White supremacists' infiltration of the U.S. military is something about which I've been writing on and off for a very long time.
July 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 [The Southern Poverty Law Center]. …'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.'"
June 2009: "Salon has just published a big piece about white supremacists infiltrating the U.S. military care of the increasingly lax regulations on extremism in the ranks, now that the military can't afford to be the slightest bit picky about who it takes. The article underlines one of the most worrisome aspects of white supremacists' military involvement and hints at a very ugly possible future in America when a bunch of highly-trained extremists comes home: 'White supremacists may be doing more than avoiding expulsion. They may be using their military status to help build the white right.'"
July 2009: "The Southern Poverty Law Center reports they have 'recently found dozens of personal profiles on a neo-Nazi website where individuals listed 'military' as their occupation — the latest evidence of extremist infiltration gathered by the SPLC.' ...The military newspaper Stars & Stripes, reporting on the SPLC's findings, notes: 'A Stripes reporter searched the user profiles listing their job category as 'Military' and found 130 hits out of 7,906 total members.'"
October 2017: In the We Resist thread, I link to this report at the Military Times about a poll they had completed which found: "Nearly one in four troops polled say they have seen examples of white nationalism among their fellow service members, and troops rate it as a larger national security threat than Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan." I note: "This was a big fucking problem even when the president wasn't a white supremacist. That the commander-in-chief has put his stamp of approval on white nationalism makes this a situation of which every one of us should be terrified."
June 2018: In the We Resist thread, I share this piece at the Daily Beast about the leader of an emerging white-supremacist group, "a Marine veteran who uses his military experience to train other extremist recruits in military tactics."
February 2019: "In yet another chilling reminder that the most urgent terrorist threat in this country is conservative white men with seething resentments and personal arsenals, U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Christopher Paul Hasson, a 49-year-old self-proclaimed white nationalist with a massive stockpile of weapons and ammunition, was arrested by federal investigators after planning a large-scale terrorist attack targeting Democratic politicians and journalists."
It is not a new problem that the military can and does attract white supremacists. However, since the Bush administration, when the demands of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were used as an excuse by the military to allow, for example, recruits with existing white supremacist tattoos, the problem has gotten worse. And it should be evident how much more dangerous it is with a president who openly defends white supremacy.
Today, Christopher Mathias at the Huffington Post reports that seven active-duty military members — two Marines, two Army ROTC cadets, an Army physician, a member of the Texas National Guard, and one member of the Air Force — have been identified as members of the white supremacist group Identity Evropa, which itself was founded by an ex-Marine.
HuffPost verified the identities of seven men currently serving in the military. Their messages on the Discord server indicate that they hold deeply racist and anti-Semitic views and participate in Identity Evropa propaganda campaigns, posting stickers and flyers in cities and on college campuses.There is much more at the link.
The Marine Corps, the Army, the Air Force, and the Texas National Guard confirmed to HuffPost that the identified men were active members in those services. After HuffPost's inquiries, the military is investigating some of the men's possible ties to Identity Evropa; some servicemen were already under investigation as a result of previous tips. The military is determining whether they violated rules regarding discrimination and extremist activity.
...Last year, a series of investigative reports by ProPublica and Frontline found multiple members of violent neo-Nazi groups among the ranks of the military.
...Kathleen Belew, the author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, told HuffPost that white nationalists in our armed forces pose a clear danger.
Veterans and active-duty personnel, she said, have "played an instrumental role in moving weapons, training, and tactics from military to civilian spaces" and "dramatically escalated the impact of white power violence on civilian populations."
Meanwhile, as the Trump Regime takes no major, visible, proactive steps toward jettisoning white supremacists from the military's ranks and ensuring that white supremacists cannot enlist, they are instead fixated on banning trans people from serving openly in the military.
White supremacists in the military is an urgent problem. And it is only going to get worse as the white supremacist commander-in-chief inflames the very hatreds that underwrite violent white supremacy.
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