Suspect in attempted ‘Martin Luther King, Jr. Day’ bombing may have military and white supremacist ties

The New York Times reports:

A man suspected of planting a sophisticated bomb along the route of a march honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Spokane, Wash., was arrested early Wednesday, law enforcement officials said.

A swarm of federal agents arrested the suspect, Kevin W. Harpham, 36, near his home outside rural Colville, Wash., and searched the property. A law enforcement official said it was not clear whether the accused had acted alone.

The article goes on to report that Harpham was a member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance as recently as 2004.    The National Alliance was founded by William Pierce, author of “The Turner Diaries,” a novel that inspired Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.

Harpham is also a veteran:

Mr. Harpham served in the Army for several years. From June 1996 to February 1999, he was a fire support specialist in the First Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, at what is now called Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle.

Could he have learned sophisticated bomb-making skills in the Army?  White supremacist groups have encouraged their members to join the military to gain valuable war-fighting skills that could be transferred to their organizations. In 2006, the problem of hate groups infiltrating the military has been reported.  But in its desperation to fill recruiting quotas, the military has lowered its standards and turned a blind eye to white supremacist and other gang-affiliated troops.

Geoffrey Millard, organizer for Iraq Veterans Against the War was quoted in Salon.com:  “The military is attractive to white supremacists,” Millard says, “because the war itself is racist.”

 

 

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