It is very well known by now that, in 2005, the U.S. armed services failed to meet their recruiting quotas for the first time in many years. What is not so well known --- at least not until Monday, 7 July 2006 --- is the extent to which both military recruiters and base commanders are looking the other way in order to get the manpower that they need. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently sat down with Scott Barfield, a “gang detective” working for the Department of Defense and associated with the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. The Army CID conducts an annual survey of extremist elements in the American military, and on the basis of his own research and their findings, Barfield states that there are thousands of neo-Nazis in the armed services at the current time. Indeed, on his home base at Fort Lewis, WA --- where a general once had all nineteen thousand of his soldiers strip-searched for extremist body tattoos --- Barfield says that he has submitted evidence on the presence of 320 extremists among the ranks!
But at a time when the armed services are truly desperate for manpower, the neo-Nazis and other extremists are pouring into the various services. Indeed, the white supremacist website Stormfront even hosted an online discussion in July of 2005 on “Joining the Military.” Why do they do it? For three reasons: (1) to secure military training, (2) to gain access to lethal weapons, and (3) and most importantly, to make contracts within the military structure: as one of the extremists within the military states, “we must have people to open doors from the inside when the time comes.” Barfield knows that it is axiomatic that “today’s white supremacists in the military become tomorrow’s domestic terrorists once they’re out.” The military recruiters and the base commanders know it too, but they chose to look the other way. Military recruiters are rejecting prospective recruits with tattoos only when they are facial, and they are granting “moral waivers” in unprecedented numbers to enlistees who have criminal records. And the bottom line, according to Barfield, is that there is now a neo-Nazi grapevine that embraces personnel on five military installations: Fort Bragg, NC; Fort Stewart, GA; Fort Hood, TX; Fort Lewis, WA; and Camp Pendleton, CA.
Shocking as it may be to admit, it was only in 1986, when a group of active duty soldiers was caught providing guerilla training and stolen military weapons to a paramilitary Ku Klux Klan faction led by a former Green Beret, that the military published its first regulations on extremist conduct within the armed forces. That’s a full thirteen years after the volunteer army came into existence in the first place! But these regulations were tacitly ignored until the end of 1995, a couple of months after ex-military Timothy McVeigh engineered the Oklahoma City bombing. By the fall of that year, the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC, was the home for a large neo-Nazi skinhead gang that was increasingly public and violent in its actions. In December of 1995 two members of this gang gunned down a black couple, picked at random. The gang was rounded up; the two murderers received life in prison; but nineteen other members of the 82nd Airborne Division were dishonorably discharged for neo-Nazi gang activities. As a matter of fact, all white soldiers at Fort Bragg were strip-searched to determine whether they had racist tattoos anywhere on their bodies. But the public anger did not rest there. The Fort Bragg murders sparked Congressional hearings on extremism in the military in 1996, and even tougher regulations resulted from the investigation.
But to little avail, especially now. Barfield states bluntly that “we’ve got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad,” to which he adds, anticlimactically: “That’s a problem!” Nor can one identify a skinhead partisan easily: the traditional skinhead stereotypes simply do not work, and some of the neo-Nazis in the Iraq War had high rank. In 2004, for example, military intelligence officer James Douglas Ross, Jr., was dishonorably discharged after he was caught shipping AK-47s out of Iraq to the United States: today, he is a leader of the neo-nazi Eastern Washington Skins, which is actively trying to recruit ex-veterans. Shawn Stuart, who served two combat tours in Iraq as a marine before he received an honorable discharge in 2005, is the Montana state director of the National Socialist Movement, and he is running this fall for a seat in the Montana State House of Representatives. And most shockingly of all, Robert Sayler, a Navy lieutenant and a Judge Advocate General (JAG) lawyer, was dishonorably discharged and barred from future military law practice when he was discovered to be a member in good standing of the neo-Confederate white supremacist group, the League of the South.
It certainly seems to me that further attention should be paid to this highly disturbing socio-political phenomenon, especially in light of all of the murder and rape charges that are currently appearing against American soldiers in Iraq. We may be looking at just the tip of the iceberg here…
Source: David Holthouse, “A Few Bad Men: Ten years after a scandal over neo-Nazis in the armed forces, extremists are once again worming their way into a recruit-starved military,” Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Project, Friday, 7 July 2006. http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?aid=66
Guess Who's Fighting for YOU in Iraq? The neo-Nazis, That's
Moderator: Super Moderators
Strangely enough, the SPLC fails to mention the presence of ethnic gangs in the Iraq-based American forces....gosh golly, I wonder why?
