and who was College Republican.

Racist extremists active in U.S. military

SPLC urges Rumsfeld to adopt zero-tolerance policy

The Intelligence Project uncovers how white supremacists are using their military training to fight wars at home.

SPLC President Richard Cohen sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld imploring him to put a stop to extremists in the military.

July 7, 2006 -- Under pressure to meet wartime manpower goals, the U.S. military has relaxed standards designed to weed out racist extremists. Large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads and other white supremacists are now learning the art of warfare in the armed forces.

(...)

Military extremists present an elevated threat both to their fellow soldiers and the general public. Today's white supremacists become tomorrow's domestic terrorists.

"Neo-Nazi groups and other extremists are joining the military in large numbers so they can get the best training in the world on weapons, combat tactics and explosives," said Mark Potok, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project.

"We should consider this a major security threat, because these people are motivated by an ideology that calls for race war and revolution. Any one of them could turn out to be the next Timothy McVeigh."

link

As it happened, we laid up the colours of the CAR over it. I also recall spending a number of painful years detailing the leadership failures that led to those events in painful real time, in the daily public eye.

I don't envy US forces the blowback that I see coming - the more they come in the public mind to be perceived to foot drag on investigations, even unfairly, the worse it's going to be in the end.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

Steven D. Green was discharged for a personality disorder this April, after just 11 months of service.

"Days after a misdemeanor arrest for alcohol possession, Green enlisted in the US Army in February 2005. He was stationed in Iraq from September 2005 to April 2006 and discharged in May of 2006.[2]" - wikipedia

Pat Lang and one of his commentors, Rick:

"Green had been in the Army eleven months by the time he was discharged for an unspecified personality disorder. The discharge occurred after the rape/murder. He was a problem for the command at platoon and company levels, and they got rid of him. Quietly, so as to not disturb the higher commanders. To discharge him it had to go through battalion S1 (Personnel.)

The three soldiers at the traffic control point were set up. Someone attacked the group and ran. Part of the group left to chase them, leaving the three troops at the traffic control point. One was killed, two were captured, tortured, beheaded and left to be found. These three soldiers were ~in the same platoon~ as Green had been. For purposes of payback, being in the same platoon as the rapist/murderers is the same as being in the extended family, so they were responsible to the extended family four Green killed.

The rape/murder very probably led to Green's discharge, and was almost certainly known to everyone in his platoon, his company commander and first sergeant, the battalion commander and XO, and the Battalion Personnel section. This is at a minimum.

The hullabaloo caused by the capture of the two soldiers brought the entire U.S Army in the Iraq command out in force, and included - what was it? - some 6,000 soldiers searching for them over the weekend until the bodies were found? That tore to top off the cover up within the 502d bn. It was exposed in the debriefings after the deaths of the three soldiers.

I can understand your genteel use of the term "~may have caused~ the soldier's kidnappings, beheadings." but for this to all happen in the same single platoon is just to unlikely to be a reasonable coincidence. Especially when connected to the discharge of the prime suspect for some unspecified "personality disorder" after he has only been in the Army for a total of eleven months. Gimme a break. Every bit of this stuff is connected. That discharge itself is very unlikely to have occurred to anyone. That it happened to the person identified as the prime suspect in a rape/murder shortly after the crime happened is too unreasonable to be a coincidence.

By the way, notice that Green was a high school dropout with a GED. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, he would not even have been allowed into the Army. The standards had to be lowered a lot just to get him in, and look what happened as a result. High school graduates are a lot less likely to be this kind of discipline problem. But the Army wasn't making the enlistment quotas, remember?

But - hey! Congratulations on twelve great months! Glad you're meeting your quotas. I guess when you're sucking the dregs off the bottom of the barrel an atrocity or two might just be the price one has to pay. It's like living on your credit cards - you never have to think about how much stuff costs til downstream.

I guess when you're sucking the dregs off the bottom of the barrel an atrocity or two might just be the price one has to pay.

I guess by your standards we should judge the entire Canadian Army and Nation by the actions of a few soldiers in Somalia. So easy to point fingers from north of the border, espeically when you simply forget your own Army's sad history of abuse.

Pajamaline charm there Ranger. Wow, what character they've taught you. You just deny and spin everything. Nothing is ever the fault of Rummy or Bush, just them damn libruls and hey, toss in a few Canucks who don't know how to mind their own business.

