Subjects of Interest:
American Military University (AMU)
Mind of a Terrorist (HLSS154)
I enrolled at AMU to investigate where and how extremists are radicalized. My experience tracking extremist groups in the Pacific Northwest, from BLM, Antifa, and Cascadia to Neo-Nazi and militia movements, made me question where their hatred came from. I suspected educational institutions might be part of the answer. AMU’s Mind of a Terrorist course didn’t just confirm my suspicions. It blew them wide open. What AMU offers isn’t counterterrorism education. It’s a radicalization manual disguised as a class. This course doesn’t train students to fight terrorism. It teaches them how to think like terrorists, and worse, how to become ideological soldiers for the left.
The course introduces what it calls “models” and “theories,” but they function as blueprints for creating extremists. Moghaddam’s Staircase to Terrorism, Borum’s Pathway, the NYPD Radicalization Process, Sageman’s Four Prongs, Social Identity Theory, Strain Theory, these aren’t taught so students can stop terrorists. AMU uses them as tools to radicalize students. Moghaddam’s Staircase is the centerpiece of this strategy. Instead of helping students understand how to pull someone off that staircase, AMU marches students up every floor, conditioning them to adopt the mindset of the radicalized. The same goes for every model: personal grievance becomes your lens, victimhood becomes your identity, outrage becomes your mission, as long as you’re on the left. If not, you’re a potential terrorist.
This isn’t theory. This is recruitment. AMU’s curriculum mirrors the exact tactics used by terrorist recruiters. Personal connection, community, grievance exploitation, and stepwise ideological conditioning. These are the methods AMU drills into students while calling it education. The same pattern seen in the Yale study of how women were radicalized into white nationalist groups is right here: build belonging, validate grievance, reinforce hate, and drive loyalty to a cause. AMU doesn’t just teach these steps. It performs them on its students. Tote the line and get your degree. Go against the grain, fail.
Every part of the course is stacked to push an agenda: terrorism equals right-wing extremism. The examples are endless: Timothy McVeigh, Anders Breivik, Proud Boys, Atomwaffen Division. Week after week, students are force-fed white supremacist case studies as if they represent the entire threat landscape. Left-wing violence: BLM, Antifa, Cascadia, is ignored, excused, or erased. AMU conditions students to see one kind of threat and turn a blind eye to the rest. That’s not an accident. No university could build curriculum after curriculum this way by chance. This is intentional. It’s programming.
I raised these issues in our weekly discussions. I called out the bias. I shared my experience tracking extremists and warned how this selective focus fuels the violence AMU claims to oppose. I tried to focus my Progress Assignment on BLM. The professor said I couldn’t use BLM because it’s not an extremist or terrorist group. I was punished. Dr. Kathryn Lambert gave me a zero, falsely accusing me of using AI. To prove her accusation was baseless, I ran multiple AI detection tests, not just on my assignment, but on all my books dating back to 2010 and on her published writing from years before AI even existed. The tools flagged her work, as well as mine, as AI-generated, exposing how unreliable these detectors are. I even ran passages from Genesis in the Bible, and the tool claimed it was nearly 100 percent AI-generated. After reviewing her background, including her work history with the FBI and material I found online, I honestly believe the zero wasn’t about AI at all. It was because I went against the grain. My grade was changed, but the message was clear: challenge AMU’s agenda, and you’ll be attacked.
AMU’s course doesn’t just mirror terrorist recruitment, it is recruitment. It primes future law enforcement, intelligence, and homeland security professionals to see only the threats AMU wants them to see. It grooms them to become agents of a political agenda. It trains them to ignore or excuse left-wing extremism while obsessing over the right. This isn’t education. It’s indoctrination. It’s a threat to national security.
Mind of a Terrorist isn’t a counterterrorism class. It’s a blueprint for creating radicalized minds. Minds loyal to a single political viewpoint, blind to the full spectrum of violence tearing this country apart. AMU must be called out, exposed, and held accountable. The stakes are too high to let this stand.
Click the links below for a breakdown of AMU’s counter-terrorism and homeland security curriculum. Each entry focuses on a specific course, pattern, or policy, exposing how bias undermines national security and professional training.
Why did you create Misleading by Design?
As a writer, I’ve experienced the joy of creating stories but also the frustration of navigating the publishing world. Behind the scenes, the process of marketing a book is filled with scams, schemes, and people looking to take advantage of authors. With over 30 years of experience in intelligence and investigations, I realized I could use those skills along with my writing background to help expose the bad actors in our industry and beyond. Misleading by Design is my way of fighting back.
Your projects seem all over the place. Why not just stick to one subject or theme?
