[News] Racial Extremists Are Infiltrating the Military for the Chance to 'Kill a Brown'
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu Dec 18 10:49:18 EST 2008
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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