Damn good thing you are not a diplomat.

you completely ignore my basic point, which, in this case is that this latest NYT story is simply a rehash of issues that have been around for a while. I'm sure you can find a way to explain to me how neo-nazis infiltrating the military and murdering two people in Fayetteville NC in 1995 is the fault of Bush and Rummy. Nope, there never was any issue with the kind of thing before 2001 when the current administration took office. And there was no recruiting crisis in 1999, it never existed.

You know there is the wonderful thing they have invented called the internet. It will allow you to find context to todays news stories if you are curious and willing to spend a little time searching and reading. Of course, that might pierce your bubble, so do so at your own risk.

And, by the way, I was a diplomat of sorts, and did a very good job of it. But one of the things you learn as a diplomat is to give as good as you get. Funny thing about the blogosphere is, so many bloggers can dish it out (make snide little remarks about what other people say) but when it is given back to them in the same tone, suddenly it incivility and poor manners. As I recall, you started this whole post with a specific attack on a previous comment I made in a particularly snarky tone and now you get all in a huff because I reply in kind?

I will admit to getting a little tired of people like ES continually judging US military behavior when thier own army has done as bad or worse in similar situations and delt with it no better, if not worse than the US Army is now.

I will admit to getting a little tired of people like ES continually judging US military behavior when thier own army has done as bad or worse in similar situations and delt with it no better, if not worse than the US Army is now.

You caused this diversion yourself. One doesn't have to be American to be in this discussion. Canada isn't the issue here nor Canadiens.

non-American's couldn't participate, I simply am pointing out that if they choose to, they should be willing to be subject to similar value judgements.

ES in particular has repeatedly critisized the US for the conduct of the military in Iraq. Fair enough, but then I should be able to level similar judgements about Canada and Canadians based on the Canadian military's actions as well. Only fair don't you think?

ES in particular has repeatedly critisized the US for the conduct of the military in Iraq.

I've certainly repeatedly criticized this Administration and the military, and their conduct of the war, yes. I'm not interested in criticizing "Americans" for the actions of the most profoundly un-American administration I've seen since I watched Watergate unfold.

I've gone so far as to argue - and to produce support for the argument - that the bulk of Bush supporters were actually deceived through information manipulation into supporting him because they believed he represented progressive and multilateral positions that accorded well with their own beliefs when he actually did not.

I'll happily link to those if it'll clear up any remaing confusion.

Fair enough, but then I should be able to level similar judgements about Canada and Canadians based on the Canadian military's actions as well. Only fair don't you think?

No, that would simply make you sound like an ignorant bigot who conflated "Canadians" with the actions of their military and government.

I thought I was generally pretty clear about not confusing "Americans" with the actions of their military or their government, but if you can produce a specific example of the kind of behaviour you're implying you'd be mirroring, if I agree it merits apology I'll do so without reservation.

I don't come to an American blog because I'm anti-America or Americans, Ranger. No matter how some want to raise implications or accusations of "anti-Americanism" in a transparent attempt to smear "objection to US policy as it impacts the world beyond its borders" with "blind bigotry against America and Americans", it's a failure outside America; Americans themselves are well liked internationally and the Admnistration is widely despised. I suppose if I were the Administration or one of its cheerleaders, I'd be trying to strap myself to something buoyant about now too.

I never said that non-American's couldn't participate

Just as well, really. Never give an order you know won't be followed :D

This is about who and what Americans are allowing in the military and their behavior. Discounting someones opinions because they come from another country or because their military has had similiar problems is a diversion and has nothing to do with our military. It makes it appear that since this goes on in other countries that you are condoning it or making it seem morally acceptable. I have also repeatedly criticized our military so I imagine my opinion means shit too.

that these problems are no more unique to place (ie, the US) than the are to time (the Bush adminstration). I'm not saying it is ok at all. What I am saying is that this is part of a long term issue that every modern industrialized nation with an all volunteer force has faced. SP wants to take a long term social issue that has been identified for over a decade and turn it into a specific attack against a specific set of political opponents. That is why I brought Canada into it (and to tweek ES's sense of moral supiority).

A Labrador Retriever could have a sense of moral superiority over this Administration.

[edit for clarification - provided of course that he first gave up licking himself the way... well, the way they do. I haven't seen anyone in the Administration do that yet and I think that's just nasty. Of course, there are still a couple of years to go - ES

...of something that's been around for a while. The story alleges that established zero-tolerance standards are not being followed, due to recruitment pressures - zero tolerance policies that were established in response to the long term issues of which you correctly speak. Yes, all this certainly has a longer trendline than most folks in the greater blogosphere picking it up as a handy brickbat against the administration acknowledge, but this is just not merely a simple rehash. As the SPL report states:

Now, with the country at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the military under increasingly intense pressure to maintain enlistment numbers, weeding out extremists is less of a priority. "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," said Department of Defense investigator Barfield."

