[News] Racial Extremists Are Infiltrating the Military for the Chance to 'Kill a Brown'

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Racial Extremists Are Infiltrating the Military 
for the Chance to 'Kill a Brown'

By David Holthouse, Intelligence Report

Posted on December 15, 2008, Printed on December 18, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/112770/

  The racist skinhead logged on with exciting 
news: He'd just enlisted in the United States Army.

"Sieg Heil, I will do us proud," he wrote. It was 
a June 3 post to AryanWear Forum 14, a neo-Nazi 
online forum to which "Sobibor's SS," who 
identified himself as a skinhead living in 
Plantersville, Ala., had belonged since early 
2004. (Sobibor was a Nazi death camp in Poland during World War II).

About a month after he announced his enlistment, 
Sobibor's SS bragged in another post to Forum 14 
that he'd specifically requested and been 
assigned to MOS, or Military Occupational Specialty, 98D.

MOS98D soldiers are in high demand right now. 
That's because they're specially trained in 
disarming Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), 
the infamous roadside bombs that are killing and 
maiming so many U.S. troops in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. Presumably, part of learning how to 
disarm an IED is learning how one is made.

"I have my own reasons for wanting this training 
but in fear of the government tracing me and me 
loosing [sic] my clearance I can't share them 
here," Sobibor's SS informed his fellow neo-Nazis.

One of his earlier posts indicated his reasons 
serve a darker purpose than defending America: 
"Once all the Jews are gone the world will start 
fixing itself." Timothy McVeigh
Many analysts believe that Timothy McVeigh, 
mastermind of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that 
killed 168 people, was radicalized during his 
experience as a soldier in the first Gulf War.

Sobibor's SS included enough biographical details 
in his various posts to Forum 14 over the years, 
including that he's a single father from the 
small town in southern Alabama, that a military 
investigator with access to enlistment records 
for recent months should have little trouble 
determining whether the Army may actually be 
teaching a skinhead with genocide on his mind about tactical bomb-making.

But there's little reason to expect that will happen.

Two years ago, the Intelligence Report revealed 
that alarming numbers of neo-Nazi skinheads and 
other white supremacist extremists were taking 
advantage of lowered armed services recruiting 
standards and lax enforcement of anti-extremist 
military regulations by infiltrating the U.S. 
armed forces in order to receive combat training 
and gain access to weapons and explosives.

Forty members of Congress urged then-Secretary of 
Defense Donald Rumsfeld to launch a full-scale 
investigation and implement a zero-tolerance 
policy toward white supremacists in the military. 
"Military extremists present an elevated threat 
to both their fellow service members and the 
public," U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama 
Republican, wrote in a separate open letter to 
Rumsfeld. "We witnessed with Timothy McVeigh that 
today's racist extremist may become tomorrow's domestic terrorist."

But neither Rumsfeld nor his successor, Robert 
Gates, launched any sort of systemic 
investigation or crackdown. Military and Defense 
Department officials seem to have made no 
sustained effort to prevent active white 
supremacists from joining the armed forces or to 
weed out those already in uniform.

Furthermore, new evidence is emerging that not 
only supports the Intelligence Report's original 
findings, but also indicates the problem may have 
worsened since the summer of 2006, as enlistment 
rates have continued to plummet, and the military 
has struggled to meet recruitment goals in a time 
of unpopular war. Asked about the latest 
developments, military officials this fall declined to comment.

A new FBI report confirms that white supremacists 
are infiltrating the military for several 
reasons. According to the unclassified FBI 
Intelligence Assessment, "White Supremacist 
Recruitment of Military Personnel Since 9/11," 
which was released to law enforcement agencies 
nationwide: "Sensitive and reliable source 
reporting indicates supremacist leaders are 
encouraging followers who lack documented 
histories of neo-Nazi activity and overt racist 
insignia such as tattoos to infiltrate the 
military as 'ghost skins,' in order to recruit 
and receive training for the benefit of the extremist movement."

The FBI report details more than a dozen 
investigative findings and criminal cases 
involving Iraq and Afghanistan veterans as well 
as active-duty personnel engaging in extremist 
activity in recent years. For example, in 
September 2006, the leader of the Celtic Knights, 
a central Texas splinter faction of the 
Hammerskins, a national racist skinhead 
organization, planned to obtain firearms and 
explosives from an active duty Army soldier in 
Fort Hood, Texas. That soldier, who served in 
Iraq in 2006 and 2007, was a member of the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group.

"Looking ahead, current and former military 
personnel belonging to white supremacist 
extremist organizations who experience 
frustration at the inability of these 
organizations to achieve their goals may choose 
to found new, more operationally minded and 
operationally capable groups," the report 
concludes. "The military training veterans bring 
to the movement and their potential to pass this 
training on to others can increase the ability of 
lone offenders to carry out violence from the movement's fringes."

In May, Army Cpl. Adrian Petty, a member of the 
Vinlanders Social Club (VSC) skinhead gang, 
posted several photos to his MySpace page showing 
himself in uniform serving in Iraq. One, 
depicting him riding in a Humvee, was captioned, 
"On Another VSC Recruiting Mission."

