Domestic terrorism, some committed by veterans, rising

By John M. Donnelly, CQ-Roll Call

WASHINGTON — Domestic terrorism — the use of violence for political ends — has risen dramatically in recent years and is driven largely by partisan falsehoods and lies, a new study says.

U.S. military veterans are overrepresented among the perpetrators of such attacks, experts have long found.

The report comes nearly four years after the 2021 Capitol riot and as the nation girds for the possibility of political violence after what are expected to be cliffhanger elections on Nov. 5.

“The number of domestic terrorist attacks and plots against government targets motivated by partisan political beliefs in the past five years is nearly triple the number of such incidents in the previous 25 years combined,” said the Center for Strategic and International Studies report, which was made public Tuesday.

‘Election denialism’

The CSIS report examined trends in 725 domestic terrorism incidents over the last three decades. The study defined domestic terrorism attacks as those involving firearms, bombing, rioting and the like, when the motivation was political or ideological.

Omitted from the database were threats that did not materialize into known plots. In 2023, U.S. Capitol Police investigated more than 8,000 “concerning statements and direct threats” about members of Congress — up from just over 5,200 in 2018.

The report determined that “conspiracy theories—particularly election denialism—are a primary cause” of the surge in violence.

Veterans

After a spurt of attention in 2021 to extremism in the ranks of the armed services, lawmakers from both parties have minimized the problem, and they shelved numerous legislative proposals for the Pentagon to undertake more study of the matter.

Yet former and current U.S. military personnel have long formed a sizable minority of the perpetrators of politically motivated violence. Their representation among those charged or convicted with such crimes exceeds their share of the general population.

In recent years, U.S. military veterans — and, much less often, currently serving personnel — have featured more prominently than before in such incidents, according to a May report from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START.

In 2018, 11% of those charged with or convicted of politically motivated violence in the United States were veterans, the START study found, but in 2022 the figure was 18%.

By comparison, it said, about 8% of the overall U.S. population has served in the military.

Insurrection acts

Since 1990, 721 people with U.S. military experience have committed ideologically motivated crimes, the START report said.

In the 2021 Capitol riot alone, 222 people with military backgrounds, mostly veterans, were charged or convicted in connection with the violence, the START report found.

All told, more than 1,504 people have been charged with crimes committed during the Capitol riot.

The CSIS report looked at the number of domestic terror incidents, rather than the number of people charged or convicted. And it did not explore the issue of veterans’ involvement in the terrorism.

But Riley McCabe, the CSIS report’s author, said via email that one or more persons with a military background was involved in 92 of the 725 domestic terror attacks that occurred from 1994 through April of this year.

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