F.E.A.R. Group: Revolutionaries Or Maniacs? – OpEd

By Olga Denisova

US security services have arrested 4 servicemen who had plotted to kill President Barack Obama. The four plotters – Private Isaac Aguigui, Private Christopher Salmon, Sergeant Anthony Peden and Private First Class Michael Burnett – called their group F.E.A.R., which was the abbreviation of their motto, “Forever enduring, always ready”.

It is not yet known whether these four had any other associates.

In December, these four were arrested for killing their comrade, 19-year-old Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girlfriend Tiffany York. Michael and Tiffany knew about some details of their plot, and the plotters were afraid that they might tell someone about it.

The group planned to seize an arsenal in the place where they served, called Fort Stewart, in Georgia. With the explosives that they planned to get there, they wanted to blow up an office of a security service in Washington. After that, they planned to kill President Obama and as much as start a revolution in the US.

For this, the plotters have already bought weapons for the sum of $ 87,000.

One of the might-have-been terrorists, Michael Burnett, does not conceal his anarchist convictions. He says that the US needs radical changes in the government.

“I cannot call the plans of these four “terrorists” serious,” Russian analyst Alexander Konovalov says:

“In the US, where practically everyone may buy weapons, there is nothing unusual about the fact that these four young men bought a $ 87,000 worth of weapons,” Mr. Konovalov says. “I would even say more – I don’t see anything unusual about their plot. In every country, there always is a certain amount of inadequate people who believe that their government deliberately does something to ruin the country. I wouldn’t be surprised if I learn that in any country, secret services disclose dozens of similar plots every year.”

One should be naïve to believe that three privates and one sergeant had any feasible chances to start a revolution in the US. However, it would be wrong to say that the sentiments of these four “revolutionaries”, delirious as they may be, do not deserve close attention. One of the reasons why the F.E.A.R. group wanted to kill President Obama was his African roots. F.E.A.R.’s leader Isaac Aguigui openly says that “there must be no place for a black president in the White House”.

Victor Baranets, a military observer of the Moscow-based “Komsomolskaya Pravda” newspaper, comments:

“The members of the F.E.A.R. group openly confess that their plot against Obama was motivated by racial hatred. Their slogan “There must be no place for a black president in the White House” has already become well-known. We have to state that people who dislike President Obama can be met not only in the US civil society, but in the army as well.”

The investigators of this case qualify the F.E.A.R. group as a terrorist organization. It is not yet clear whether this organization included any more members besides these four. But it is known that its leader Isaac Aguigui has propagandized his racist ideas in the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division, where he once used to serve.

By the way, this was the first US division to enter Iraq in 2003. At present, US authorities are investigating whether any of the division’s officers shared Aguigui’s racist sentiments.