Currently, 46 members of the white supremacist 
social networking website Newsaxon.com identify 
themselves as active-duty military personnel. Six 
of these individuals are members of "White 
Military Men," a New Saxon sub-group.

Earlier this year, the founder of White Military 
Men identified himself in his New Saxon account 
as "Lance Corporal Burton" of the 2nd Battalion 
Fox Company Pit 2097, from Florida, according to 
a master's thesis by graduate student Matthew 
Kennard. Under his "About Me" section, Burton 
writes: "Love to shoot my M16A2 service rifle 
effectively at the Hachies (Iraqis)," and, "Love 
to watch things blow up (Hachies House)."

Kennard, who was working on his thesis for 
Columbia University's Toni Stabile Center for 
Investigative Journalism, also monitored claims 
of active-duty military service earlier this year 
on the neo-Nazi online forum Blood & Honour, 
where "88Soldier88" posted this message on Feb. 
18: "I am in the ARMY right now. I work in the 
Detainee Holding Area [in Iraq].  I am in this 
until 2013. I am in the infantry but want to go 
to SF [Special Forces]. Hopefully the training 
will prepare me for what I hope is to come."

One of the Blood & Honour members claiming to be 
an active-duty soldier taking part in combat 
operations in Iraq identified himself to Kennard 
as Jacob Berg. He did not disclose his rank or 
branch of service. "There are actually a lot more 
'skinheads,' 'nazis,' white supremacists now [in 
the military] than there has been in a long 
time," Berg wrote in an E-mail exchange with 
Kennard. "Us racists are actually getting into 
the military a lot now because if we don't every 
one who already is [in the military] will take 
pity on killing sand niggers. Yes I have killed 
women, yes I have killed children and yes I have 
killed older people. But the biggest reason I'm 
so proud of my kills is because by killing a 
brown many white people will live to see a new dawn."

The Army is currently investigating war crimes 
allegations leveled against Iraq combat veteran 
and active-duty Army soldier Kenneth Eastridge, 
24, who in November was sentenced to 10 years in 
prison for the December 2007 murder of a fellow 
serviceman. After Eastridge was arrested for that 
killing, National Public Radio publicized his 
MySpace page, which showed Eastridge displaying a 
tattoo of SS lightning bolts, a common neo-Nazi insignia.

Another member of Eastridge's company recently 
told Army investigators that Eastridge used a 
stolen AK-47 to fire indiscriminately at Iraqi 
civilians from his moving Humvee on the streets 
of Baghdad. "The military is to some extent 
desperate to get people to fight, soldiers who 
are not fit, mentally and physically sick, but 
they continue to send them," Eastridge's attorney 
told Kennard. "Having a tattoo was the least of [Eastridge's] concerns."

As part of the research for his thesis, "The New 
Nazi Army: How the U.S. military is allowing the 
far right to join its ranks," Kennard used the 
Freedom of Information Act to obtain from the 
Army's Criminal Investigative Division 
investigative reports concerning white 
supremacist activity in 2006 and 2007. They show 
that Army commanders repeatedly terminated 
investigations of suspected extremist activity in 
the military despite strong evidence it was 
occurring. This evidence was often provided by 
regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which are 
made up of FBI and state and local law enforcement officials.

For example, one CID report details a 2006 
investigation of a suspected member of the 
Hammerskins, a multi-state racist skinhead gang, 
who was stationed at Fort Hood, a large Army base 
in central Texas. According to the report, there 
was "probable cause" to believe that the soldier 
"had participated in a white extremist meeting 
and also provided a military technical manual 
31-210, Improvised Munitions Handbook, to the 
leader of a white extremist group in order to 
assist in the planning and execution of future attacks on various targets."

The report shows that agents only interviewed the 
subject once, in November 2006, before Fort Hood 
higher-ups called off the investigation that December.

Another report, also from 2006, covers an 
investigation of another Fort Hood soldier who 
was posting messages on Stormfront.org, a major 
white supremacist website. One CID investigator 
expresses his frustration at the muddled process 
for dealing with extremists. "We need to discuss 
the review process," he writes. "I'm not doing my 
job here. Needs to get fixed."

A third CID report, regarding a 2007 
investigation, notes the termination of an 
investigation of a soldier at Fort Richardson, 
Alaska, who was reportedly the leader and chief 
recruiter for the Alaska Front, a white 
supremacist group. According to the report, the 
investigation was halted because the solider was 
"mobilized to Camp Shelby, MS in preparation for deployment to Iraq."

Editor's Note: As this story went to press, 
Southern Poverty Law Center Chief Executive 
Officer Richard Cohen wrote Defense Secretary 
Robert Gates, reiterating the request that the 
Department of Defense adopt a zero-tolerance 
policy with respect to extremists in the 
military. As the article notes, a similar letter, 
addressed to Gates' predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, 
produced no action by the Pentagon.
© 2008 Intelligence Report All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/112770/




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