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What a collage! Looks like my kind of holiday (jk).
The real holiday in my house is July 6th – for two obvious reasons.
Make it 7/5 and have an incredible blow-out.
Real terrorists;
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, http://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.
The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, “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.”
Mr. Barfield said Army recruiters struggled last year to meet goals. “They don’t want to make a big deal again about neo-Nazis in the military,” he said, “because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they’ll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists.”
The 1996 crackdown on extremists came after revelations that Mr. McVeigh had espoused far-right ideas when he was in the Army and recruited two fellow soldiers to aid his bomb plot. Those revelations were followed by a furor that developed when three white paratroopers were convicted of the random slaying of a black couple in order to win tattoos and 19 others were discharged for participating in neo-Nazi activities.
The defense secretary at the time, William Perry, said the rules were meant to leave no room for racist and extremist activities within the military. But the report said Mr. Barfield, who is based at Fort Lewis, Wash., had said that he had provided evidence on 320 extremists there in the past year, but that only two had been discharged. He also said there was an online network of neo-Nazis.
“They’re communicating with each other about weapons, about recruiting, about keeping their identities secret, about organizing within the military,” he said. “Several of these individuals have since been deployed to combat missions in Iraq.”
The report cited accounts by neo-Nazis of their infiltration of the military, including a discussion on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront. “There are others among you in the forces,” one participant wrote. “You are never alone.”
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.”
From the NYtimes
I was really getting into this until it was attributed to the NYCrimes. If history is any indicator, only about 10-20% of this is accurate. I read about the crips in the military I know there is some truth to that. Cite a story from a legitmate news source next time and No, the LA Times isn’t one.
LA Times or NY Times? Or both?
Right, the news divisions are seperate from the opinion/editorial divisions. This is true with the Wall Street Journal as well…and that paper published a news article about the SWIFT system and our government tracking information that flows through it, only to have the opinion page demonize the NYTimes a day later for doing the same thing.
The partisan hoopla about the press misses this important distinction between an article like karl posted above and something written by Maureen Dowd.
Discounting a story like this one because of who the messenger is…
Look – I think deadissue.com has done a pretty good job of highlighting the recruiting problems our military has been having – and this story is the back end of a ’cause-effect’ reaction that nobody in power wanted to admit to. So now we have skinheads in the military in larger proportions and because the NYTimes wrote the story, you’re ignoring it?
What it if shows up on in USA Today or on Drudge?
I thought the article showed two real problems. First, for those who want argue that racism does not exist, explain why certian segments of the population are getting trained at the US governments expense for the coming race war. Racism is not dead and no amount of wishfull thinking will make it go away. I don’t know if you guys have been following the “Stop the ACLU’ folks and their harrassment of jewish families, but they are another clear example of racism.
The other issue with skin heads in the milatary is that these guys are not going to make good soldgers and they certainly will not be able to work with their minority colleagues, in addition no one is going to want to serve with these idiots, so the army is digging a deeper holes by accepting these racist losers.
Well, what is it? 10% or 20%. There’s a significant difference between 1 in 5 and 1 in 10. I’m guessing you slept through statistics class.
The “press” all pull their stories from the same old sources. Doesn’t matter whether it’s CBS, FOXNews, or the NYTimes. Like Al said, bias usually rears it’s ugly head when it comes to analysis of, and editorializing on events/issues. The fact that many news agencies didn’t bother to report this story demonstrates an obvious bias… “we must present a positive image of the military at all costs”.
I personally don’t have a problem with racists in the military. The military should proportionately represent the American public, and the sad fact is that many many Americans are racist. You could even argue that racists may be inclined to lose their racist views when their lives depend on an individual with a different ethnic heritage.
Anyway, I don’t see this as a big deal. Heck, racism in the military has existed for as long as the military has existed. If anything I’d say it’s less racist today. At the very least racism isn’t as institutionalized as it used to be.
I don\’t see how a healthy unit, a strong unit, could tollerate any form of overt discrimination. If these guys are engaging in pranks, spraypaint and such, it\’s controlable as eventually someone\’s going to get caught and have the book thrown at them.
When it comes to groups of similar race banding together within the military unit and putting on a fake smile while serving with a fellow soldier they have no respect for…if the individual keeps it to themselves and only shares their bigotry in safe situations, nothing happens.
Once one of these soldiers refers to one of their own with a term like \’nigger\’ or \’monkey\’, there\’s no way it gets ignored if reported. My experience tells me that it wouldn\’t be tollerated, and any leader even close to competent would work out that problem somehow.
The inside of your head is your own, while your body belongs to the US government. Anything you say or do, whenever you convert thought to action or speach, the US government then owns that as well. As long as you keep it to yourself, the unit will function in spite of the hate you\’re toting around in that head.
Now, the influx of racists over time will indeed have an effect on the military that prison has on felons. Race determines loyalty, and the community becomes primitive in comparison with life outside the walls. This is acceptable because our prisoners aren\’t expected to do anything for us.
The military on the other hand, well it\’s expected to do the impossible sometimes.
A great commander and cadre of NCOs can hold this back for quite a while though…unless Iraq has just completely remade the game into something I wouldn\’t even recognize.
Right, the news divisions are seperate from the opinion/editorial divisions.
At most places, yes, but at the NY and LA Times they are one and the same.
This is true with the Wall Street Journal as well…and that paper published a news article about the SWIFT system and our government tracking information that flows through it, only to have the opinion page demonize the NYTimes a day later for doing the same thing.
