A spy ring that included Americans trying to help one part of our government protect our border in the perceived absence of help from other parts of the government.
According to one article cited:
Marine Gunnery Sgt. Gary Maziarz said patriotism motivated him to join a spy ring, smuggle secret files from Camp Pendleton and give them to law enforcement officers for anti-terrorism work in Southern California.
He knew his group was violating national security laws. But he said bureaucratic walls erected by the military and civilian agencies were hampering intelligence sharing and coordination, making the nation more vulnerable to terrorists.
Maziarz, a member of the Marine Forces Reserve, had helped search for survivors in New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“I decided to make a difference and act,” Maziarz testified during his court-martial in July at Camp Pendleton.
I mentioned that private warfare with private military assets would take root if our people think our government is failing to fight vigorously enough to defend us.
It doesn't even matter if Maziarz was right in his belief. He perceived a failure and acted to correct it.
Direct action by private citizens is not out of the question. Like I've written, a Western city is not necessarily the first target for nuclear-armed (perhaps "just" a dirty bomb, to be sure) terrorists.
And while that is surely an exteme potential example of a private reaction to our government's perceived failure to fight the war effectively, such patriotic motivations could be exploited by enemies posing as elements of our government just trying to fight the war with one hand tied behind its back. If I was the enemy, that's what I'd try to do. Few Americans would provide aid to jihadis. A lot more would help jihadis posing as patriotic Americans.
Private warfare is not something we should welcome. War should be focused violence orchestrated for a specific goal. When anyone can wage war, anything can be the objective, and anything could happen.
We could actually find ourselves in a war between civilizations.
