Hate Groups and the Military

There seems to be an increasing number folks from white supremacist groups joining the military. The article is based on an investigation by the Southern Poverty Law Center titled "A Few Bad Men." The current increase seems to be driven by the low numbers of recruits entering the military.

According to the NY Times article:

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 Southern Poverty Law Center has an article by Stephen Barry, who is a former Special Forces officer and the National Alliance's (a supremacist group) "military unit coordinator." In it he recommends that Skinheads should join the light infantry.

"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. 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." Operations will consist primarily of patrolling, ambush, raids, cordon and search, search and destroy, assault on fortified positions, and point and area defense of White enclaves -- all light infantry missions.

When you go to the Army recruiter and tell him you want to be an infantryman -- and let me emphasize this, tell him you want infantry and accept nothing else -- your unit of choice priorities are, in order, as follows: 75th Ranger, 82nd Airborne, 101st Air Assault, 10th Mountain, 25th Infantry."

The issue of extremists in the military is not new. SPLC provides a timeline of "Extremism and the military." The timeline starts in 1953 with a "Marine Corps lieutenant general" who formed an anti-semitic group called the the Defenders of the American Constitution. After Tim McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1996, the military cracked down on supremacists in the military. However, since the invasion of Iraq, the military has had recruiting problems. The need for troops has eased the restrictions on extremists entering the military (along with the loosening of a number of other exclusions including substance abuse, criminal records, and age).

The SPLC has sent a NY Times article:

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 Southern Poverty Law Center has an letter to Rumsfeld (pdf) regarding this issue. In the letter it notes that DoD investigators "estimate that thousands of soldiers in the Army alone are involved in extremist or gang activity." Of 320 soldiers with known extremist connections, only 2 have been discharged.

This is a significant issue in regards to the potential of home grown (and trained) terrorists. It also could cause further problems of "incidents" in U.S. military theaters such as Iraq and Afghanistan. It by no means is an attempt to paint the entire military and those who serve as extremists.

Posted by rowan at July 7, 2006 8:17 AM | [eMail this article!] |