The NY and LA Times were the only two papers asked specifically by the government not to print the story. Their hatred for Bush took presedence(sp) over the safety and wellbeing of all Americans.
Discounting a story like this one because of who the messenger is…
This is another failure in a long, long list of failures for both papers. I’m surprised that anyone links to these storys anymore. It’s at the point where the common person can’t trust anything either of the Times writes anymore.
So now we have skinheads in the military in larger proportions and because the NYTimes wrote the story, you’re ignoring it?
Do you have any evidence other than the radical rantings of the NYT?
What it if shows up on in USA Today or on Drudge?
Then it would have some merit and probably have real and verifiable sources.
First, for those who want argue that racism does not exist, explain why certian segments of the population are getting trained at the US governments expense for the coming race war.
There is no coming race war, that was a Charles Manson psychotic vision. When Cyntthia McKinney assaults a white police officer in broad daylight in front af hundreds of people and isn’t even charged, racism by whites is dead. She says she was put down by the man, sh IS the man. No there is a huge amount of racism from minorities, African Americans particularly….
I don’t know if you guys have been following the “Stop the ACLU’ folks and their harrassment of jewish families, but they are another clear example of racism.
You do know the ACLU supports Ismaic Terrorists, right? CAIR and others…talk about harrassing Jews.
The other issue with skin heads in the milatary is that these guys are not going to make good soldgers and they certainly will not be able to work with their minority colleagues, in addition no one is going to want to serve with these idiots, so the army is digging a deeper holes by accepting these racist losers.
You do know that the Crips and Bloods and many other gangs are in the military in addition to muslims so skinheads are the least of your problems.
Well, what is it? 10% or 20%. There’s a significant difference between 1 in 5 and 1 in 10. I’m guessing you slept through statistics class.
Don’t blame me for the low quality of journalism from the LA and NY Times. They are so inept they can’t even be consistently inept, not my fault. Also, how many decimal places out do you need your statistics? 14.309645% good enough for you?
14% would have been close enough for me. I’m sure you’ve done a thorough analysis to come up with this figure, so I’ll trust it and start citing you as a source. Isn’t that the way the partisan media game works? You are delusional to think that Republicans are any different from Democrats when it comes to distortion of the truth for party gain. Then again, we all know that RT is really a flaming liberal and just enjoys playing the devil’s advocate to stimulate conversation.
I’m inclined to agree with RT that we aren’t likely to see a race war, in the traditional sense. I think it will boil down to class warfare as resources continue to dwindle (of course race is a contributing factor to class). When you can’t afford to buy what you need you’ll steal or kill for what you need. Poor folk all have something in common, they can’t buy their way out of a crisis.
OT: I went and saw An Inconvenient Truth last night. Pretty good. If you follow the climate debate you’re probably already familiar with most of the points.
He made one funny point about frogs (crabs are the same). If you put one in a boiling pot it will freak out and jump out if it can (crabs can’t). But if you put them in a pot of warm water they settle right in. You turn up the heat to get the pot boiling and the frog (and crab) will just sit until they are cooked. Humans are similar, it takes a big shock (like being put into a boiling pot) to dislodge us from our habits. But with climate change, unfortunately, it’s like a big warm pot that’s just slowly getting warmer. I know that myself personally, I’m actually enjoying the local “fruits” of global warming. Winters are shorter and milder, summers are warmer and longer. Hey! What’s not to like about global warming anyway?
😉
When you can’t afford to buy what you need you’ll steal or kill for what you need. Poor folk all have something in common, they can’t buy their way out of a crisis.
Funny thing about the word “need”, did all those poor people in New Orleans NEED those 42″Plasma TVs and all those half gallon bottles of booze? Did they NEED all of that Nautica, Calvin Clein, Nike and Polo Sport clothing? All people really need is clean water, food, shelter and clothing.
Has Al found Manbearpig yet?
I agree, and these are the types of goods (water, food and energy primarily) I had in mind when I used the word need. All of these goods will become scarcer (relative to demand) over the next few decades and beyond.
This is why I moved to Agawam, and also why I’ve been hoarding the notoriously good tap water in underground silos under the ground in my back yard. Only working at night, I installed them, and have been dumping gallons of water down there a day.
Sounds good, but the smell is pretty bad. To be honest, after the 2nd week I called it quits…since then I’ve been trying to find a use for it.
As the years go by, I realize how much I’m like that crazy man George, Ruth’s husband (sort of) on Six Feet Under.
Take it from California Dude…Agawam has some great-tasting water. It tastes like something from a bottle.
I’ve never known tap water to taste like Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
A BIG plus considering all the time and money spent going back and forth to the spring water spout back east. My grandfather has the right idea, with milk crates, gallon bottles and the free water in Hingham’s state park.
In Monterey the water was hard, dried out your skin, and kind of smelled…in fact, the water has smelled in most places I’ve lived in. Typically I’ll now fill up 2 glasses in a row, down them, first thing every morning then several times throughout the day. Couldn’t do that in Braintree or Weymouth…well, I did do it many times, but everybody told me not to.
Tricky thing drinking water…especially now that billions are made off of bottled water each year. Kind of makes me nervous at times.
But hey – at least there isn’t fecal matter in our water like over in Iraq!
Just don’t use the ice dispenser when you’re at a fast food joint 😉
I figure all of that acid in soda will kill all germs .