Counter-Terrorism: The Others

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February20, 2007: While most of the terrorism committed these days is carried out by Islamic radicals, they have found allies in existing radical leftist groups. For example, in Okinawa, a group calling itself the "Revolutionary Army" set off three pipe bombs in the last week. The same group claimed responsibility for similar attacks in 2002. Leftist radicals have been around for over a century. The most successful were the anarchists, a 19th century movement that killed several heads of state, and hundreds of other officials, before being wiped out my the more bloody minded communists before World War II. The communists were radical leftists, until they established the Soviet Union in 1923. After that, communism was noted chiefly for its highly effective police state methods, and support of terrorism by other groups. The Soviet Union was a major supplier of training, weapons and money to leftist terrorists. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, that support went away, but the leftist, and even Islamic, groups the Soviets had supported, did not. While there are few Soviet trained terrorists out there any more, there are still plenty of radical groups. The Japanese ones support a number of causes, from the establishment of communist dictatorships, to the destruction of the United States, protectionism (no "economic globalism"), the status quo in general and and so on. The groups operating in Okinawa want U.S. troops out of Japan. The United States is a convenient enemy for leftists, many of whom oppose free markets, democracy (and a lot more besides) and anything that will get a mention in the mass media.