EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon’s Special Ops Office Holds Book Talk On ‘Far-Right’ Domestic Terrorism
Micaela Burrow on January 30, 2024
- A Department of Defense office overseeing special operations invited two terrorism experts to discuss their new book on far-right terrorism in the U.S., screenshots obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.
- The invitation appeared to go out via email to “all” staff of SO/LIC, the acronym for the Pentagon’s office overseeing special operations and irregular warfare.
- “Serious acts of terrorism have erupted from violent American far-right extremists in recent years, including the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol,” the book’s synopsis, which was also included in the email, reads.
A Department of Defense (DOD) office invited two experts to discuss their new book on far-right terrorism in the U.S. as part of a new series featuring guest speakers, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.
The invitation appeared to go out via email to “all” staff of SO/LIC, the acronym for the Pentagon’s office overseeing special operations and irregular warfare, according to screenshots obtained exclusively by the DCNF. Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and Jacob Ware, a research fellow at CFR, were scheduled Tuesday to present their book, which traces right-wing domestic terrorism through U.S history, including the Ku Klux Klan and groups involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots seeking to reverse the 2020 election.
“Reminder to please join us at 1200 tomorrow morning via Teams (link below) for this virtual brown bag book talk event — renowned terrorism scholars Dr. Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware. Their new book, God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America was released earlier this month,” the invitation, dated Jan. 29 at 9:51 a.m., reads.
“This is the first of what we hope will be a series of brown bag events featuring internal and external speakers,” it said, and was signed by the “FO Team.”
The reminder included a brief description of the book and links to the author’s biographies in documents on the internal office drive.
“Serious acts of terrorism have erupted from violent American far-right extremists in recent years, including the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol,” the book synopsis, which was also included in the email, read.
“They are the latest flashpoints in a process that has been unfolding for decades, in which vast conspiracy theories and radical ideologies such as white supremacism, racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, and hostility to government converge into a deadly threat to democracy,” it said. “This talk, derived from the speakers’ new book, God, Guns, and Sedition (Columbia Univ. Press) discusses the rise of far-right terrorism in the United States, the impact of U.S. domestic terrorism on our foreign policy and our allies, and policy recommendations to counter far-right terrorism.”
The email did not explain why domestic terrorism, a problem outside of the DOD’s purview, was selected as the topic for the first book talk or who approved it. The DOD didn’t respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
.@PentagonPresSec: “Today, @SecDef is directing several immediate actions [from the extremism Stand Down] and the establishment of the Countering Extremism Working Group (CEWG) as we continue to address this issue proactively.” pic.twitter.com/NAopzKvkna
— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) April 9, 2021
Hoffman and Ware have engaged in presentations and other media to promote their recent release, according to a DCNF review.
The Pentagon initiated a stand-down after the Jan. 6 riots and ordered a review of extremism present within the ranks of U.S. military personnel. Fewer than 100 service members were identified as having participated in extremist activities, but the Pentagon’s focus on right-wing views may have worsened a polarization problem.
Despite two years of work, the Pentagon failed to understand domestic extremism and may have inflated the issue, to the possible detriment of cohesion within the ranks, according to a DOD-funded study released in December.
“God, Guns and Terrorism” opens with a description of an anti-government group in 2020 advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. government, spurred by former President Donald Trump’s social media incitement, a sample of the book on Amazon.com shows. It then describes the “accelerationist” ideology, which the authors say motivates many right-wing anti-government groups, as a “white power strategy to foment violence and chaos as a means to seize power.”
The two recently co-authored an editorial arguing that far-right threats of violence in support of the MAGA agenda is splintering the Republican party. GOP support for Trump could inspire a repeat of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, they said.
“The violent far-right extremist movement is neither loyal to the GOP nor concerned about protecting its own candidates or elected officials. It is an anti-government underground fueled by election denialism and driven by the worst authoritarian impulses,” they wrote.
Ware and Hoffman didn’t respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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