7thriv

The FBI has looked at the recent spate of domestic terrorism and concluded that they need to do a better job tracking the dreaded "lone wolf:" FBI to Target Lone Extremists

The recent killings of a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum guard and a Kansas abortion doctor came a few months after the Federal Bureau of Investigation stepped up efforts to pre-empt violence committed by just such political extremists working alone.

"Lone-wolf offenders continue to be of great concern to law enforcement," the agency said in a February memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The FBI is "trying to identify a potential lone wolf before he or she would act out violently," Michael Ward, the bureau's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, said in an interview earlier this year.

The lone-wolf initiative is one element of a broader strategy to fight domestic terrorism, dubbed "Operation Vigilant Eagle," launched late last year in response to what the memo identified as "an increase in recruitment, threatening communications, and weapons procurement by white supremacy extremist and militia/sovereign citizen extremist groups."

It's Eagles versus Wolves in a bloody war of tooth and claw for the fate of a nation!

Of course, in the past, law enforcement has not displayed any sense of what to do with information about dangerous people, whether lone wolves or part of a larger group. From the 9/11 hijackers to John Muhammed to the Columbine killers to Lee Harvey Oswald himself, law enforcement has often been aware of psycopaths, but that knowledge proved useless in predicting when the wolf would strike. In fact, the FBI seemed to have the Holocost Museum killer on their radar.

The memo, and the recent killings, also show the limits of the lone-wolf effort. Both James von Brunn, who is charged with the Holocaust Museum shooting, and Scott Roeder, the man arrested in the murder of George Tiller in Kansas, had openly expressed to associates and on Web sites their extremist views, on anti-Semitism in Mr. von Brunn's case and on abortion in the case of Mr. Roeder. The FBI, in fact, was aware of Mr. von Brunn because of the postings but wasn't tracking him.

Really, if the FBI wants to find lone wolves, they should look in singles bars. It is my understanding that women are attracted to Bad Boys who Play by Their Own Rules and emit the musky charisma of the Lone Wolf.

On a slightly more serious note, I imagine "Operation Vigilent Eagle" will turn into yet another FBI distraction as G-men visit the flophouses and basements where real extremists - the losers writing screeds on the internet, but who would never actually shoot anyone - live. Meanwhile, the real dangers will be hiding in plain sight, waiting to strike.