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst ... gs01.html#
Gangs claim their turf in Iraq
May 1, 2006
BY FRANK MAIN Crime Reporter
The Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings and Vice Lords were born decades ago in Chicago's most violent neighborhoods. Now, their gang graffiti is showing up 6,400 miles away in one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods -- Iraq.
Armored vehicles, concrete barricades and bathroom walls all have served as canvasses for their spray-painted gang art. At Camp Cedar II, about 185 miles southeast of Baghdad, a guard shack was recently defaced with "GDN" for Gangster Disciple Nation, along with the gang's six-pointed star and the word "Chitown," a soldier who photographed it said.
The graffiti, captured on film by an Army Reservist and provided to the Chicago Sun-Times, highlights increasing gang activity in the Army in the United States and overseas, some experts say.
Jeffrey Stoleson, an Army Reserve sergeant in Iraq, is seen in front of a barricade tagged with gang graffiti in March in Iraq. Stoleson, who has been in Iraq for almost a year, says he has taken hundreds of photos of gang graffiti there.
Click here for photo gallery »
Military and civilian police investigators familiar with three major Army bases in the United States -- Fort Lewis, Fort Hood and Fort Bragg -- said they have been focusing recently on soldiers with gang affiliations. These bases ship out many of the soldiers fighting in Iraq.
"I have identified 320 soldiers as gang members from April 2002 to present," said Scott Barfield, a Defense Department gang detective at Fort Lewis in Washington state. "I think that's the tip of the iceberg."
Of paramount concern is whether gang-affiliated soldiers' training will make them deadly urban warriors when they return to civilian life and if some are using their access to military equipment to supply gangs at home, said Barfield and other experts.
'They don't try to hide it'
Jeffrey Stoleson, an Army Reserve sergeant in Iraq for almost a year, said he has taken hundreds of photos of gang graffiti there.
In a storage yard in Taji, about 18 miles north of Baghdad, dozens of tanks were vandalized with painted gang symbols, Stoleson said in a phone interview from Iraq. He said he also took pictures of graffiti at Camp Scania, about 108 miles southeast of Baghdad, and Camp Anaconda, about 40 miles north of Baghdad. Much of the graffiti was by Chicago-based gangs, he said.
In civilian life, Stoleson is a correctional officer and co-founder of the gang interdiction team at a Wisconsin maximum-security prison. Now he is a truck commander for security escorts in Iraq. He said he watched two fellow soldiers in the Wisconsin Army National Guard 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry, die Sept. 26 when a roadside bomb exploded. Five of Stoleson's friends have been wounded.
Because of the extreme danger of his mission in Iraq, Stoleson said he does not relish the idea of working alongside gang members, whom he does not trust. Stoleson said he once reported to a supervisor that he suspected a company of soldiers in Iraq was rife with gang members.
"My E-8 [supervising sergeant] told me not to ruffle their feathers because they were doing a good job," he said.
Stoleson said he has spotted soldiers in Iraq with tattoos signifying their allegiance to the Vice Lords and the Simon City Royals, another street gang spawned in Chicago.
"They don't try to hide it," Stoleson said.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst ... gs01.html#
Gangs claim their turf in Iraq
May 1, 2006
BY FRANK MAIN Crime Reporter
The Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings and Vice Lords were born decades ago in Chicago's most violent neighborhoods. Now, their gang graffiti is showing up 6,400 miles away in one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods -- Iraq.
Armored vehicles, concrete barricades and bathroom walls all have served as canvasses for their spray-painted gang art. At Camp Cedar II, about 185 miles southeast of Baghdad, a guard shack was recently defaced with "GDN" for Gangster Disciple Nation, along with the gang's six-pointed star and the word "Chitown," a soldier who photographed it said.
The graffiti, captured on film by an Army Reservist and provided to the Chicago Sun-Times, highlights increasing gang activity in the Army in the United States and overseas, some experts say.
Jeffrey Stoleson, an Army Reserve sergeant in Iraq, is seen in front of a barricade tagged with gang graffiti in March in Iraq. Stoleson, who has been in Iraq for almost a year, says he has taken hundreds of photos of gang graffiti there.
