Righteous Terrorism, American-Style

He prayed, and his lord answered. With a plastic comb, as the man tells it, he finally jimmied open the lock on the jail door. He made his way into a crawl space and unbolted a ceiling drain. Clayton Lee Waagner was free. He fled into the cold of an Illinois night seven months ago.

For a while he was quiet. Some of his followers wondered whether he had made for a foreign country. Then Waagner surfaced on the Internet. He hadn’t fled. He was here among us. He was getting ready. “I have been preparing and equipping myself for battle,” he explained.

“God did not rescue me from life in prison for my pleasure. He freed me that I might lay down my life for His will. He freed me to make war on His enemy ... And a war it shall be.”

Waagner is another righteous soldier in the terrorism business. He says he is about to attack.

Here is how he puts it:

“The government of the most powerful country in the world considered me a terrorist. The label set me aback at first. Then it struck me: They’re right. I am a terrorist. ... A storm is gathering. You can hear its distant rumbling, but no one knows whom it will strike. But be sure, it will strike. ... It doesn’t matter to me if you’re a nurse, receptionist, bookkeeper or janitor, if you work for the murderous abortionist, I’m going to kill you.”

To his followers, he asked for prayers. “God has done a mighty thing, but it has only just begun. Great things are to follow.”

That was in June.

I recognize I am doing Clayton Waagner a service by publicizing his threats. What do terrorists want, anyway? To spread terror. But an old colleague of mine who is in the family planning business has encouraged me. Waagner’s mug shot is already posted throughout the country in clinics and family planning centers. Maybe other Americans should be reminded that not all those out to terrorize this country are strangers from abroad. We grow them at home too.

Waagner is a particularly scary character, chiefly because authorities are unable to catch or contain him. He has slipped through their hands time and again. After a robbery, he eluded capture by climbing a tree. Dogs found him after his jail breakout, but he says he talked softly to them and they moved on. Earlier this month, he was involved in a traffic accident in Tennessee. Again he vanished, leaving a trail of crime.

He has been convicted of burglary and robbery and car theft and for being a criminal in possession of firearms. Police have found a bomb in his car. He is sought for a long string of offenses, including bank robbery. Just last week, a Memphis grand jury added still more charges. On Friday, the FBI put him on its 10 Most Wanted list.

So far, Waagner is not known to have followed through on his threats against abortion clinics. One of his children has been quoted as saying she thinks her father is just a hoodlum, not a killer.

Clinic workers are not reassured. He’s got too many guns and his threats are growing more strident. His open letter posted on a Christian extremist Web site says he has decided against targeting doctors because they can afford protection. So he’s menacing office workers: “These are the people who should worry about me. These are the people who need to get their heart right with their maker, whom they are about to meet.”

The authenticity of this letter has not been determined, although family planning workers believe it’s the work of Waagner. It is also not known whether statements posted on the site in support of Waagner represent the thinking of more than just a few people. In fact, Waagner himself is a big question mark. Is he truly a folk hero to fanatical anti-abortionists? Or a garden variety thug riding a streak of luck?

Two things are certain. First, Waagner is making good on his goal: “What I need to do is evoke terror.” He has. Ask a secretary at a Planned Parenthood clinic what it’s like to step out of the car and feel the hair rise on the back of her neck, wondering if Clayton Waagner isn’t at that very instant squeezing back on the trigger of a hunting rifle pointed her way.

The second thing that we know? The federal government cannot be sure of stopping him.