Salon.com > Frederick Clarkson

The quiet fall of an American terrorist

Thu, 11 Dec 2003 01:03:00 +0000

Only a couple of years ago, Clayton Waagner was one of three extreme-right American terrorists on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, a self-styled avenging angel of the unborn. In the autumn of 2001, at the apex of national fear about terrorist strikes and deadly anthrax attacks, he mailed hundreds of envelopes stuffed with white powder and threatening letters to abortion clinics and reproductive rights organizations -- all in the name of the antiabortion Army of God. Doctors, staffers, clients and their families were terrified, and hundreds of clinics were shut down. That made Clayton Waagner a celebrity, of sorts, and to some, a hero.

Waagner lost his spot atop the 10 Most Wanted lists when an alert Kinko's clerk outside of Cincinnati recognized him from a wanted poster, and in a federal courtroom in Philadelphia last week, he was convicted of threatening the use of weapons of mass destruction and other federal charges, more than 50 counts in all. The two-week trial was remarkable not so much for its verdict as for the near-complete lack of media attention that it attracted. Perhaps the conclusion was too anticlimactic, a foregone conclusion. Or perhaps it was because Attorney General John Ashcroft's prosecutors sought to make the trial not about abortion, but about "anthrax hoaxes." In a news culture obsessed with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and overseas terror threats, few reporters were there for the denouement.

They ban textbooks, don’t they?

Wed, 05 Nov 2003 20:21:00 +0000

A federal lawsuit filed last week in Texas may very well turn into the Lone Star State's own version of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" -- the famous 1925 court battle in which two of America's most famous attorneys debated whether evolution should be taught in the public schools. Then, the underlying issue was whether Christianity should trump science; today, it is the scientific status of mainstream environmentalism. In the current case, the author of a widely used environmental textbook is suing five present and former members of the Texas State Board of Education, who two years ago rejected his book because of alleged factual errors and pervasive bias. Claiming that the author's free speech and equal protection rights were violated by an act of censorship, the lawsuit asserts that the real reason the book was rejected was the author's environmentalist views, which clash with those of right-wing school-board members.

The lawsuit, filed Oct. 30 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas by the Washington-based Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, was also filed on behalf of several Texas high school students, who the suit alleges have been denied access to this book. The plaintiffs want the book included on the state list of approved texts, a court order declaring that the board members' rejection of the book was unconstitutional, and unspecified damages stemming from the lost sales.

A radical antiabortionist backs down

Fri, 21 Jun 2002 19:01:00 +0000

Neal Horsley, creator of the virulently antiabortion Nuremberg Files Web site, has taken down the most inflammatory postings from his site: the crossed-out names of doctors and clinic workers who have been killed by antiabortion militants. Horsley blames the courts, which had recently ruled against him and his Web site on two related matters. But equal pressure may have come from his fellow pro-lifers, who increasingly see Horsley's extreme tactics as a major liability.

A month ago, Horsley and his Web site were dealt a major blow in federal court. In a 6-5 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that members of the American Coalition of Life Activists had illegally threatened abortion doctors by publishing Old West "Wanted"-style posters identifying a dozen doctors and including detailed information about them, including their home addresses, on Horsley's "Nuremberg Files" Web site. Two previous murders of abortion doctors had been preceded by similar posters. Four of the doctors sued. Horsley later began crossing through the names of doctors murdered by antiabortionists and graying out those who were wounded.

Brand new war for the Army of God?

Tue, 19 Feb 2002 22:02:00 +0000

"Let us give thanks," Army of God "chaplain" Rev. Michael Bray proclaimed on the Army of God Web site, after sword-wielding officials in Saudi Arabia beheaded three gay men New Year's Day. The official Saudi Press Agency reported that the men had "committed acts of sodomy, married each other, seduced young men and attacked those who rebuked them."

Best known for its terror campaign against abortion providers, the militant Army of God has lately displayed a virulent antigay animus in recent postings on its Web site. The sudden trend has set off alarms among human rights groups.

