Imagine if White Power and radical Islam formed an unholy alliance to end all unholy alliances?
Among those who believe they already have is Lorenzo Vidino of Steven Emerson's terror-busting Investigative Project. In his new book, Al Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad, he writes, "Several members of European fascist and Nazi organizations expressed their support for the 9/11 attacks."
According to Vidino, they're beguiled by Al Qaeda's discipline, field prowess, and heartfelt hatred of Jews. In fact, "there have been reports of contacts between their groups and radical Islamic organizations."
Meanwhile, in America, not only hasn't White Power reached out to radical Muslims, it's jealous of them. Shortly after 9/11, James Ridgeway of the Village Voice recorded a Michigan Nazi Party chairman's complaint that a "bunch of towel head/sand niggers put our great White Movement to SHAME." Still, we wondered, are they destined to intermingle at some point?
The man who currently occupies the throne of US White Power throne, Kevin Strom of National Vanguard, failed to respond to our inquiry. However, the man who put US White Power on the map, White Aryan Resistance (WAR) founder Tom Metzger, was ready and willing to hold forth. With his no-holds-barred style that contributed to both his rise and fall, Metzger remains an articulate spokesman in a coherence-challenged movement.
A California electronics repairman, Metzger spent the seventies wending his way through the John Birch Society, David Duke's Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and his own California Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. After scoring surprising support in the Democratic primaries for both a House and Senate seat, he formed WAR.
Over the years Metzger has been subpoenaed to appear before grand juries, IRS hearings, a Treasury Department inquiry, and FBI interrogations. According to Johnny Lee Clary, WAR's former heartland director (and famous pro wrestler under the name of Johnny Angel), Metzger's downfall began when he turned his back on the Klan and Christianity in favor of the Nazis, skinheads, and even a flirtation with Satanism.
His reign as the most powerful Aryan leader in the US came to a crashing halt in 1988. When Oregon skinheads beat a black Ethiopian immigrant to death, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League filed a lawsuit against Metzger, his son, and WAR for exhorting them to violence. Though a comparative pittance in light of the staggering $12.5 million settlement awarded the victim's family, Metzger's home was seized and a percentage of WAR's future revenues garnished.
We had written a blog for www.Freezerbox.com about Lamb and Lynx Gaede. You know, the as-seen-on-ABC's-"Primetime" twins who are fashioning a musical career out of race hatred. As young Lynx says, "We don't want to be, you know, just a big muddle."
Ostensibly, Prussian Blue, the name of their band, is "a nod to their German heritage and blue eyes," as ABC puts it. Like any good logo, though, it also has a symbolic meaning. In fact, it's code for Holocaust deniers' belief that if cyanide in the form of Zyklon-B was actually used in gas chambers, it would have left behind prussian blue stains.
In a gratuitous aside, we'll deign to point out that it's true they were absent from the gas chambers. But the Institute for Forensic Research Cracow, among others, completed a detailed study showing the presence of cyanide at Auschwitz and Birkenau. Continuing our blog:
"Even more disturbing than their message, which is, of necessity, confined to a small audience, is how their mother, April Gaede, who home-schools them, gave her blue-eyed twins such seductive names. It's like, from the moment they were born, she planned to put them to profitable use luring and snaring pedophiles.
"When they turned out blond and pretty, her master plan for the master race worked to perfection. By definition emotionally immature, young Aryan Nation men sort themselves out into two camps: misogynists and pedophiles [and] are primed to spend their money on Prussian Blue... . Savvy woman, that April."
Metzger jumped to their defense: "I love Lamb and Linx." No, he doesn't fit into either of the above categories, especially since he's pushing seventy. Indeed, posing for a picture with the Gaedes on their Website, prussianblue.net, he looks like their grandfather. In fact, he said, "I'm their political godfather."
We then took advantage of the opening Metzger provided with the intention of eventually diverting the dialogue to the White Power-fundamentalist Muslim alliance.
"Once the Gaedes have tasted success," we asked, "will they renounce white power and go mainstream in hopes of emulating the Olsen Twins, who the girls both resemble and admire?" (Mother Gaede has since tried to strong-arm the Time Inc. magazine Teen People into excluding words like "hate," "supremacist," and "Nazi" from a proposed article on the girls. It backfired, however, and Time killed the story.)
Metzger replied: "Of course anyone could change. Our associates come and go similar to the military or any volunteer group. The revolutionaries ran hot and cold when this country was born."
However, Metzger isn't too worried. "The odds are better when you plant the idea when someone is very young." And should they turn their backs on White Power, "Like it or not those thoughts will be carried to the grave no matter how much they try to suppress them."
He expanded on the potency of White Power's message. "The two weapons that our opponents use to a high degree is faith in the myth of egalitarianism and guilt. I am not burdened with those concepts. That is why in the end we win no matter how long it takes." Then he added, "My father taught me that turnabout is fair play and I believe it too."
Disdainful of mercy, single-minded, vengeful--what does that sound like? Oh yeah, Al Qaeda.
Before Vidino, William Grim reported on the European White Power-radical Islam connection for the Jewish Press. Among his findings: 1. French neo-Nazi leader Robert Faurisson associated with Ahmed Rami, a broadcaster on Stockholm's now defunct, anti-Semitic Radio Islam; 2. Upwards of 500 neo-Nazis formed the "Freedom Corps" and shipped out to Iraq before the Gulf War, only to flee after the first night of bombing (finally, some comic relief). 3. Neo-Nazis and Muslim fundamentalists share financiers in common and--file this under hide-in-plain-sight--meet at Holocaust denial conferences.
Meanwhile, The Manila Times reported that Philippine terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf had met with Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. (Others, of course, believe they were agents for Iraq.)
