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(Salon.com) – The lax regulations have also opened the military’s doors to neo-Nazis, white supremacists and gang members — with drastic consequences. Some neo-Nazis have been charged with crimes inside the military, and others have been linked to recruitment efforts for the white right. A recent Department of Homeland Security report, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” stated: “The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.” Many white supremacists join the Army to secure training for, as they see it, a future domestic race war. Others claim to be shooting Iraqis not to pursue the military’s strategic goals but because killing “hajjis” is their duty as white militants.
Soldiers’ associations with extremist groups, and their racist actions, contravene a host of military statutes instituted in the past three decades. But during the “war on terror,” U.S. armed forces have turned a blind eye on their own regulations. A 2005 Department of Defense report (sizable pdf) states, “Effectively, the military has a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy pertaining to extremism. If individuals can perform satisfactorily, without making their extremist opinions overt … they are likely to be able to complete their contracts.”
Iraq veteran Forrest Fogarty sailed through recruitment
despite his neo-Nazi tattoos. (Photo: Matt Kennard)
- “I hate Arabs more than anybody, for the simple fact I’ve served over there and seen how they live. They’re just a backward people. Them and the Jews are just disgusting people as far as I’m concerned. Their customs, everything to do with the Middle East, is just repugnant to me.”
Hate Groups Are Infiltrating the Military, Group Asserts – NY Times 2006
ATLANTA (CS Monitor) – The appearance of 40 active-duty US soldiers on a social networking site known as the “fascist Facebook” appears to add credibility to a controversial government report released in April about extremism in the military.
Presented to congressional committees, the revelations by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) – covered in depth by the military-oriented newspaper, Stars and Stripes – also raises new questions about how serious the Army is about rooting out rank-and-file neo-Nazis – and their potential impact on morale and military discipline.
The two declarations are each five pages long and contain a series of devastating allegations concerning Erik Prince and his network of companies, which now operate under the banner of Xe Services LLC. Among those leveled by Doe #2 is that:
- “Prince views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe.To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.
Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince’s executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to ‘lay Hajiis out on cardboard’. Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince’s employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as ‘ragheads’ or ‘hajiis’.”
Now out of office, [Jacques] Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”
This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”
Allez savoir
After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Römer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Römer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to “turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,” and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”
(Truthout) – Turse also talks of the Microsoft Xbox game “Close Combat: First to Fight,” which was originally a training tool developed for the US Marine Corps by civilian contractor Destineer Studios. His book reveals that the game “was created under the direction of more than 40 active-duty Marines, fresh from the frontlines of combat in the Middle East [who] worked side-by-side with the development team to put the exact tactics they used in combat into “First Fight.”
“First to Fight” is but one of many video games that the US military has availed itself of on an extensive scale to indoctrinate, desensitize, dehumanize and ultimately recruit young people into the vocation of legitimized violence in the name of heroism and patriotism.
When veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan gathered at a Winter Soldier event to share their stories and experiences in the occupations with the media, Kristopher Goldsmith, who has served in Iraq, spoke to Truthout about what influenced him as a youngster to want to join the military in order to kill people.
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Nazi Germany glorified an idealized “Aryan/Norse” heritage, consequently extremists have appropriated many symbols from pre-Christian Europe for their own uses. They give such symbols a racist significance, even though the symbols did not originally have such meaning.
Forbidden image in Germany and neighbouring countries.It’s a double-edged sword used by opinion-makers like Glenn Beck and talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. It’s pure fascism (SA brown shirts) and ugly racism which ultimately leads to violence. See also my recent diary on Joost Meerloo. Every American must remember the history of the 1936 Berlin Olympics and a superior Jesse Owen.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
The Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League released statements criticizing the comparison.
“It is preposterous to try and make a connection between the president’s health care logo and the Nazi Party symbol, the Reichsadler,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and dean of the Wiesenthal center. “We demean ourselves and everything that America stands for when we compare either Democrats or Republicans to the Nazi Third Reich.”
NYT – Beyond Beltway, Health Debate Turns Hostile
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Ah, thanks for that, Oui. I had not actually seen the health care logo.
It does look a little like the Reichsadler, but no more so than does, let’s say, the symbol of the United States Marine Corps.
The irony, of course, being that there actually are neo-Nazis in the US military, as you have noted on this and other occasions.