UPDATE 2… A look through the Ohio Militia’s top MySpace friends may well be meaningless, but if you assume for a second that these federal raids in northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan are related (read earlier post and update below), it looks more and more like the FBI, Homeland Security and Joint Task Force on Terrorism may have gone after various linked militia groups. Ohio Militia’s topmost friends are all located in Southeast Michigan – The Michigan Militia Corps (Wolverines); Hutaree, who is an individual but simpatico with the Ohio Militia, if his videos are any indication; the Lenawee Militia. Lenawee is not far from Adrian, MI – a town specifically mentioned in a video report from WXYZ TV as a location where the feds have focused their efforts.
UPDATE… At the moment there is little reason to suspect a link other than timing, but could this FBI raid today in Sandusky, OH be connected to the mysterious activities in Ann Arbor? Moreover, could the Sandusky raid have been an effort to roust the Ohio Militia? Commenters on the Sandusky Register newspaper’s website seem to think so, as do posters on the far-right Free Republic message board. While information about the trailer park raid in Sandusky is just as sketchy as info on the Ann Arbor raids, a few items stick out: in Sandusky, police were seen arresting a white male in a black t-shirt. Many Americans, upon hearing the “Joint Terrorism Task Force” might be involved in an investigation (see earlier post below), tend to not suspect “white males” of terrorism, in spite of what our own recent history has taught us. Also, in a report (see the video accompanying the article) about the actions in Ann Arbor there was a reference to suspects who had been “arrested as they came across the Ohio border.”
Sandusky and Ann Arbor are about 2 hours apart, according to Google Maps.
(It is interesting to note that these raids, if they are related to white militias, come on the same day the New York Times‘ Frank Rich inserted the following nugget in his column, “The Rage Is Not About Health Care“:
If Congressional Republicans want to maintain a politburo-like homogeneity in opposition to the Democrats, that’s their right. If they want to replay the petulant Gingrich government shutdown of 1995 by boycotting hearings and, as John McCain has vowed, refusing to cooperate on any legislation, that’s their right too (and a political gift to the Democrats). But they can’t emulate the 1995 G.O.P. by remaining silent as mass hysteria, some of it encompassing armed militias, runs amok in their own precincts…
Emphasis was added.)
EARLIER… No one knows what’s really going on, but tonight a regular alphabet soup of federal agencies swarmed neighborhoods in Southeast Michigan…
Armed with warrants they may have made as many as a half-dozen arrests. An FBI command center replete with satellite trucks and a transmission tower has been set up at the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office, but so far, the feds are tight-lipped as to what’s up. Local media are calling this a “major operation.” This post may be updated as needed.