The Antifa movement behind much of the current rioting is not “anti-fascist,” as its name suggests.
It’s a revolutionary movement that aims to overthrow the U.S. government, said Martin Scott Catino, a Fulbright scholar and a member of the Anti-Communist Action Team, with more than 20 years studying terrorist groups.
“We see that they are a very, very dedicated terrorist group that has an objective of overthrowing our government and harming our republic,” Catino said on “The Daily Signal Podast.”
He said a “reason why so many of us are concerned about this is because we went to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” and have “witnessed these types of terrorist groups organizing, creating insurgencies, and the horrible consequences of it.”
“So you’ll find people like myself that have worked in the intelligence and the security field and research field being so very concerned about this issue,” he said.
Catino said Antifa can be traced back to European communist groups and strains of radical anarchism in the United States, but it’s “very adaptive.”
“They are more committed to being tactically effective, to carry out their destructive mission than conforming to any historical or organizational format they may have had in the past.”
He said “you look in the newspaper and you see the terrible work they’re doing against police, you see what they’re doing by trying to occupy areas, and I don’t mean just the CHOP in Seattle, but just other areas of the country, and just the horrible damage they’re doing with arson, and attacking our institutions, our courthouses, our sacred heritage, and really even an entire class of people, our business class.”
It’s all evidence of their intent to overthrow the U.S., he said.
“On one side, they’re going to put out their cover, their mask, and they’re going to have propaganda in that regard,” he said. “But they’re actually very open on their websites, their doctrinal statements, their actions, and even after events, they state that their objective is the overthrow of the government of the United States and the destruction of our entire system, politically, socially, and culturally.”
He said that reports from police, media and the business community show Antifa is using multiple tactics and strategies.
“No. 1, we’re seeing these … clad in the black outfits, covering their face, street action, where they’re not just committing violence against the targets I just mentioned, but they’re carefully manipulating the post-attack scenario.”
He noted that includes lawyers and people “working in the media.”
Those who are being arrested include school teachers and professors who “are embedded in organizations in America.”
Then there’s the “decriminalization” of their actions by prosecutors.
He said the movement is decentralized, but still has “individuals trained” for a variety of jobs, from planning to implementation to surveillance to execution.
He warned that the worst is yet to come but law enforcement is prepared.
“The FBI in the past has done an outstanding job working against the Animal Liberation Front, the Earth Liberation Front, which are similar groups in their formations. So we really have a great law enforcement community. They, and many others … are doing an outstanding job.”
