The Threat Within Takes Center Stage : Oklahoma tragedy renews domestic anti-terrorism debate

President Clinton, in leading the country in a day of national prayer for the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, underscored the need to focus attention on the growing strength of right-wing hate groups in America. As we looked mainly to deter potential terrorism from abroad, the threat from within swelled in the form of shadowy, heavily armed groups that thrive on a noxious ideological stew of white supremacy, anti-Semitism and resistance to taxes, gun control and the federal government in general.

After the memorial service, Clinton called on Congress to give the government broad new powers to combat foreign and domestic terrorism, including creation of a new FBI unit to counter home-grown threats.

These “citizen militia” groups often call themselves God-fearing “patriots” who defend the Constitution. Apparently, this brand of patriotism involves blowing little children to pieces. Some of these groups have declared war on the federal government. The blast should come as no surprise; signals suggested for years that such extremism would turn into irrational violence.

Of course, no convictions have yet been obtained and much remains a mystery about the Oklahoma case. Early suspicions that Islamic terrorists were involved proved unfounded. This is fortunate for Arab Americans and others of Middle Eastern origins in this country who were unfairly tarred, and they will presumably be able now to worship and live their lives under no cloud of distrust.

Combatting domestic terrorism is extremely difficult. Timothy J. McVeigh, 27, the first suspect arrested, was no bearded foreigner speaking accented English. He was reared in Upstate New York and served in the Army during the Gulf War, earning an honorable discharge. He appears to have had some connection to the so-called Michigan Militia, one of whose leaders was being sought Sunday for questioning.

That militia is one of 300 or so groups, with names like White Aryan Resistance, The Order and Aryan Nations, that have sprung up over the last decade. While new, their origins lie in the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi-like movements. Unfortunately, federal authorities have only stimulated their growth by ham-handed efforts like the botched assault on the Branch Davidian sect’s compound in Waco, Tex., two years ago in which 86 people died a fiery death, many of them children.

The horrendous death toll at the wreckage of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City makes it imperative that federal and state authorities do everything possible to penetrate these groups and gain better intelligence--without going so far as to violate the rights of law-abiding citizens.

It is important to resist temptations to violate basic constitutional rights, for certainly not everyone involved in these groups is prepared to resort to violence. Surveillance efforts are hampered by court rulings and policies that flowed from the blatantly illegal actions of the FBI and other government agencies during the 1960s and 1970s that were aimed at squelching fully legal nonviolent dissent from leftist anti-war protesters armed mainly with leaflets.

The current situation is vastly different. Motley uniformed “militias” in 47 states regularly drill with high-powered weapons in mock assaults against some imaginary enemy. Since we are not about to be invaded from Canada, who could that be? Children in a day-care center in Oklahoma? Who are they going to fight? At the very least, the Oklahoma episode suggests that Republicans in Congress should drop their ill-considered efforts to repeal the federal ban on assault weapons. If right-wing extremists are arming themselves to the teeth, one must worry that this is suggestive evidence they intend to use these weapons, and that any one of us could prove their target.