"This is really chilling," Surina Khan, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told Salon. "It really disturbs me, in terms of the rhetoric and what effect it has."

Ironically, the Army of God is expressing new solidarity with Muslim extremists just as the right-wing extremists have come under new scrutiny by the U.S. government for their own links to terror, post-Sept. 11. The violence-prone Army of God drew intensified federal attention thanks to its praise ("great idea!") for the anthrax scare at 550 clinics and abortion rights organizations last fall, perpetrated by self-described antiabortion "terrorist" Clayton Waagner. Waagner signed his threats "Army of God."

Our own terror cells

Tue, 08 Jan 2002 23:53:00 +0000

Self-described anti-abortion "terrorist" Clayton Waagner, arrested last month by the FBI, might remain a footnote in the White House's war on terror. But should the Department of Justice decide to treat Waagner -- the man who has admitted to sending hundreds of anthrax threats to clinics and abortion rights organizations in October and November -- as more than just a lone nut case, and rather as part of a domestic terrorist network, that could all change quickly.

And if the Justice Department decides to pursue this network with the same zeal with which it has pursued foreign terrorist networks in this country, it could expose a network that spreads broadly from the far-right fringe to right-wing politics. Even, indirectly, to the attorney general himself.

Abortion terrorism intrigue

Wed, 28 Nov 2001 21:52:00 +0000

Fugitive antiabortion militant Clayton Waagner says he's responsible for sending letters and Federal Express packages purporting to be laced with anthrax to some 700 abortion providers and abortion rights groups last month. He also claims he has a hit list of 42 clinic workers he will murder if they don't quit their jobs.

At least that's the story being put forward by fellow abortion foe Neal Horsley, proprietor of the notorious Nuremberg Files Web site. In one of the more far-fetched tales to emerge from the extreme anti-abortion movement, Horsley claims Waagner took him hostage on the day after Thanksgiving and used him as his mouthpiece to claim responsibility for the anthrax letters and to announce his threat of new violence against abortion providers.

Clinic security experts say they doubt that Horsley was actually taken hostage by Waagner. But they believe his message from the violent fugitive is authentic.

The nation’s last anthrax scare

Wed, 17 Oct 2001 19:30:00 +0000

The arrival of letters that claimed to contain anthrax at more than 100 family planning and abortion clinics Monday triggered a new wave of national panic about bioterrorism.

But the sweep of terror by mail brought an entirely different response from the Rev. Donald Spitz, spokesman for the violently antiabortion Army of God. Spitz cheerfully announced that the flood of potentially life-threatening mail "made my day," but he denied having any knowledge of where the letters came from.

It's not the first time abortion providers have dealt with an anthrax scare. According to the National Abortion Federation, there have been at least 80 anthrax threats against providers since 1998, with an epidemic of almost two dozen publicized threats in 1998 and 1999.

This time, a chapter of the Army of God -- the underground antiabortion group in whose name a 20-year crime spree of arson, assassination and bombing has been carried out against abortion providers -- claimed responsibility. "You have been exposed to anthrax," each letter announced. "We are going to kill all of you. From the Army of God, Virginia Dare Chapter."

Shooting for life

Fri, 20 Jul 2001 21:35:00 +0000

Antiabortion activist Neal Horsley is quietly debuting a new weapon in his guerrilla warfare against abortion providers. Recently, the proprietor of the controversial Nuremberg Files Web site began rolling video clips filmed at the entrances to abortion clinics in California. Eventually, he plans to offer live video broadcasts from clinics around the world.

Horsley calls it journalism, while his critics call it terrorism.

Horsley is best known for crossing out the names of abortion providers, like the late Dr. Barnett Slepian, on his Nuremberg Files "hit list" after they die. The list includes the names of hundreds of abortion clinic workers, along with Bill Clinton and members of Congress and law enforcement whom he views as complicit in what he calls "baby butchery."

