New Orleans, Louisiana--To put it mildly, whomever attempted to murder Brian Welsh--political adviser to porn star Stormy Daniels is trying to send him and the potential candidate a very obvious message: don't run against incumbent Republican Senator David Vitter. There's no other word but terrorism for this, domestic terrorism.
An act of domestic, political terrorism has happened once again on the streets of America and nobody's paying very much attention, if at all. This event happened the day before yesterday on the streets of New Orleans, but I have yet to see it get any play in the mainstream press. Yet, this is a very serious threat to the integrity of our political process, and the likelihood that this clown had sympathies with the Democratic Party are slim-to-none.
And so, this must come from the far right. Considering that it was probably a pipe-bomb, and that it was a solitary individual, the arrow already points decidedly to-the-right. Welsh stated yesterday: “No one has seen anything like this before…not in such a dramatic fashion,” Welsh told ABC-26. “It’s too early for me to go pointing fingers. I’d like to hear officially what happened and then we can take it from there. If someone’s trying to send me a message like this, it’s not going to work.” Daniels is considering a run for the Louisiana senate seat currently occupied by incumbent Republican David Vitter whose been linked to the “D.C Madam,” Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Vitter's cell phone number turned up numerous times in Palfrey's records. ("Political Advisor to Stormy Daniels Hit by Car Bomb," XBIX News Wire.com, 07.28.2009)
I'd agree that it's too early to point fingers at specific groups on the right, and I applaud his reaction of not being deterred, but they weren't doing this for the Democrats--there's no indication of this at all. But I do believe that this comes from the extremist right and that it's time to bring in the FBI, not that I care for the institution, but this is a high crime.
Welsh is wrong about "No one has seen anything like this before," this has happened, though not quite the same way, but it has been dramatic before; one just needs to recall the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, the violence of the Civil Rights era, or even the attempt on George Wallace's life in 1972. Then there's government-sponsored terrorism. Sometime around October 6, 1976, the anti-Castro Cuban terrorist group Alpha 66 (backed by elements of our government) placed a bomb on a Cuban airliner:
All 73 people aboard died in the Oct. 6, 1976 disaster, including 19 members of
Cuba's junior national fencing team returning from Caracas, most of them
teen-agers. Two Cubans were jailed in Venezuela for masterminding the attack. One was
Orlando Bosch, a physician who left the United States after he was paroled from
a 10-year prison sentence for firing a rocket at a Polish ship anchored in Miami.
The other was Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA agent who was trained as a
demolition expert for the Bay of Pigs.
Posada Carriles escaped from jail in Venezuela in 1985, reportedly disguised as a
priest. ("Bay of Pigs fiasco spawned anti-Castro plotters," CNN, 04.17.2001)
The CIA's great, but it's good to have friends in the Vatican too. These are just a few other examples, and there have been numerous others from the white supremacist movement over the years. No one would call anti-Castro Cubans leftists.
Alpha 66 was and still is allowed to operate from the swamps of Florida, incidentally. This is not to suggest that the New Orleans bomber was an anti-Castro Cuban (keep up with me, please), but to illustrate that there have been patterns of this criminal activity from the right many times before, and this isn't including the Oklahoma City bombing.
But the very recent murder by Scott Roeder (possibly inspired by the Army of God) of George Tiller, a Kansas abortion doctor, and the shooting-spree by white supremacist James von Brunn at the National Holocaust Museum were most certainly meant to instill fear in others and can be counted as acts of domestic terrorism from the far right. The key word here is "coercion," to prevent or to make someone do something that an individual or a groups wants as a result of the act. Yes, there is the possibility that this was some "lone nut" (either way, they were, let's be frank) who simply wanted to do it for personal reasons--certainly a possibility. Yeah?
Terrorism is known as a form of "asymmetrical warfare," in the parlance of counterterrorism, which jibes very closely with far right rhetoric and the formulation of the "lone wolf/lone-wolf fighter" approach advocated by such white hate luminaries as--once again--Tom Metzger and Alex Curtis. But who would benefit the most from a bombing that ended the campaign of a candidate running for the specific senate seat that porn star Stormy Daniels is setting her sights on?
The answer is pretty obvious: David Vitter. Granted, Daniels doesn't have a real chance of winning, and her candidacy is satirical--to remind Louisianans that Vitter used the prostitution services of the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey (aka the "DC Madam")--but there's nothing wrong with that, and her right to do so is protected under the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly, never mind the democratic right to run for public office. Whomever put the bomb in Welsh's car is an enemy of the democratic process itself and should be arrested and put on trial for their actions.
"Political Advisor to Stormy Daniels Hit by Car Bomb," XBIX News Wire.com, 07.28.2009: http://www.xbiznewswire.com/view.php?id=111062
ABC26's interview with Brain Welch from yesterday: http://www.abc26.com/videobeta/watch/?watch=4521787e-8dab-4de5-b48b-028fd8c72ac3&src=front
"Bay of Pigs fiasco spawned anti-Castro plotters," CNN, 04.17.2001: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/bay-of-pigs/plotters.htm
