splcenter.org
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.
by David Holthouse
July 7, 2006 -- Before the U.S. military made Matt
Buschbacher a Navy SEAL, he made himself a soldier of the
Fourth Reich.
Before Forrest Fogarty attended Military Police
counter-insurgency training school, he attended Nazi
skinhead festivals as lead singer for the hate rock band
Attack.
And before Army engineer Jon Fain joined the invasion of
Iraq to fight the War on Terror, the neo-Nazi National
Alliance member fantasized about fighting a war on Jews.
"Ever since my youth -- when I watched WWII footage and saw
how well-disciplined and sharply dressed the German forces
were -- I have wanted to be a soldier," Fain said in a
Winter 2004 interview with the National Alliance magazine
Resistance. "Joining the American military was as close as
I could get."
Ten years after Pentagon leaders toughened policies on
extremist activities by active duty personnel -- a move
that came in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing by
decorated Gulf War combat veteran Timothy McVeigh and the
murder of a black couple by members of a skinhead gang in
the elite 82nd Airborne Division -- large numbers of
neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists continue to infiltrate
the ranks of the world's best-trained, best-equipped
fighting force. Military recruiters and base commanders,
under intense pressure from the war in Iraq to fill the
ranks, often look the other way.
Neo-Nazis "stretch across all branches of service, they are
linking up across the branches once they're inside, and
they are hard-core," Department of Defense gang detective
Scott Barfield told the Intelligence Report. "We've got
Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," he added. "That's a
problem."
The armed forces are supposed to be a model of racial
equality. American soldiers are supposed to be defenders of
democracy. Neo-Nazis represent the opposite of these
ideals. They dream of race war and revolution, and their
motivations for enlisting are often quite different than
serving their country.
"Join only for the training, and to better defend yourself,
our people, and our culture," Fain said. "We must have
people to open doors from the inside when the time comes."
Soldier Shortage
In 1996, following a decade-long rash of cases where
extremists in the military were caught diverting huge
arsenals of stolen firearms and explosives to neo-Nazi and
white supremacist organizations, conducting guerilla
training for paramilitary racist militias, and murdering
non-white civilians (see timeline), the Pentagon finally
launched a massive investigation and crackdown. One general
ordered all 19,000 soldiers at Fort Lewis, Wash.,
strip-searched for extremist tattoos.
But that was peacetime. 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.
"Last year, for the first time, they didn't make their
recruiting goals. They don't want to start making a big
deal again about neo-Nazis in the military, 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."
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."
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."
Last July, the white supremacist website Stormfront hosted
a discussion on "Joining the Military."
"There are others among you in the forces," wrote one
neo-Nazi in the Army. "You are never alone."
Nazi SEAL
Not all military commanders fail to give known extremists
the boot. "The response differs from command group to
command group," Barfield said. "Most put up a front and
say, 'Oh, this guy's in big trouble,' but actually do
nothing unless he commits a felony. But some kick their ass
out right away."
Barfield noted that commanders are far more likely to take
immediate action if the soldier is stateside in a
non-combat role, rather than fighting overseas. In one
recent instance, Robert Salyer, a lieutenant in the Navy
and military lawyer with the Judge Advocate General Corps,
was dishonorably discharged and barred from military law
practice when it came to light that he was a member of the
white supremacist neo-Confederate group League of the
South. And in late June, Airman First Class Andrew Dornan,
who was assigned to the firing party in the U.S. Air Force
Honor Guard, was sentenced to nine months confinement and
dishonorably discharged after he posted messages glorifying
Adolf Hitler on his personal webpage and threatened to
detonate a bomb on a military base.
But the military took no such action against former Navy
SEAL Matt Buschbacher, who continued to fight in Iraq after
the Southern Poverty Law Center had alerted officials to
his active support of neo-Nazi groups.
Buschbacher told the Intelligence Report he joined the
neo-Nazi movement "for the same reason everyone joins: I
was angry and looking for some answers. I wanted to belong
to something that made me feel good about myself."
In 1998, when Buschbacher was still a teenager living in
Terrace Park, Ohio, a wealthy, almost exclusively white
suburb of Cincinnati, he was ordained as a reverend in the
World Church of the Creator, a violent neo-Nazi
organization. He rose fast. In 1999, he was the head of the
hate group's Cincinnati chapter when Chicago member
Benjamin Smith went on a three-day, two-state shooting
spree that targeted Jews, Asians and blacks. Smith killed
two people and wounded nine before committing suicide as
police closed in.
Afterward, Buschbacher praised Smith as "a dedicated
activist for our racial cause" in The Cincinnati Inquirer.
"We have pride in our race, heritage, and culture, and we
will do anything to prevent it from being destroyed," he
said. "White man is the creator, the creator of
civilizations."
