The usual suspects

The FBI has released its annual National Threat Assessment for Domestic Extremism, and it’s good to know the bureau is monitoring animal rights activists, environmental fanatics, pro-abortion and pro-life groups (or individuals influenced by such groups), and Puerto Rican nationalists. The FBI also predicts more incidents of violence from black separatist organizations harking back to the 1970s, in response to “perceptions of devolving racial equality or perceptions of racially motivated police brutality, or racially based injustice, oppression, or judicial rulings.” Since the assessment was written before the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Mo., this particular evaluation shows some federal acumen. But, as Bill Gertz of The Washington Free Beacon was among the first to point out, one significant threat is missing entirely from the report.

Does anyone remember the Boston Marathon bombing? That happened not so long ago, April 2013, during the period covered by the FBI report. But there’s no mention of it, even though, by any journalist’s reckoning, it was the terror story of the year. According to Gertz, there is no mention of any terror threat related to Muslims. Religion does not totally escape the FBI’s notice, if the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ and the Black Hebrew Israelites, both black separatist groups, are to be considered religious. But Islam gets nary a nod.

It’s an old story, but the persistence of this see-no-evil stance, especially in agencies charged with national security, is more than puzzling. Sixty-six years ago, Alger Hiss, a high-ranking official in the U.S. State Department before he went to work for the UN, was accused of spying for the Soviets. His trial, followed by the infamous McCarthy Senate hearings, uncovered a pervasive spy network within the State Department and other government agencies. Joseph McCarthy has been a liberal punching bag ever since, but much of what he brought to light was true. Today, federal agencies are not even hiding the fact that they are advised by the Muslim Brotherhood and other jihadist entities. According to the official narrative, all our problems with Islam are due to isolated individuals and splinter groups. One such “splinter group” has taken over most of Iraq and may well succeed in establishing a terrorist nation devoted to Sharia law.

Informed bloggers, foreign policy advisors, and social media “chatter” have all warned that the jihadists are positioned for another domestic attack. But those who could actually do something about it insist that the main threat is elsewhere. The “god of this world” commonly blinds the minds of unbelievers to the glory of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4), but blindness to Christ often means that vision is impaired in other areas too. Not that I know what the FBI is really thinking, and perhaps the National Threat Assessment is actually a ruse to distract the jihadists. But subtlety doesn’t seem to be their strong suite. The United States was surprised by Pearl Harbor in 1941, the USSR’s detonation of an atom bomb in 1949, and 9/11—we’ll have no excuse for surprise when our enemies strike again. That’s what enemies do.