George Michael

Leaderless Resistance: The New Face of Terrorism

Over the past several years, the face of terrorism has undergone substantial change. Although the US government is understandably concerned about well-established and enduring terrorist organizations, there is a noticeable trend indicating the increasing prevalence of so-called lone wolf attacks by individuals and small cells with little or no connections to larger groups. Since 9/11, authorities have broken up several small Islamists cell that plotted terrorist attacks. In recent years, several lone-wolf incidents have gained headlines. For instance, in April 2009, Richard A. Poplawski, a young man who expressed racist views on extremist websites, open fired on police in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania killing three officers. Just a few weeks after that incident, an anti-abortion activist, Scott Roeder, murdered a physician who performed late-term abortions. In June, a lone gunman, a little-known, but long-standing right-wing extremist, James von Brunn, opened fire at the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC killing one guard. Then in November, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim-American psychiatrist in the US Army, went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas which killed 12 and left 31 wounded. More incidents followed in 2010. On 18 February, a 53-year-old software engineer and tax protestor, Joseph Stack, slammed his private plane into a building in Austin, Texas that contained offices of the Inland Revenue Service, which triggered a massive fireball that set the edifice aflame. And on 1 May, Faisal Shahzad, a US citizen who was born in Pakistan, attempted to detonate three bombs in a sports utility vehicle that was parked in the heart of Times Square in New York

Blueprints and Fantasies: A Review and Analysis of Extremist Fiction

Several novels have attained popularity in the extreme right subculture, most notably, The Turner Diaries—a tale of race war that convulses America. Some observers have characterized these novels as blueprints for revolution and terrorist campaigns. The medium of fiction can be an effective vehicle for propagandizing to those persons who may not be amenable to non-fiction political treatises. This article reviews some of the more popular extremist novels. By doing so, it provides insight into the worldviews and aspirations of the contemporary extreme right.

A Continuum for Responding to the Extreme Right: A Comparison between the United States and Germany

This article compares and contrasts the responses to right-wing extremism in the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany. Essentially, the approaches of these respective countries represent two polarities on a continuum. Whereas in theory, the United States allows extremist groups much more freedom to espouse unpopular ideas, the Federal Republic of Germany has the legal authority to disband extremist groups and parties that it deigns a threat to the countrys constitutional democracy. Despite these seeming differences, both countries have responded resolutely to manifestations of right-wing extremism and have actually cooperated on numerous occasions to stymie American extremist activists that have propagandized in Germany. There are advantages and disadvantages to the approaches these two countries employ in countering extremism.

David Lane and the Fourteen Words

Abstract Although a relatively obscure figure, the late David Lane had a major impact on the ideology of the global white power movement. His ‘14 words’ credo – ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children’ – became a call for action for racial activists around the globe. Imprisoned for over twenty years for his involvement in a terrorist group called ‘The Order’, Lane was considered by many as the movement’s most prominent ‘POW’. His tracts on race, revolution and Norse neo‐paganism had a major influence on the extreme Right both in the Unites States and abroad.

The Legend and Legacy of Abu Musab al‐Zarqawi

Taylor and Francis FDEF_A_255782.sgm 10.1080/14702430701559248 Defence Studies 470-2436 (pr nt)/174369 (online) Original Article 2 07 & F ancis 730 00September 2 07 Assistant Prof sor GeorgeMichael gjm3a@uvaw se.edu The aerial bombardment of a safe house not far outside Baghdad on 7 June 2006 resulted in the elimination of one of the Coalition’s key enemy figures in the global war on terror. At first blush, Zarqawi seemed an unlikely prospect for his historical role, as his early life did not portend an illustrious military career. While Allied World War II veterans spoke admirably of some of their adversaries, including Erwin Rommel, Heinz Guderian, Gerd von Rundstedt, and Isoroku Yamamoto, to Coalition forces, Zarqawi was known simply as ‘AMZ’ or ‘HVT1’. 1

RAHOWA! A History of the World Church of the Creator

This article surveys the history of the World Church of the Creator, a small and obscure organization, which has nevertheless had a significant influence on the international far right. The Creativity movement has had an impact on the far right in several ways, including spearheading an anti-Christian orientation among its younger activists, introducing vitriolic rhetoric that has contributed to violence and radicalism, fostering the development of a larger racial, as opposed to a national, identity in the global “white power” movement, and paradoxically, advocating the adoption of an organizing model which would explicitly seek to emulate certain characteristics of Judaism.

Strategic Nuclear Terrorism and the Risk of State Decapitation

Over the past two decades, the likelihood of global thermonuclear war has drastically decreased, yet the threat of a nuclear attack could be greater than ever. In fact, on the eve of the Nuclear Security Summit in April 2010, US President Barack Obama announced that the prospect of nuclear terrorism was ‘the single biggest threat to US security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term’. Likewise, in its final report, the 9/11 Commission reported that the greatest danger that America faced was the threat from terrorists armed with a weapon of mass destruction (WMD). Echoing these concerns, former CIA Director George Tenet opined that the main threat of WMD was the nuclear one and that Al-Qaeda was making efforts in that direction. Writing in 2004, Graham Allison, an authoritative scholar on the topic, stated that in his ‘own considered judgment, on the current path, a nuclear terrorist attack on America in the decade ahead is more likely than not.’ As an indication of how serious the international community has taken the issue, in 2005, the United Nations created the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. Although the probability of nuclear terrorism is still quite low, it is so consequential as to merit consideration. The potential damage stemming from nuclear terrorism could be catastrophic. A study conducted by the RAND Corporation of a hypothetical ten-kiloton attack on the port of Long Beach in California, estimated that a nuclear device would kill 60,000 persons instantly or soon thereafter, while exposing another 150,000 persons to harmful radioactive fallout. The total economic cost of such an attack would exceed

Michael Collins Piper: An American Far Right Emissary to the Islamic World

1 trillion.

The revolutionary model of Dr William L. Pierce

Abstract This essay examines the career of Michael Collins Piper, an important figure in the American far right subculture. A prolific writer, his underground books advancing various conspiracy theories have in recent years found a receptive audience in the Islamic world. Casting himself as an alternative media representative, he has conferred with leading statesmen, including Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates Sultan Ibn Zayd al‐Nahayan, former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Muhammad and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. His outreach could presage greater cooperation between segments of the far Right and the Muslim world in the future.

Jeffrey T. Richelson. Defusing Armageddon: Inside NEST, America's Secret Nuclear Bomb Squad : New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. 318 pp.,

This essay explores the revolutionary model propounded by the late Dr William L. Pierce, the founder of the National Alliance. Pierce was keenly aware of the opposition arrayed against his movement and thus outlined a strategy that he saw as viable under current conditions. Although his National Alliance organization was large by American far right standards, it still constituted a relatively small movement. Furthermore, Pierce assumed that the mainstream media were generally hostile to his message. Thus Pierce developed a revolutionary strategy to take these and other factors into account. Although no previous single source fully captured his revolutionary strategy, this essay surveys his previous writings and broadcasts so that his model comes into clearer focus.