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Homeland memo fails to rile VFW, AmVets

In the middle of a storm of controversy over a Homeland Security Department report that mentioned disgruntled veterans as a possible security threat to the U.S., two major veterans groups are staying calm.

Conservative talk shows, Republican lawmakers and the nation’s largest veterans group — the American Legion — have complaints about an April 7 report on the security threat of right-wing extremism because the report says that combat veterans might be targeted for recruitment.

“Men and women of our armed forces risk their lives every day to protect our citizens and the liberty we cherish, so it is inconceivable to me that the administration considers them a potential threat, but apparently does not have the same concern over anti-war protesters,” said Rep. Steve Buyer of Indiana, ranking Republican on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and a veteran of the first Gulf War.

House Republican leader Rep. John Boehner of Ohio said the Obama administration ought to apologize. “To characterize men and women returning home after defending our country as potential terrorists is offensive and unacceptable. The Department of Homeland Security owes our veterans an apology,” he said.

American Legion national commander David Rehbein complained in an April 13 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that the threat report was “incomplete and, I fear, politically biased.”

The nation’s second-largest veterans group, and the biggest organization of combat veterans, is far less excited. Glen Gardner Jr., national commander of the 2.2-million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars, said, “A government that does not assess internal and external security threats would be negligent of a critical public responsibility.

“The report should have been worded differently, but it made no blanket accusation that every soldier was capable of being a traitor like Benedict Arnold, or every veteran could be a lone wolf, homegrown terrorist like Timothy McVeigh. It was just an assessment about possibilities that could take place,” said Gardner.

McVeigh was an Army veteran responsible for the 1995 bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people, which at the time was the nation’s single deadliest act of terrorism. McVeigh was convicted on federal charges and executed in 2001.

VFW officials said the fuss over the new report seems contrived as a political attack on the Obama administration — because the concern about disgruntled veterans being recruited by domestic terrorist groups isn’t new. A similar concern was included in an FBI report issued during the Bush administration, according to a report by Politico.com. The report, issued on July 7, 2008, was specifically about white supremacist groups recruiting current and former service members, and did not result in any noticeable outcry from veterans groups or lawmakers about stereotyping. The report cited 203 cases of service members being recruited into the groups.

The VFW isn’t alone in wondering what the fuss is all about. Ryan Gallucci, spokesman for the 250,000-member veterans service organization AmVets, said the report on right-wing domestic terrorist groups is similar to an earlier Homeland Security report on threats from left-wing extremists groups.

“Veterans are only mentioned in this report because right-wing extremist groups have made a concerted effort to recruit us, tailoring their messages and their brand specifically to appeal to our needs and concerns,” Gallucci said. “This report serves as a warning that we all should heed: Don’t be suckered in by hate groups or extremist ideologies, left or right.”