The Nuremberg Files is at the center of a federal lawsuit working its way through the courts that will determine the vexing legal question of whether the site is protected by free speech or whether it perpetrates illegal threats or intimidation. The addition of video -- which enables Web users to attach names to faces of people associated with abortion clinics -- is likely to lead to further legal tussles.

On the lam, but online

Wed, 27 Jun 2001 13:00:00 +0000

As a romantic outlaw, fugitive Clayton Lee Waagner is no John Dillinger. But if he and his friends in the Army of God are successful, the 44-year-old career criminal could become a folk hero, even a martyr, to the violent antiabortion movement.

Waagner, who escaped from the DeWitt County Jail in Clinton, Ill., in February and has eluded capture since, says he's been driving across the country stalking abortion clinics, assembling a cache of weapons and compiling dossiers on clinic staff in order "to kill as many of them as I can." Clayton made his threats on the "Clayton Waagner Message Board," hosted by the antiabortion Army of God.

"Pray," he asks his supporters, "that every one I kill causes a hundred to quit."

Waagner's threat has galvanized abortion providers, clinic defenders and law enforcement officials into a state of high alert, while Army of God leaders are cheering Waagner on and calling on pro-lifers to give him shelter.

"Go Waagner, go!" cheered Army of God "chaplain" Rev. Michael Bray on the message board (which has now been shut down without explanation). Bray hails the fugitive as a "fellow who goes for the gusto," and urges antiabortion activists to help Waagner continue "giving the slip to federal agents" by hiding him in their homes.

Journalists or terrorists?

Thu, 31 May 2001 08:00:00 +0000

The controversial antiabortion Web site the Nuremberg Files, infamous for what critics say is a hit list of abortion providers (with names of those murdered crossed out in black), has launched a new project likely to further enrage abortion-rights advocates: a plan to videotape the entrances of abortion clinics and broadcast footage of providers and patients over the Web.

Site architect Neal Horsley is trying to cast his new project as enterprising journalism. Based in Carrollton, Ga., Horsley is now advertising for antiabortion protesters to become "reporters, news photographers and camera people" for what he is calling "the Christian Gallery News Service." And as reporters, Horsley insists, "the full protection of the First Amendment Freedom of the Press is available as we provide this vital news service to the American people and the people of the world."

It's tough for his many critics to see Horsley as a journalist. He's been a leading frontman for the violent underground group Army of God, and his Christian Gallery News Service is probably the first and only news agency organized for the sole purpose of intimidating women from exercising their constitutional right to an abortion.

Million Moon March

Mon, 09 Oct 2000 18:12:00 +0000

Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Minister Louis Farrakhan are trying to pull off what may be the oddest alliance in recent American history.

The two aging demagogues -- one the leader of the Unification Church and the other the African-American head of the Nation of Islam -- are collaborating on the sequel to Farrakhan's wildly successful Million Man March -- the Million Family March, scheduled for Oct. 16 in Washington.

The march's pihce de risistance will be a spectacular ceremony in which Farrakhan will renew the vows of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of married couples -- modeled after the mass marriage ceremonies led by Moon for the past 30 years.

"This reflects the ways Rev. Moon has influenced Minister Farrakhan," explained Rev. Phil Schanker, an official of Moon's Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU).

Robertson redux

Wed, 24 Feb 1999 20:00:00 +0000

After two years in self-imposed exile, Pat Robertson is resuming control of the Christian Coalition just in time for the 2000 presidential campaign season. But in his second coming as coalition president, Robertson will preside over an organization struggling to move beyond recent problems with the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Elections Commission and recapture its declining political influence among Christian conservatives and within the Republican Party.

As the GOP continues its soul-searching in the wake of the disappointing 1998 election, many Republicans, most notably the Republican governors, are calling for a move away from the culture war. But similar calls have also been heard from within the party's fractured right wing, exacerbating a power vacuum within the religious right created by the 1997 departure of Robertson and executive director Ralph Reed from day-to-day operations of the Christian Coalition. Now, Robertson, back at the helm, is locked in a power struggle.