At first glance, my projects might seem scattered. I write about ghost stories, spiritual preservation, investigative reporting, and even political analysis. But they all serve one purpose. Each one invites readers to interpret what they see based on their own beliefs, experiences, and instincts. That's the heart of Branching Plot Books. Whether it's a scroll sealed with a forgotten soul, a book that can be read multiple ways, or a report that exposes something hidden in plain sight, the goal is the same. I want readers to take an active role, to question the surface, and decide what they believe is real. The stories may differ, but the purpose is always connected.
What is Misleading by Design’s Briefing Room?
It’s an investigative blog that exposes political bias, fraud, scams, and manipulation in institutions that claim to educate or protect the public. That includes universities, publishing platforms, corporate programs, and anything else hiding an agenda behind a professional front.
Who runs this blog?
I do. Arthur Mills. I’m a retired U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 and former All-Source Intelligence Technician with 31 years of experience in intelligence and investigations. I’ve tracked extremist threats, exposed political corruption, and led intelligence operations. I’ve seen what real indoctrination looks like, and I’m calling it out when I see it again. This time in classrooms and consumer markets.
Are you affiliated with any political group?
No. I don’t work for any party, PAC, campaign, or media outlet. I’m not here to push an agenda or play politics. I’m here to expose whoever’s lying, misrepresenting, or manipulating others, regardless of which side they’re on.
When I worked in the private sector, I conducted opposition research and tracked domestic extremist groups from across the political spectrum. I’ve investigated threats from both the left and the right. I don’t excuse violence, bias, or propaganda just because it aligns with one side’s agenda. If you're hiding your motives behind credentials, credentials behind ideology, or ideology behind fake neutrality, you're part of the problem. And you’ll show up here.
Why are you investigating food? What does this have to do with Branching Plot Books?
Because it’s the most common scam nobody talks about. Fast food chains show thick burgers and crisp fries in their ads, then hand you a flattened mess in a greasy bag. Grocery stores use packaging that promises quality but delivers bland, shriveled, or half-empty products. It’s manipulation through presentation. They sell the illusion, not the item.
And that’s the same trick used in education, politics, publishing, and everywhere else. If they can sell you a lie in a sandwich, they can sell it anywhere.
Misleading by Design fits the larger mission of Branching Plot Books by turning real-world scams into something the reader has to question, interpret, and investigate. Like my other projects, it doesn’t hand you answers. It gives you evidence, patterns, and contradictions, then dares you to put the pieces together. Whether it’s testimonies from the lost souls, curriculum bias, staged food ads, or publishing cons, the goal is the same: to make you rethink what you’ve been told and see how easily truth gets packaged, sold, and distorted.
What made you investigate American Military University?
Because it claims to train intelligence and homeland security professionals. What it’s actually doing is grooming students to think one way, speak one way, and ignore anything that doesn’t fit the school's left-wing agenda. That isn’t education. That's political indoctrination.
When I was tracking domestic extremist groups, I kept asking the same question. Where does this hate come from? What feeds it? I suspected the root was in their education. What they were taught. What they were not taught. That includes schools and universities. The slogans change, but the indoctrination is baked in.
After retiring from the military, I decided to get the formal education to match my experience. I chose a degree in Counter-Terrorism from American Military University. It promotes itself as a leader in intelligence, counter-terrorism, and homeland defense. It’s one of the largest programs of its kind. On paper, it looked like the right fit.
It wasn’t.
Course after course, it became clear that AMU wasn’t teaching students how to counter terrorism. It was teaching them how to adopt one worldview. How to view one side as the enemy. How to justify violence and extremism from the other. This wasn’t counter-terrorism. It was a curriculum on how to become a left-wing extremist.
I document everything. The entire report is published on The Briefing Room, in serialized form. I sent it to professors and top university officials. They ignored it. They didn’t defend their curriculum. They didn’t ask for clarification. They ignored me. They know I’m on to them.
That's why I’m staying in the program. I’m not there for the degree anymore. I don’t need it. I’m there to finish the investigation. American Military University has built a propaganda machine. And I plan to expose every part of it.
Do you accept tips or leads?
Yes. If you’ve seen something worth investigating, send it through my contact page. I check everything personally.
This includes curriculum bias at any level, from elementary schools to universities. If you’ve seen political agendas being pushed in grade school lesson plans, high school classrooms, college syllabi, or university programs, I want to hear about it. If you’ve dealt with fake credentials, unethical hiring, publishing fraud, corporate indoctrination, or institutional censorship, send it in. I follow evidence, not agendas.
If something feels off and you think no one else will touch it, send it anyway. I’ll look into it.
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