In the wake of recent right-wing violence one of the most annoying and persistent fragments of apologia has been the lone-wolf canard. This line of half baked rhetoric would have us believe Roeper and Friends aren't terrorists because they acted on their own accords, that they weren't part of any organized movement; they are "lone-wolves," aberrant kooks, directionless schizos roaming the countryside in search of guns and outrage.
[Update: Fifth Footnote added]
I'm not sure what irritates me more about this line of reasoning: the desperate attempt to divorce the hyperbolic rhetoric of the right from its consequences, or the basic ignorance of terrorism on display. Lone-wolves ARE terrorists, and despite assumptions to the contrary they are not aimless; they are goal oriented hunters, the product of leaderless resistance networks and inspirational leadership models.
But Tigr, what is a leaderless resistance network? And how can lone-wolves be the result of both something that is leaderless, when you insist there is a leadership model at work?
I'm glad you asked. A leaderless network isn't leaderless per se, it has the appearance of being leaderless. In an age of increased surveillance traditional leadership models are a liability for terrorist organizations. Top down models are easy to trace; evidence linking leader to follower is often what causes the model to collapse. Leaderless resistance provides plausible deniability. A leader cannot be indicted on conspiracy charges if there’s no proof he participated in a conspiracy*.
Instead the rise of electronic surveillance has in turn given rise to inspirational leadership**. Jessica Stern identifies Michael Bray as the inspirational leader of the Army of God, noting that he and other inspirational leaders "mobilize rather than supervise their followers. They do not get involved in day-to-day management issues," nor do they offer "tangible rewards such as salaries to their followers," resulting in a reciprocal rather than top-down relationship where followers become leaders and leaders may become moral agents (148).***
The Nuremberg Files website, run by Neal Horsley, is an example of terrorists exploiting such a leadership model. For the uninitiated, NF is notorious for publishing the full names and home addresses of abortion providers****. The site gives the appearance of a hit list, identifying providers injured, and striking through the names of those murdered*****. Although Horsely never states that the providers SHOULD be shot, given the context surrounding the information, the goal is apparent: assassination (To my knowledge the list is not currently on-line).
Lone-wolves then are self directed terrorists, choosing what pieces of information to act upon, and which individuals to assassinate. They are one man cells, who need only the barest of facts and obsessive determination to complete their mission objectives.
And this brings us back to Roeper. Yes, he is a lone-wolf, but this is further proof he is a terrorist, not evidence to the contrary. He isn't crazy--at least not in the clinical sense. He is a rogue actor, a member of a radicalized and DE-CENTRALIZED movement dedicated to the use of violence and intimidation to achieve its goal: ending access to abortion clinics.
Every time a pundit dismisses a terrorist on the basis said terrorist is a lone wolf, that pundit--whether he realizes it or not--becomes complicit in aiding anti-abortion extremists. As long as the media treats lone-wolves as maniacs in bunny costumes, the strategy remains efficacious. It provides terrorist organizations such as the Army of God with a pressure free tactic. If Lone-wolves aren't codified as terrorists then there is no social/legal pressure to catch them, and they will continue to be the primary culprit of anti-abortion terrorism.
*This speaks to my earlier diary about censorship, as the strategy itself has been developed over time to circumvent the First Amendment.
**This model is not the exclusive purview of terrorists; in fact, it is on display here at DailyKos.
***A portion of this diary comes from an unpublished thesis written by moi. I'm just stating this to protect myself from future accusations of plagiarism.
****Michelle Malkin used similar tactics a few years ago in publishing the private information of several college students. Although no pundit called this an act of terrorism, I think there's a strong case to be made that, yes, it was terrorism.
*****The website has a convoluted history with the First Amendment. Unless I'm mistaken, the Supreme Court ruled it was not, in fact, a form of protected speech. THIS is how high the free speech bar is, for those of you confused by my censorship skepticism.