Vidino also relates the case of Steven Smyrek, a German neo-Nazi who converted to Islam and trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan for a suicide attack. Perhaps most troubling, however, is the case of David Myatt, who founded a fascist group called Combat 18, the security service for the British National Front. Intrepid investigative journalist Wayne Madsen narrated an account of his life on his Website, WayneMadseReport.com.
In 2003, it seems, Myatt converted to Islam and changed his name to Abdul Aziz. Attempting to synthesize Nazism with Islamic fundamentalism, Myatt/Aziz now runs Britain's National Socialist Movement, as well as leading a pro-Al Qaeda group called the Islamic Liaison Group.
In fact, well-versed in the Koran, Myatt/Aziz, the author of tracts like "The Zionist Quest for World Domination," is viewed by some as an Islamic holy man. Even Sheikh Omar Bakri, leader of the British radical Islamic group Al Muhajiroun, expressed support for him.
Since Metzger once expressed a willingness to form an alliance with the Nation of Islam (the Black Muslims), if only to share intelligence about Jewish extremist organizations, we asked him what he thought of British White Power's flirtation with radical Islam.
Unfamiliar with the tale of Myatt/Aziz, Metzger responded, "It's truly odd that any British Nationalists would side with Islam considering that Islam is drowning England. There has been almost no serious resistance to the flood in England accept for the whining of the right-wing, which is the same here in the U.S.
"Islam," he continued, "is a race-mixing religion, like Christianity. [Both welcome whites and blacks. --Editor]. These cults [sic] have no interest in the survival of the white race. Only in recruiting more people into their cults. Perhaps it's just the Jew hatred that drives Mr. Myatt."
This occasioned a keen insight: "I would remind him that a Semite is a Semite with Koran or with Bible." Then it was time to pronounce judgment on [Myatt/Aziz]: "It sounds like Mr. Myatt is not a race separatist at all. In fact this information borders on mental sickness."
As for the rioting in France, "Deport them [Muslims] all from France and all the other European nations."
Out goes the baby (allying with Muslims to gang up on Jews) with the bath water (the Muslim adage that the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"). Still, WAR has in common with Al Qaeda its cell structure, which Metzger calls "lone wolf." Was it modeled on theirs?
"The lone wolf cell structure," he replied, "is as old as the hills. All people who find themselves overwhelmed by a powerful enemy must resort to some form of this tactic. Our own revolution had the Sons of Liberty. The Ku Klux Klan certainly used it. The Civil War had such groups on both sides. The Weather Underground used it during the Vietnam war.
"Lone Wolf cells do not have to be violent," Metzger continued. "They can operate in a strictly political nature [he cites the US Communist party in the thirties and forties] or, like the IRA, with cells [and] an overground party. It's all variations on unconventional warfare." After all, "Your enemy calls you a terrorist and you call yourself a freedom fighter."
Or a jihadist, like Al Qaeda, which, unlike White Power, is rolling in dough. In light of Hurricane Katrina, we asked Metzger if when we speak of the White Race, aren't we really talking about the "White Rich"?
Metzger disagrees. "What the super-rich whites usually do is very bad for the white race in the long run," he explained. In fact, he not only advocates "punishing the corporations for actually being behind most of our problems such as the arming of China," but the death penalty for corrupt CEOs.
Meanwhile, an important source of funding for Al Qaeda, as Paul L. Williams makes clear in his recent book, The Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime, and the Coming Apocalypse, is selling drugs. That's also true of the prison-system-based Aryan Brotherhood. In fact, its leaders are currently on trial in Santa Ana, California for committing or soliciting 32 murders and attempted murders to maintain its control of drug trafficking, as well as male prostitution, gambling, and extortion, inside and outside prison.
In a Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report, Tony Delgado, whose title is Security Threat Group Coordinator for the Ohio Bureau of Rehabilitation and Correction, said "There's no doubt the Aryan Brotherhood are a bunch of racists, but when it comes to doing business, the color that matters most to them isn't black or brown or white--it's green."
Should White Power, we asked Metzger, sell drugs like Al Qaeda to fund its activities?
He demurred. "I do not see that as a wise option considering the down side." In fact, he believes decriminalizing drugs, "would go a long way in solving most of the problems [associated with drugs]. If someone doesn't know enough to stay off drugs let them suffer the personal consequences."
As for the Aryan Brotherhood, we asked if he thought it uses White Power as a mask for its own profit and power? Or are its members being unfairly prosecuted for merely taking measures to defend themselves?
"I have no contact with the Aryan Brotherhood," Metzger says. "I think it was a good idea when it started. Unfortunately it appears [Delgado's] comment seems to be correct."
Returning to funding, I asked, however far-fetched, if White Power were to amass Al Qaeda-like money, should it attempt to acquire nuclear weapons, also like Al Qaeda? After all, it would be a great way to further its ends, like, say, extorting the government to deport non-whites.
Metzger replied, "I am opposed to any use of nuclear weapons. With the kind of money Al Qaeda seems to have it could fund hundreds of low-tech assassination teams without destroying the environment."
Leave it to Al Qaeda to make White Power look benevolent in comparison. Continuing the fantasy, we asked Metzger if White Power acquired Al Qaeda-like money, to what ends would he advise putting those funds?
"At this time," Metzger says, "money is not the biggest problem."
Especially in light of his own money problems, his comment comes off as almost altruistic. He believes instead that "Establishing the overall revolutionary understanding as opposed to the failed right-wing methods is [White Power's immediate task]. Without an undisputed ideology, money is wasted by the old right-wing racial movement." Any prospective windfall would thus best be put to "Propaganda and networks of money-generating businesses."
Though Tom Metzger may not be at the vanguard of American White Power anymore, he'd know if it were extending feelers to radical Islam. At some point, however, it's bound to see the ideological and financial upside to such an alliance.
