As you know, I’ve been on the lookout for indications of the response of the far right to the Sept. 11th attacks and their aftermath. Here’s the come-on to a piece Joe Conason writes in Salon premium, to which I don’t subscribe, The real “fifth column”:

‘The true domestic threat is posed …by an unknown number of organizations and individuals on the farthest fringes of the right, with ideologies that echo Nazism and rap sheets that include every crime from bank robberies to bombings. Having repeatedly declared their determination to overthrow the United States Government and exterminate the “racially impure,” these outfits hailed the September 11 attacks as the opening salvo in a conflagration they hope will engulf us.’

David Farber, from whose mailing list I was pointed to this, comments on speculation of other links between the American paramilitary movement and Islamic extremists, for example that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols learned bomb-making from Ramsey Yousef. Supposedly, McVeigh’s attorney explored a line of defense for his client arising from reports by one of the leaders of the Philippines’ Abu Sayyef Islamic guerrilla movement (subsequently killed, apparently by his own people) that he was at a meeting with Nichols that also involved Yousef, discussing bomb-making. Here’s a Google search on ‘ “Timothy McVeigh” and Yousef ‘. [When I used the Americanized misspelling of his name, “Ramsey Yousef”, this search only came up with four hits. Thanks to Dan for pointing out the error of my ways.] This discussion thread on the “conservative news forum” freerepublic.com has some interesting speculation for right-wing conspiracy buffs.