2009 FLASHBACK: Scarborough attacked report warning of RW extremists grooming military vets
Scarborough ignores Bush FBI report to claim Obama administration stoking fear
PUBLISHED 04/15/09
Joe Scarborough distorted a DHS intelligence assessment to allege the Obama administration is warning that returning war veterans “are to be feared.” In fact, the assessment, citing a Bush administration report, warned of a possible resurgence among extremist groups that “will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans.”
On the April 15 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough distorted an April 7 intelligence assessment by the Department of Homeland Security to allege that the Obama administration is “specifically warning that veterans returning home from war, are to be feared -- that they could be right-wing extremists that want to launch terror attacks on America.” In fact, the document, issued to law enforcement officials, warned of a possible resurgence among extremist groups that “will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat.” The assessment further stated: “The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.” DHS cited a 2008 FBI report -- authored during the Bush administration -- as evidence that “some returning military veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have joined extremist groups.”
On Morning Joe, Scarborough also said, “I just ask this question to my Democratic friends out there -- and I'm serious about this -- what would you have said if George Bush, [former Bush adviser] Karl Rove, and the head of Homeland Security had issued a report warning about left-wing radicals wanting to blow up America? ...
t is frightening.”...
In its April 7 assessment, DHS stated, “Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists. DHS/I&A is concerned that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.” As Media Matters for America has noted, in the July 2008 FBI report, titled “White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel since 9/11,” the FBI's Counterterrorism Division determined with "[h]igh confidence" that "[m]ilitary experience is found throughout the white supremacist extremist movement as the result of recruitment campaigns by extremist groups and self-recruitment by veterans sympathetic to white supremacist causes." The 2008 report further stated that a “review of FBI white supremacist extremist cases from October 2001 to May 2008 identified 203 individuals with confirmed or claimed military service active in the extremist movement at some time during the reporting period,” and that "[a]ccording to FBI information, an estimated 19 veterans (approximately 9 percent of the 203) have verified or unverified service in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
https://www.mediamatters.org/morning-joe/scarborough-ignores-bush-fbi-report-claim-obama-administration-stoking-fear
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