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Erewhon |
07/08/06 |
Hate Groups Are Infiltrating the Military, Group Asserts
By JOHN KIFNER
Published: July 7, 2006
A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.
"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."
A Defense Department spokeswoman said officials there could not comment on the report because they had not yet seen it.
The center called on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to appoint a task force to study the problem, declare a new zero tolerance policy and strictly enforce it.
The report said that neo-Nazi groups like the National Alliance, whose founder, William Pierce, wrote "The Turner Diaries," the novel that was the inspiration and blueprint for Timothy J. McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, sought to enroll followers in the Army to get training for a race war.
The groups are being abetted, the report said, by pressure on recruiters, particularly for the Army, to meet quotas that are more difficult to reach because of the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq.
The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members."
Mr. Barfield said Army recruiters struggled last year to meet goals. "They don't want to make a big deal again about neo-Nazis in the military," he said, "because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists."
The 1996 crackdown on extremists came after revelations that Mr. McVeigh had espoused far-right ideas when he was in the Army and recruited two fellow soldiers to aid his bomb plot. Those revelations were followed by a furor that developed when three white paratroopers were convicted of the random slaying of a black couple in order to win tattoos and 19 others were discharged for participating in neo-Nazi activities.
The defense secretary at the time, William Perry, said the rules were meant to leave no room for racist and extremist activities within the military. But the report said Mr. Barfield, who is based at Fort Lewis, Wash., had said that he had provided evidence on 320 extremists there in the past year, but that only two had been discharged. He also said there was an online network of neo-Nazis.
"They're communicating with each other about weapons, about recruiting, about keeping their identities secret, about organizing within the military," he said. "Several of these individuals have since been deployed to combat missions in Iraq."
The report cited accounts by neo-Nazis of their infiltration of the military, including a discussion on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront. "There are others among you in the forces," one participant wrote. "You are never alone."
An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units.
The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator."
"Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "
He concluded: "As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood."
===
If this is true, would you welcome it or worry about it?
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Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 07/10/06 9:27 pm:
Monitored? No. Disciplined? You better believe it.
It takes someone who has actually been under military discipline to understand just how powerful a system it is, and how it changes a person. I know that anyone who steps out of line too far wishes he had never been born. Just as an example of what thay might do to a white supremamcist who steps out of line, purely off the books:
First they'll make him run with a full ruck till he pukes. Then they'll pick him back up and make him run more. When he collapses, they'll start him on pushups and situps. Then they'll make him run again, till he pukes. And they'll keep doing it until he gets the point or ends up under medical care, whichever comes first. And once he gets out of the hospital, they'll do it again. And then they'll start getting nasty.
Believe me, after a day or two of that, the whole "white supremacist" thing kind of gets left behind.
(If you think the way the POWs are being treated is harsh, you don't ever want to piss off a drill instructor or a senior non-com with white supremacist bull. Or with any other form of rule-breaking.)
Trust me... the military knows how to discipline its soldiers, whether formally or informally. They take great glee in it, as a matter of fact. Nothing makes a drill instructor happier than having some poor schmuck who broke the rules of conduct... especially for something like race.
Elliot
Clarification/Follow-up by kindj on 07/10/06 10:39 pm:
Elliot:
What you described is merely one possibility of "official" punishment. Or "attitude examination and re-orientation," however you like it.
Unofficially, it might be that the Drill Sergeant or NCO who's charged with re-educating this wayward lad is of whatever race/nationality/group that the offender has a beef with.
Or the offender might find himself in a new platoon with the demographic balance being a little stronger in one particular direction, so that he can get to know his brothers-in-arms of different backgrounds better, and thus get over his silly little notion of "supremacy."
"The only color that reigns supreme
is the red of our blood and our Army green."
DK Clarification/Follow-up by Erewhon on 07/11/06 12:45 am:
B>Elliot,
You seem to be labouring under the delusion that I have never been in the military.
If I knew how to insert a photograph I would give you pictorial proof to the contrary.
Ronnie
Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 07/11/06 1:26 pm:
Dennis
As you well know, official punishment in the military includes a full invenstigation of events, and could include courts-martial and time in a military prison or being dishonorably discharged or relieved of duties. It could also be as simple as letters of reprimand attached to one's file. But the military takes official notice and has an institutional memory of the event. The types of punishment handed out by NCOs that I described above are all "off the books" and unofficial. Once the punishment is over, the military has no official memory of the event and the slate is wiped clean. That is the difference between "on the books" and "of the books" punishment in the military.
>>>Unofficially, it might be that the Drill Sergeant or NCO who's charged with re-educating this wayward lad is of whatever race/nationality/group that the offender has a beef with.<<<
Well that would cetainly add to the zeal of the NCO in charge of the attitude-adjustment regimen of the "wayward lad". And in fact, it would add to the poetic justice of the event. But in the end, it doesn't matter if our hypothetical redneck skinhead is being punished by a minority or a white. An attitude adjustment WILL come. It is inevitable.
That's why I'm so sure, and I know you agree, that the military knows how to handle this kind of problem.
Ronnie,
I haven't said that you weren't in the military. But if you were, then you will understand how well a military can deal with such a problem internally without much muss or fuss. The military system has been dealing with the discipline of "bad apples" for thousands of years. A couple of skinheads aren't going to be too much to handle.
Besides, the active US military is made up of 1.4 million people. There are an estimated 2,000 or so skinheads in the military. How much of a problem do you think those 2,000 or so skinheads are going to be to the rest of the military in this day and age? Not much.
Elliot
Clarification/Follow-up by purplewings on 07/13/06 2:36 am:
Ronnie,
No it didn't. I think you missed this part:
change the symbol to < and > Clarification/Follow-up by Erewhon on 07/13/06 4:46 am:
PW
Sorry to be so dense. Which symbol do you mean?
Ronnie
Clarification/Follow-up by purplewings on 07/13/06 5:48 am:
I know you aren't dense so you must be teasing me.
Change this { to < and change this } to >
Now try again ok?
Clarification/Follow-up by Erewhon on 07/13/06 10:33 am:
PW,
Ahah! I will try. Thank you for your patience.
:)
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