusive. Damaging property if the motives and outcome align with what we consider terrorism is terrorism. But the meaning of terrorism is rather vague, and broad. If I blow up a substation and it causes blackouts and chaos, that can be terrorism.
- mc32 4y agoI agree with all you said.
- luckylion 4y agoIf you sink an oil tanker and a pollute large area for years or decades, that's terrorism because holy fuck that's scary. But what if you do it in a way that nobody knows it was intentional and don't tell anyone about it? You're absolutely right: blowing up substations can be terrorism. But you need someone claiming the attack and making demands.
- LarryMullins 4y agoThe attack on infrastructure itself could constitute terrorism, if the infrastructure attack was intended to scare or intimidate the public to achieve some political objective. Wiktionary's definition of terrorism includes attacks against property: "The use of unlawful violence against people or property to achieve political objectives." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/terrorism https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/terrorism
- HyperSane 4y agoHave you already forgotten about Timothy McVeigh?
- kcatskcolbdi 4y ago[flagged]
- nwiswell 4y agoThe economic incentive for stealing a car is a lot more obvious and mundane than attacking the power grid. It's not unreasonable to second guess (or is it first guess?) the motive in that context. It's pretty obvious when you compare the number of annual car thefts to the number of attacks on substations. This is an unusual event, it may have an unusual explanation.
- electrondood 4y agoThis is a disingenuous analogy. The likelihood that a person would attack four substations to rob a business is extremely low, and it's therefore reasonable to assume that their stated motive was a lie. The likelihood that a person would even attack one substation for the same aim is still low, in my opinion.
- pseudo0 4y agoThey also drove around with their cellphones, were caught on camera, had long rap sheets for previous criminal offenses, and a history of meth addiction... It seems entirely plausible that the idiots just kept driving around shooting substations until the lights went out. Also, if they had any basis whatsoever for a terrorism charge, I would have expected the DA to charge it. The media exposure and increase in profile would be irresistible, and charges can always be dropped later.
- asveikau 4y ago[flagged]
- DangitBobby 4y agoHow?
- asveikau 4y agoThey're going far out of their way to insult people who are concerned about some real and serious threats. If you look at the sibling comments, I'm not the only one noticing this. When confronted with the existence of Timothy McVeigh, the commenter replies mockingly with a reference to a nursery time (now flagged). That's pretty insane.
- veec_cas_tant 4y agoHeadline: Power Infrastructure Attacked Hinged response: this was obviously done to rob a business
- kyrra 4y agoThey were found because they carried their cellphones to each substations and the robbery. They were then confirmed because they used their own car and it was matched to video surveillance. They were pretty bad at what they were doing.
- themitigating 4y agoBut better than a person throwing a rock at a power line. If their goal was to cut power for the area that substation serves then they were successful. Getting caught later means they aren't perfect
- neuronexmachina 4y agoYep. I think it's safe to assume that the half-dozen earlier attacks in the area were by a different group, since the group behind the earlier attacks was presumably smart enough not to carry their cellphones with them.
- warner25 4y agoEspecially with the Washington attack happening so soon after the one in North Carolina, the most notable thing to me was that both attacks occurred close to a couple of our most important Army bases, in counties where many troops live with their families off-base. Fort Bragg and Fort Lewis (JBLM) are both home to a corps headquarters, special operations units, and other rapid-response forces. This was rarely mentioned in the news coverage that I saw. But as a career military officer, some of the most thought-provoking "red team" stuff that I've read involved attacking us in our communities at home where we are soft targets, mostly reliant on civilian law enforcement for protection.
- UncleEntity 4y agoWhile I don’t disagree I don’t see the point of taking out the power to the community around an army base. If they took out the power on the base to disrupt operations then maybe but from my time at Ft Bragg all that would’ve caused is an inconvenience even if we were in the middle of an alert. …now that I think about it I’m surprised they never cut the power on us when they did one of the alert readiness tests.
- warner25 4y agoWhen power to the community is cut, it's massively disruptive to operations because our normal response to give troops time off (or employ them in a humanitarian response) to take care of families. Day-to-day garrison operations and small-scale training events are seen as less important than taking care of families.
- atchoo 4y ago> I'd definitely teach my inexperienced acolytes to add a little petty theft to their sabotage to avoid a terrorism enhancement The far right literature e.g. The Turner Diaries, describes terror cells funding themselves through theft so theft/sabotage should be expected together with such groups. "The Order" - a real life group modelled on The Turner Diaries robbed banks and armoured cars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_(white_supremacist_group) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_(white_supremacist_g...
- mikrotikker 4y agoHow about OSS Sabotage Manual that was declassified. Then you think about all the infrastructure attacks and it looks similar to how the manual describes to do sabotage. KGB sleeper cells still doing their thing? Or American communists dreaming they are fighting facism when in fact they are inviting it in.
- canucklady 4y agoThere are communists who believe in accelerationism as much as there are white supremacists who believe in it. Basically "destabilize the current status quo to provoke an outright war, and then we win that war and take over".
- mikrotikker 4y agoYea its scary because communists normally pave the way for the fascists. No matter who wins we all lose.
- yucky 4y agoIf US government and it's institutions are rooted in white supremacy as so many claim, then why would white supremacists be anti-government? Seems like they'd be on the same team, no?
- mrtesthah 4y agoMost white supremacists are not in intrinsically anti-government. They are more than happy to support it by becoming police officers, soldiers, and prison guards. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-in-law-enforcement https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-i...
- yucky 4y agoAh so it's like Schrödingers white supremacists?
- mrtesthah 4y agoNot really, I don't see the confusion here. Maybe you could explain what it is you're having trouble understanding?
- yucky 4y agoI thought I already did. If white supremacists are so anti-government then it doesn't make sense to pretend the government is run by white supremacists. It turns out that the people who make those sorts of claims are really just anti-white.
- mrtesthah 4y agoWho is pretending that "the government is run by white supremacists"? If you're referring to my statement, I only said that many law enforcement agencies contain white supremacists, which includes anyone with a white supremacist viewpoint. They don't even need to identify as one openly or even in action. How many white supremacists are and are not anti-government is immaterial to the point. The way you're using the definition "white supremacist" implicitly assumes that "white supremacy" as an ideology is inherently anti-government. We know that's never been the case, because all white supremacist states around the world have had strictly authoritarian governments. There's no way to enforce the supremacy of one group of people over another without coercive force. Either violence or authoritarian government are required for a white supremacist state. As for whether US itself is a white supremacist state, on one hand you could say that it has allocated a massive amount of resources in systematically rounding up black men (1 in 3 will be arrested in their lifetimes) without addressing the factors used to justify that, and many states systematically disenfranchise their vote. And historically it was economically reliant on chattel slavery. Many southern states are effectively authoritarian governments at the state level due to district gerrymandering and black disenfranchisement, now no longer stoppable by the Voting Rights Act after a conservative supreme court decision a few years ago. OTOH, federally, is democratically accountable to the people, making it a coalition of whites and non-whites. So you could still see white supremacist reactionaries taking anti-government standpoints for as long as this governing coalition includes non-white people. >It turns out that the people who make those sorts of claims are really just anti-white. Do you think it is somehow "anti-white" to point out ways in which white supremacy harms and oppresses non-white people when it is used at the level of state and federal governments?