Ah, the New York Slimes - nothing is too improbable to be unfit for us to print if we can use it to slam Bush or the military. Today they run a story that is so weak that even moonbat libs have to suspend their disbelief to buy into their latest calumny pretending to be "Newz". Please note before reading this that recruiting goals have been met or exceeded for quite a few months in a row now. In fact, recruiting shortfalls were an issue over a year ago & they were as overstated by the MSM as they were shortlived.
NYT: Skinheads in Baghdad
By McQ
The QandO Blog
Yes folks we have a new report that claims thousands, thousands I tell you, of skinheads are in the military thanks to, wait for it, recruiting problems and the lowering of standards because of the war in Iraq.
A NY Times story today opens with this:
<<< 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." >>>
OK fine. Obviously no one wants white supremacists in the US military. Or any racially oriented gang for that matter. That’s a given.
But what is the real extent of the problem?
First the NY Times:
<<< 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." >>>
Indeed that is a quote from Barfield found in the SPLC report. But so is this:
<<< Barfield, who is based at Fort Lewis, said he has identified and submitted evidence on 320 extremists there in the past year. "Only two have been discharged," he said. Barfield and other Department of Defense investigators said they recently uncovered an online network of 57 neo-Nazis who are active duty Army and Marines personnel spread across five military installations in five states — Fort Lewis; Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Stewart, Ga.; and Camp Pendleton, Calif. "They’re communicating with each other about weapons, about recruiting, about keeping their identities secret, about organizing within the military," Barfield said. "Several of these individuals have since been deployed to combat missions in Iraq." >>>
So between Barfield and "other Department of Defense investigators" we have actually identified, at most, 377 "extremists". And, at this point, we only have the word of Barfield that the 320 he’s identified are indeed "extremists".
Barfield goes on:
<<< Every year, the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division conducts a threat assessment of extremist and gang activity among army personnel. "Every year, they come back with ’minimal activity,’ which is inaccurate," said Barfield. "It’s not epidemic, but there’s plenty of evidence we’re talking numbers well into the thousands, just in the Army." >>>
OK ... if that is so, why isn’t the evidence available? I mean if the SPLC is going to make explicit charges about the level of activity in the military being in the "thousands", you’d think they’d have more than one guy’s estimate.
The report, 6 pages long, then goes through page after page of examples of skinheads in the military, with the vast majority of them serving in the late ’90s.
And still no evidence of ’thousands’ of skinheads in the military. But lots more general conjecture:
<<< "Hate groups send their guys into the U.S. military because the U.S. military has the best weapons and training," said T.J. Leyden, a former racist skinhead and Marine who recruited inside the Marine Corps for the Hammerskins, a nationwide skinhead gang. He later renounced the neo-Nazi movement and now conducts anti-extremism training seminars on military bases. >>>
We know all of this because of those who were found in the military in the ’90s. Of course Barfield is right there validating all of this and trying to intimate the same is going on now:
<<< "Right now, any white supremacist in Iraq is getting live fire, guerilla warfare experience," Leyden said. "But any white supremacist in Iraq who’s a Green Beret or a Navy SEAL or Marine Recon, he’s doing covert stuff that’s far above and beyond convoy protection and roadblocks. And if he comes back and decides at some point down the road that it’s race war time, all that training and combat experience he’s received could easily turn around and bite this country in the ass."
Department of Defense investigator Barfield confirmed that threat assessment. "Today’s white supremacists in the military become tomorrow’s domestic terrorists once they’re out," he said. "There needs to be a tighter focus on intercepting the next Timothy McVeigh before he becomes the next Timothy McVeigh." >>>
All true, but at this point, we’re still well short of those "thousands" of skinheads in the military. The closest we ever get is this:
<<< Hundreds of neo-Nazis online identify themselves as active duty soldiers. "When you are in, after you finish basic training, your discretion is very important," Ulfur Engil wrote in a recent Internet posting. "If you are someone who wears boots and braces keep a second pair that’s neutral looking (black). Remove any obvious pins from your jacket (runes by themselves are okay, though. They don’t take issue with them, providing there is no obvious [racist] arrangement. The USO in Keflavik, Iceland, actually sold runes!) Do NOT use any Internet connection offered by the base or do ANYTHING on a military server. NOTHING. Get an Internet connection that is private and off-base, invest in EvidenceEliminator, and set up an email account with Hushmail and/or Ziplip." >>>
Well yeah, and Jessie MacBeth said he was a Ranger. On line commandos are a dime a dozen.
And even if true "hundreds" still isn’t "thousands". Barfield himself concedes, "it’s not epidemic ..." but to this point, other than Barfield’s estimate, there is nothing which provides evidence that "thousands" of skinheads are serving in the military.
Do I want skinheads in the military. No. Should they all be discharged if it is found that they are indeed members of a racist group? Yes.
But was that the purpose of the story?
No.
The purpose is found in the sub-head to the SPLC report:
<<< "Ten years after a scandal over neo-Nazis in the armed forces, extremists are once again worming their way into a recruit-starved military." >>>
And that translated to this paragraph in the NY Times piece:
<<< 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. >>>
Really? So obviously the only possible answer is they’re doing a little "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" with the racists to be over quota at this point, is that it?
Be nice if they had more than one guy’s estimate to base all this conjuncture upon.
qando.net
nytimes.com
splcenter.org
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