Click here for photo gallery »
Military and civilian police investigators familiar with three major Army bases in the United States -- Fort Lewis, Fort Hood and Fort Bragg -- said they have been focusing recently on soldiers with gang affiliations. These bases ship out many of the soldiers fighting in Iraq.
"I have identified 320 soldiers as gang members from April 2002 to present," said Scott Barfield, a Defense Department gang detective at Fort Lewis in Washington state. "I think that's the tip of the iceberg."
Of paramount concern is whether gang-affiliated soldiers' training will make them deadly urban warriors when they return to civilian life and if some are using their access to military equipment to supply gangs at home, said Barfield and other experts.
'They don't try to hide it'
Jeffrey Stoleson, an Army Reserve sergeant in Iraq for almost a year, said he has taken hundreds of photos of gang graffiti there.
In a storage yard in Taji, about 18 miles north of Baghdad, dozens of tanks were vandalized with painted gang symbols, Stoleson said in a phone interview from Iraq. He said he also took pictures of graffiti at Camp Scania, about 108 miles southeast of Baghdad, and Camp Anaconda, about 40 miles north of Baghdad. Much of the graffiti was by Chicago-based gangs, he said.
In civilian life, Stoleson is a correctional officer and co-founder of the gang interdiction team at a Wisconsin maximum-security prison. Now he is a truck commander for security escorts in Iraq. He said he watched two fellow soldiers in the Wisconsin Army National Guard 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry, die Sept. 26 when a roadside bomb exploded. Five of Stoleson's friends have been wounded.
Because of the extreme danger of his mission in Iraq, Stoleson said he does not relish the idea of working alongside gang members, whom he does not trust. Stoleson said he once reported to a supervisor that he suspected a company of soldiers in Iraq was rife with gang members.
"My E-8 [supervising sergeant] told me not to ruffle their feathers because they were doing a good job," he said.
Stoleson said he has spotted soldiers in Iraq with tattoos signifying their allegiance to the Vice Lords and the Simon City Royals, another street gang spawned in Chicago.
"They don't try to hide it," Stoleson said.
Last edited by HB3 on 07-07-2006 05:59 PM, edited 1 time in total.
Strangely enough, the same information from this individual, mentioning the same figure, occurs in both stories, including the earlier Sun Times piece, where it's clear the topic under discussion is ethnic urban gangs:
"I have identified 320 soldiers as gang members from April 2002 to present," said Scott Barfield, a Defense Department gang detective at Fort Lewis in Washington state. "I think that's the tip of the iceberg."
How very odd!
"I have identified 320 soldiers as gang members from April 2002 to present," said Scott Barfield, a Defense Department gang detective at Fort Lewis in Washington state. "I think that's the tip of the iceberg."
How very odd!
“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 center’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,” he said.
So send that donation to the SPLC, folks -- it's our only hope!
“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,” he said.
So send that donation to the SPLC, folks -- it's our only hope!
Yes they do if you read all 6 pages on the link that JQ provided and click on the links to the other articles SPL provides. But here I will help you out.HB3 wrote: Strangely enough, the SPLC fails to mention the presence of ethnic gangs in the Iraq-based American forces....gosh golly, I wonder why?
Criminal in arms: More Army recruits have records
As the Army faces pressure to keep up recruiting levels during the Iraq war, it increasingly has allowed in recruits convicted of misdemeanor crimes, according to experts and military records.
The Army is screening applicants more closely than ever, requiring a national electronic fingerprint check for every applicant and searching sex offender databases, officials say.
Still, the percentage of recruits entering the Army with waivers for misdemeanors and medical problems has more than doubled since 2001, according to records provided by the Army under a Freedom of Information Act request.
Moral waivers granted
A study of people who enlisted in the military between 1990 and 1993 with "moral waivers" for misdemeanors, felonies and substance abuse showed they were more likely to be separated from the service for misconduct than those without such waivers. The study was part of a 1999 General Accounting Office report urging the military to bolster criminal background checks of recruits.
Law enforcement officials have told the Chicago Sun-Times that recruiters are seeking more waivers and allowing more applicants with gang tattoos because they are under the gun to keep enlistment up. Recruiting levels have dropped from 75,885 in 2001 to 73,373 last year, Army records show.
Defense Department investigator Scott Barfield has said he identified hundreds of gang members at Fort Lewis, Wash., since 2002. Most were soldiers, but some were family members of the soldiers, he said.