No rational human would pin the '95 murders on Bush and Rummy (not to say that many in the blogosphere won't try), but there's folks that may be validly worried about what might happen in '09 and whether the de facto relaxation from zero tolerance might make a repeat of '95 more likely.

Personally, I don't mind having the CF judged by Somalia so much, so long as one takes into account the entire process - to include the public enquiry, the disbandment of the CAR, the post disbandment rebuilding, the subsequent ops where the guys did their duty in the face of extreme conditions and an insane op tempo without breaking the force, and the current renaissance that came out of all that. What I see right now from down south worries me - I see a force that's still showing a reflexive impulse towards denial.

One minor point that I would make is that to the best of my knowledge, Canada did not relax its recruiting standards during the 80's and 90's. We've spent a goodly amount of time well below authorized maximum strength for the CF, in part due to the fact that we won't relax recruiting and induction training standards. Beckwith's maxim - "It's better to go up the river with seven studs than a hundred assholes" - seems to be alive and well up here. Personally, I'm not terribly worried about any American recruitment shortfall - the retention figures are far more important and they speak to a force with an amazing esprit de corps. That said, I'm worried about relaxation in recruitment standards - that could well undermine that esprit de corps. [edited to add last clarifying sentence]

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

it really isn't new at all. This has been an identified issue within the US Army since the mid 90s.

The story quoted says:

"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,"

Two things to note about this. First, the report says "...recruiter sare knowingly allowing..." That is very different from saying that the Army, as an institutional choice is knowingly allowing these individuals to join. Second, it says that "...commanders don't remove them from the military..." Once again, we are talking about individuals in the military making a decision at the local level. The author of the study then attempts to portray these actions as a fundimental shift in policy by the US Army by saying "The Army doesn't want..." to make a big deal out of this in tough recruiting times. That is ascribing institutional policy to individual choices where no evidence of such exists (or at least has been presented).

As to this not being a new issue, here is a story from 1996:

Magazine Disputes Army View of Photo
Published: February 16, 1996

…In disputing the Army's version of events, Edward Kosner, editor in chief of Esquire, said that after the Army began an investigation into skinhead activities on the base prompted by the killings, the skinhead soldiers removed the Nazi materials from their barracks walls.

"Esquire did not stage photographs at Fort Bragg," Mr. Kosner said, "but reconstructed the activities that had gone on for months in several barracks rooms there. These rooms were decorated with Nazi flags and posters. The material was taken down by the skinhead soldiers only after the Army investigation started, and the skinheads intended to put the paraphernalia back after the controversy subsided."

Clearly, these guys got into the Army and, if the representations of Mr. Kosner are true, their chain of command new what kind of guys they were (there is no privacy in Army Barracks) and did nothing to initiate seperation proceedings for months and only began an ivestigation after two people in town were murdered. Was that the result of deliberate policy choices by the Army back in the 90s not to crack down on skinheads? No.

As to the relationship between manpower levels, soldier quality, and recruiting standards; that is a topic that will need a lot more space to deal with (but I will deal with it later today).

Edited to fix block quote.

...trying to pin this on the institutions involved - look closely, it's Barfield, the DoD investigator that says this: "They [DoD] don't want to start making a big deal again..."

No one with any knowledge of the issue would say that this is completely new, and that's certainly not what I'm saying. Obviously DoD didn't decide that recruiting and retaining neo-nazis is now okay due to manpower concerns but it's pretty clear that, if the allegations are true, the scale of things has reached the point where commanders are not receiving adequate oversight from their chain of command on the issue. When things have gotten to the point that one guy at Lewis is turning up evidence on 320 guys, and when the system's kicking up a network across five of the major bases (and particularly those bases), that's starting to sound an awful lot more than just a few isolated commanders letting things slide a bit, and that particular aspect (i.e., that the problem is at this level) is new.

