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.