Law enforcement officials at Army bases in other parts of the country also expressed concerns that gang activity may be rising among soldiers. One provided the Sun-Times with photos of military buildings and equipment in Iraq that were vandalized with graffiti of gangs based in Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities.
But a spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigation Command has said gang-related activity among soldiers does not appear to be a significant problem. And a spokesman for the Army's Recruiting Command said there is no policy in place to account for the increase of waivers for misdemeanors since 2001.
More medical exceptions
The Army provided the Sun-Times with records showing the total number of waivers granted to recruits over the past five years. Waivers for misdemeanors steadily doubled from about 3 percent of the total number of recruits in 2001 to about 6 percent in 2005, the records show.
Over the same period, waivers for disqualifying medical problems rose from about 4 percent to nearly 7 percent of the total number of recruits.
This fiscal year, which ends in September, the Army is on pace to grant at least the same percentage of misdemeanor and medical waivers that were issued in 2005, the records show.
The percentage of waivers for drug and alcohol abuse decreased, though, from about 3 percent of the total number of recruits in 2001 to about 1 percent in 2005.
And the number of waivers granted for "serious criminal misconduct" -- felonies, mainly -- was less than 1 percent of the total for each year.
S. Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the Army's Recruiting Command, said the rising number of misdemeanor and medical waivers has occurred randomly and was not set into motion by any Army policies that have relaxed qualifications for recruits.
"The number of waivers is something that will vary from time to time," he said, adding, "approval of waivers is not based on mission accomplishment."
Smith said the Army's waiver process allows people who have "overcome mistakes" to serve their country.
"The enlistees who receive waivers are not coming into the Army to be rehabilitated," he said. "They have already overcome their mistakes."
He said changes in the criminal justice system have affected the number of waivers granted.
"Today, young men and women are being charged for offenses that in earlier years wouldn't have been considered a serious offense and might not have resulted in charges in the first place," Smith said.
'Whole person' concept
"The Army has always issued waivers to otherwise qualified applicants who may not meet all our stringent requirements," Smith said. "Waiver authorities apply the 'whole person' concept when considering waiver applications. This is the right thing to do for those Americans who want to serve."
Smith added that only three of 10 men and women between 17 and 24 qualify for service because of medical, moral, physical, education and aptitude "challenges."
Based on the 1999 recommendations by the General Accounting Office, the Army and other branches of the military have improved their screening of applicants for criminal records.
Since 2003, the Army has been conducting online sex offender checks with state and local sex offender registries, Smith said. In October 2000, the Army began requiring a national electronic fingerprint check of every recruit and must have results back on the prints before allowing the recruit to ship out for training, Smith said.
"We still require manual police checks in areas where they are still available," he said.
http://www.chicagosuntimes.com/output/n ... ver19.html
Last edited by SETIsLady on 07-07-2006 08:50 PM, edited 1 time in total.
-
Lockhart77
- Pirate
- Posts: 1912
- Joined: 03-02-2006 01:11 PM
Fascist witlings like Lockhart77 may shriek at me for daring to suggest that the U.S. armed services are anything less than perfect, but what of it? There is a genuine tragedy here for that minority within the armed services who truly believe that they are working to protect the people of the United States against foreign enemies. I have known a number of these people, some of whom even qualify as members of that rare, but still surviving, breed, “the scholar warrior,” and although I believe them to be incredibly naïve politically, I have absolutely no doubt of their personal integrity and their good intentions. Their fate now in the Age of Dubya is truly tragic: they deserved far better than they are getting.
But it is now more than a quarter of a century since the military-industrial-intelligence complex felt secure enough to reveal itself openly in the Age of Reagan as a fascist cabal. Quite a few of us are aware of the stories that have circulated for decades about the CIA’s involvement with the American drug epidemic, especially in Los Angeles --- can’t you hear Lockhart77’s squeals just rising in pitch at the news? --- and the fascists within the armed services have always understood that gangs and extremist groups are the best recruiting grounds for the killing machines that they need to accomplish the objectives of the capitalist ruling class elite, both at home and abroad. My previous post concerned the revelations about institutionalized extremism within the military that Scott Barfield and the other decent members of the armed services are seeking to publicize as a way of countering the growing power of the open fascists within the military. But one has to ask: if this is what is reaching the public, can’t you just imagine what is not being disclosed?