Absolutely it's an issue that has a long timeline and it didn't spring forth fully formed with this administration or any prior one, but we need to make sure that it doesn't get overlooked with the additional pressure on the system for more immediate concerns - particularly given that the nazis out there are sensing an opportunity. IMNSHO one of the very first steps required in confronting the issue is accurately stating its scale - and if the evidence presented by Barfield is accurate, this is more than something flourishing due to a lack of attention by a few isolated commanders. Given that this crap is an anathema to military professionals, this sounds to me like a pretty widespread lack of oversight - one that I do actually find somewhat understandable given the deployment pressures on the system, but it is something that time has to be made for, now that the new severity of the issue's been highlighted.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

been to say that is not a serious issue, merely that this is not a particularly new issue. In fact, 10 years ago the Army discovered a similar network of inner-city gang members in service. That's why Ft. Lewis set up it's anti-gang investigative unit to go after that problem. Back then the gangs were activly recruiting teenage kids of service members and setting up shop in military housing areas because they knew that military dependents with clean records would not face much scrutiny for gang affiliations.

The entire tennor of SP's initial post was: 'See, see, Bush and Rummy have broken the Army. Who cares if they are making their numbers, it's only because they have to deliberately ignore this kind of problem that they can. We never, ever had this kind of problem with the Army before Bush and Rummy got into power.' That is simply a distortion of reality for partisan political purposes, and I reject it as such.

I'd really love to see you back up that assertion with a quote.

"We never, ever had this kind of problem with the Army before Bush and Rummy got into power.'"

I mean - a quote from something real, not from your imagination.

respect for you with every post lately. If your stated goal was to discuss what you think SP thinks than that is what you should have done from the start. Instead you attack someone for having a different opinion(shock horror: a lowly no nothing Canadien!) and divert the discussion. How partisan, you should have started a diary.

...perhaps it wasn't the best foundation for a dispassionate discussion to start the thread essentially calling Ranger out for the views he expressed vis-a-vis recruitment in his original reply (which were correct, near as I can see). I'm not surprised that he's perhaps not the living embodiment of graciousness when it's been implied that he'd try to defend the recruitment of neo-nazis - I'd have been a good deal more curt.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

For the record - I know Ranger would never endorse the intentional inclusion of those types for any number of damned good reasons - as you've said, these guys would be utterly repugnant to any real warrior I've ever known; on a note of complete pragmatism no commander can permit any agenda in their troops on the battlefield besides the one determined by the chain of command; and from a "hearts and minds" perspective, it only takes one Green to undo untold millions of dollars worth of "happythoughts", so the accidental inclusion of any of them is so completely counterproductive that no intelligent officer could see this as anything good.

That point simply never crossed my mind, and it was not my intention to give that impression.

No, that's not what Sean-Paul said at all. And no, it wasn't an issue any more, until the army couldn't make numbers without relaxing requirements, both formally and informally. And yes, that can be blamed on both choosing to go to war, and how Rummy, Cheney and Bush have chosen to run the war.

And yes, when you're in charge, at some point you have to accept responsibility. I know that runs against everything Bush believes in (or that his life experience has taught him) but, the buck stops at his desk.

...retention figures are far more important and they speak to a force with an amazing esprit de corps...

How does one distinguish between voluntary vs. involuntary retention for the purposes of deriving a meaningful picture of esprit de corps?

Or - it seems to me - from other constantly moving and degrading socio-economic factors amongst vets such as the prospects of demobilizing into a climate of massive and rising rates of vet unemployment and the connected factor of swiftly increasing value of military medical insurance?

I'd like to know in all seriousness if their are ways of establishing a meaningful metric that separates out these factors in order to be certain that we are measuring esprit de corps - rather than charting the beginnings of a caste of de facto Mamelukes or Janissaries - in this case economic slave-soldiers for Empire.

edited to make connection clearer - ES

...veterans between 20 and 24 is 15%, which is high compared to the baseline for the age group, but far from "massive" by any reasonable interpretation, particularly given some of the other characteristics of that group (e.g., they tend not to have a lot of civilian work experience). My guess, based on what I've been seeing said of late, and based on what I know of the guys that stayed in after Vietnam, is that many of these guys stay in because they believe in the mission and because the folks on the outside don't seem to them to "get it". It's weird, but one of the best places to be in the 70's if one's timing and headspace was a bit off compared to civilian baselines post-Vietnam, was in the Army.

If one wanted to establish definitively what it is that's behind this, one'd have to do a fairly large scale poll, and I certainly haven't heard of such a thing. I'm sure that there are all sorts of surveys dealing with related issues, but they'll likely mainly come at it with a lens towards aiding retention, which seems to me like it'd be subtly but importantly different.

