Say, Betcha Neo-Nazis and Skinheads Would be Good in the Military
By Lee Russ
Saturday, July 08, 2006 at 06:04 PM
Remember the difficulty the U.S. was having filling its military recruitment quotas? Betcha can't guess one likely reason that they've been doing better lately.
Yes folks, it all sort of makes sense, doesn't it? Having trouble getting ordinary, qualified Americans to volunteer for a stretch in Sunny Iraq? Well, then, who might be willing to trade a few years and a chance of maiming or death for all that good military training that could be worth your weight in gold if they ever succeed in triggering that race war, the thought of which always brings a smile to their faces?
According to the Times:
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 a watchdog organization.The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.
"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."
A Defense Department spokeswoman said officials there could not comment on the report because they had not yet seen it.
The center called on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to appoint a task force to study the problem, declare a new zero tolerance policy and strictly enforce it.
The report said that neo-Nazi groups like the National Alliance, whose founder, William Pierce, wrote "The Turner Diaries," the novel that was the inspiration and blueprint for Timothy J. McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, sought to enroll followers in the Army to get training for a race war.
The groups are being abetted, the report said, by pressure on recruiters, particularly for the Army, to meet quotas that are more difficult to reach because of the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq.
Now the fact that Aryan Nation graffiti can be found in Baghdad doesn't necessarily mean that neo-Nazis and skinheads are joining up. If you ever served in an Army unit, you know that there are plenty of American racists totally uninvolved with those formal movements.
On the other hand, that Graffiti isn't likely to endear us to the Iraqis, and the SPLC claims to have evidence that skinheads and the like are specifically joining up to get that military training. In fact, the Times piece wraps up with this:
An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units.The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator."
"Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "
He concluded: "As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood."
Land of the free, home of the raving lunatic: Now a proud member of the U.S. Army or Marines. Being all the racist he can be.