Barfield says that “today’s white supremacists in the military become tomorrow’s domestic terrorists once they’re out.” Which is a euphemistic way of saying that today’s neo-Nazis, who are murdering Iraqi men and raping Iraqi women in Baghdad, are going to be in a couple of years your local police officers, who are going to come knocking --- oops, I forgot, they don’t even have to knock any more --- on your door at 2 AM because you uttered some subversive political sentiment or because you threaten some local rich man’s short-term profitability. And as the Amerikan Empire follows the path trod by the Roman Empire in the Age of Diocletian and Amerikan society becomes paramilitarized and feudalized, the distinction between domestic “civilians” and foreign “civilians” becomes irrelevant: a sand-****** in Iraq is basically no different from a bayou-****** in New Orleans, and both can be handled consequently in exactly the same way. Only the “cops” and the “robbers” are important, and eventually, each side finds that it has far more in common with the other than either has with the “civilians,” who are just sheep who exist to be fleeced by either side. And when Amerikan society accepts this standard of social judgment, even domestically, then we can finally say that the chickens have come home to roost, that the Iraqi War has been brought back to Amerika itself, and that skinhead culture is mainstream Amerika. And then welcome to the Clockwork Orange world of Little Alex and his droogies... <SIGH>
But it is now more than a quarter of a century since the military-industrial-intelligence complex felt secure enough to reveal itself openly in the Age of Reagan as a fascist cabal. Quite a few of us are aware of the stories that have circulated for decades about the CIA’s involvement with the American drug epidemic, especially in Los Angeles --- can’t you hear Lockhart77’s squeals just rising in pitch at the news? --- and the fascists within the armed services have always understood that gangs and extremist groups are the best recruiting grounds for the killing machines that they need to accomplish the objectives of the capitalist ruling class elite, both at home and abroad. My previous post concerned the revelations about institutionalized extremism within the military that Scott Barfield and the other decent members of the armed services are seeking to publicize as a way of countering the growing power of the open fascists within the military. But one has to ask: if this is what is reaching the public, can’t you just imagine what is not being disclosed?
Barfield says that “today’s white supremacists in the military become tomorrow’s domestic terrorists once they’re out.” Which is a euphemistic way of saying that today’s neo-Nazis, who are murdering Iraqi men and raping Iraqi women in Baghdad, are going to be in a couple of years your local police officers, who are going to come knocking --- oops, I forgot, they don’t even have to knock any more --- on your door at 2 AM because you uttered some subversive political sentiment or because you threaten some local rich man’s short-term profitability. And as the Amerikan Empire follows the path trod by the Roman Empire in the Age of Diocletian and Amerikan society becomes paramilitarized and feudalized, the distinction between domestic “civilians” and foreign “civilians” becomes irrelevant: a sand-****** in Iraq is basically no different from a bayou-****** in New Orleans, and both can be handled consequently in exactly the same way. Only the “cops” and the “robbers” are important, and eventually, each side finds that it has far more in common with the other than either has with the “civilians,” who are just sheep who exist to be fleeced by either side. And when Amerikan society accepts this standard of social judgment, even domestically, then we can finally say that the chickens have come home to roost, that the Iraqi War has been brought back to Amerika itself, and that skinhead culture is mainstream Amerika. And then welcome to the Clockwork Orange world of Little Alex and his droogies... <SIGH>
Last edited by joequinn on 07-08-2006 09:36 AM, edited 1 time in total.
Being a neo-Nazi does not make one a criminal, I hope everyone realizes. It makes you racist, and possibly sporting a close haircut, but not criminal...since the Constitution reserves the right to do some things that the Democrats, for instance, at times seem to seek to abolish, the freedom to hate others for no rational reason.
Neo-Nazis are "bad company"...but you can't bar someone from serving in the military because of their beliefs, even the worst kind, in a free country.
Neo-Nazis are "bad company"...but you can't bar someone from serving in the military because of their beliefs, even the worst kind, in a free country.
"Be intolerant: because some things are just plain stupid."
Squall, you are dancing on the fine line of a legal distinction, one that the neo-Nazis themselves dance on with great skill. But neo-Nazi beliefs invariably lead to criminal acts, and the moment that they do, then the law does --- and should --- nail them!
You really have no problem with neo-Nazis in the U.S. armed forces, do you, Squall? Hmmm...
You really have no problem with neo-Nazis in the U.S. armed forces, do you, Squall? Hmmm...