As to whether there's a Jannissary class, hell yeah there's reason for believing there to be one. Trends in that vein have been developing with particular intensity over the past decade or so. Sometimes I read the stuff that comes out of some USMC personnel (where it seems to be particularly strong) and I cringe. That said, I don't think that it's primarily an economic product - it's more a product of a hothouse culture and, I suspect, reduced breadth of recruitment in terms of socio-economic class though that last is particularly speculative.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

got into the Canadian Forces in pretty much exactly the same way this guy did - the judge says "you want jail for assault, or do you want to join the Army?" (he'd punched some poor shmuck out on a bus when he didn't like the way the guy was talking to his date). There's nothing you can tell me about who they let in; I know them personally. Drunks, fools and poor-impulse-control cases included.

Everyone I hung with then has served, as has everyone in my current Saturday night posse. There's not enough sunshine in the world to pump up my ass, not enough 120 dB anthems to blare in my ears, not enough flags to wave in my eyes to replace what I know firsthand.

The military has no haloes for me. They're just citizens, and they reflect society. The quality of the core-sample is adjusted up somewhat to weight for those who joined through noble motives, and adjusted downwards a similar amount to reflect the reality that it's a hard-working, not-particularly well-paid job and bright ambitious people with better prospects tend to go elsewhere.

Your society is recovering (and it is recovering, the signs are obvious) from being savagely traumatized by 9/11 and the loss of your illusion of invulnerability - like the first time a person suffers a serious injury - like what all more mature modern cultures that have lived through Empire and faced the inevitable impossibility of it and then abandoned it, have gone through - and your military reflects that shock, the denial, grief and rage, accurately and precisely. You lost your Cherry Of Empire and London, Berlin and Paris looked at you sadly and said "welcome to the club."

You want to take that crappy pair of twos you're holding and play it into a better hand than "nyeah nyeah! your military has problems too?"

Demonstrate the paras weren't an aberration, a statistical blip, a true example of "a few bad apples" - rather than the result of a deliberate loosening of standards in full congnizance of the dangers of so doing and against the advice of your more intelligent officers, in order to build a big enough Army for Imperial tasks.

Because if the facts about Green are as stated, that's precisely what I believe will be demonstrated about him.

the CARs in Somalia and their actions were represetitive of Candadian values? Oh, and by the way, the Imperial Task you were engaged with in Somalia was a UN peacekeeping mission.

Actually, I think the lowering of recruiting standards in both Canada and the US in the 1980s and 90s has to do with a general distain for military service within the middle class.

As I stated in a previous thread, my view is that the recruiting issues we are facing in the US now were building thoughout the 1990. They culminated in 1999 when the Army simply could not meet mission. Some adjustement made in 99 fixed the immidiate problem in 2000, but they didn't address the fundimental issues. 9/11 gave the US a two or three year reprieve with a flood of patriotic enlistments, but we are now back to where we were in the late 90s. The issues are deep, and systemic, and have nothing to do with the Iraq war or which administration is in power.

Ultimately, in the US, it comes down to the deal LBJ struck with the middle class to fight the Vietnam War. The middle class would pay in dollors and their kids could go to college and avoid fighting. The government would use the children of the poor, who couldn't pay enough in taxes and couldn't afford to send their kids to college to fight America's wars.

So, you actually think the CARs in Somalia and their actions were represetitive of Candadian values? Oh, and by the way, the Imperial Task you were engaged with in Somalia was a UN peacekeeping mission.

Read closer - in fact I said the military is a reflection of society. Society contains people holding a range of values. The overlapping ones with broad consensus in Canada are thought of generally as Canadian values. Not all Canadians in society are representative of Canadian values any more than all Americans are representative of American values.

And read closer here too - why would you say the UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia was an Imperial Task, as it's not remotely what I said?

with your judgement of "High School dropouts" who ended their education with an alternative certificate to the H.S. Diploma. It is incredibly ignorant to assume anything of anyone who took a path in their education that is different than what the society and government sanctions. I honestly expect either a reply to defend your rough assertion or an apology for it.

to the person who originally said what I have quoted, I believe there is comment space to do so at the link attached to the quote, which I will repeat here. That will take you to the post on Pat Lang's blog.

Not that you can't post that information here - just pointing out that the person who originally said it might not even be aware there's a thread over here about it, so they may not have a chance to read your comment. I'm not in a position to comment; I'm a product of the Canadian school system who is not terribly well-informed on the GED system. I'd certainly read what you have to say.