In May 2000, Buschbacher attended Nordic Fest, an annual
skinhead festival sponsored by the Imperial Klans of
America in Kentucky, where he posed in front of a flaming
swastika, seig heiling. He joined the Navy shortly
afterward. Again, Buschbacher advanced quickly. In October
2001, he completed 26 weeks of SEAL training at the Naval
Special Warfare Center in Coronado, Calif.
In August 2002, while an active duty SEAL but not yet
stationed in Baghdad, Buschbacher attended the National
Alliance's invitation-only "leadership conference" at the
neo-Nazi group's West Virginia compound. The conference was
held just weeks after the death of National Alliance
founder William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries, the
fantasy novel about revolution and race war that inspired
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. Pierce also wrote the
seminal pamphlet, "What is the National Alliance?" It was
in that tract that Pierce explained that a National
Alliance member in the military "ses his daily
interactions with career personnel to select exceptional
individuals who are receptive, and he then gives them the
opportunity to serve their race while carrying out their
military functions."
'Heroes Among Us'
Today, Matt Buschbacher denies recruiting Navy personnel
into the Alliance. What's clear is that for years after
becoming a SEAL, he violated military regulations without
repercussions by staying active in the neo-Nazi movement.
Using the online pseudonym "Mattiasb88" [88 is neo-Nazi
code for "Heil Hitler"] to hide his identity, Buschbacher
designed and distributed National Alliance fliers, white
power screen savers, and a photo montage of Pierce on the
Internet via his website, racialpride.com, which displayed
a logo of a burning swastika and this mission statement:
"The purpose of this website is to provide white patriots
with a large database of information for recruiting and
self-improvement." Buschbacher also posted messages to the
white supremacist website Stormfront and the website of
Resistance Records, a hate rock music company owned by the
National Alliance. In the fall of 2003, the National
Alliance magazine Resistance even published a collage of
"Scene Shots" that included a small photo of Buschbacher
wearing a Turner Diaries T-shirt and giving a Nazi salute.
Buschbacher hasn't been the only neo-Nazi to fight in Iraq.
Forrest Mackley Fogarty, a member of the Tampa, Fla., unit
of the National Alliance, was deployed for 18 months during
Operation Iraqi Freedom with his Army National Guard unit.
"There are some dirty Arabs enjoying their 70 virgins
because of my actions and that of my fire team," Fogarty
boasted in the Winter 2005 issue of Resistance. (Fogarty
was identified in the article only as "Forrest of Attack.")
Jon Fain, a neo-Nazi who currently lives on the National
Alliance compound, was part of the original Iraq invasion
force in 2003, as a U.S. Army engineer. Shawn Stuart, the
Montana state leader of the National Socialist Movement,
another neo-Nazi group, served two combat tours in Iraq as
a U.S. Marine before he was discharged in 2005. Stuart, who
is running for the state House of Representatives in
Montana, told the Missoula News that he joined the NSM in
2004, while he was still a Marine, because he "came to
believe the United States is fighting the war on Israel's
behalf."
None of these men, it appears, were ever disciplined for
neo-Nazi activities. All were honorably discharged.
James Douglas Ross Jr. was not so fortunate. Ross, a
military intelligence officer stationed at Fort Bragg, was
caught shipping disassembled AK-47s to the United States
from Iraq in 2004, officials said. When investigators
searched his off base housing, they found a weapons
arsenal, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and hate group
materials. Ross was forced to return from Iraq and given a
bad conduct discharge. "But they let him keep the weapons
[he kept in his house]," said Department of Defense
investigator Barfield, adding that Ross has since relocated
to Washington, where he's a leader of the Eastern
Washington Skins, a neo-Nazi gang. "He kept his military
connections, and he's still trying to recruit soldiers, so
we're still dealing with him."
For his part, despite his sometimes brazen activities, Matt
Buschbacher tried hard to avoid exposure as a neo-Nazi in
the military. But his identity became clear after he posted
a photo of himself in a "Mattiasb88" Yahoo profile in 2004,
and then advertised his neo-Nazi E-mail address in a July
2004 posting to a currency trading forum. "I am in the
military and currently in Iraq," he wrote there. "If anyone
would like to purchase some Iraqi dinars I have access to
as much as you would like." That September, Buschbacher was
profiled in his hometown Terrace Park community newspaper,
Village Views. The article, "Heroes Among Us," reported he
was fighting terrorism with a SEAL unit based in downtown
Baghdad.
Two years later, Matt Buschbacher is back from Iraq -- also
with an honorable discharge, despite the fact that the
Southern Poverty Law Center informed the military of his
background while he was still on active duty. He lives in
Denver, Colo., and teaches classes on how to pick up women.
"I have no connection with any neo-Nazi anything any more,"
Buschbacher told the Intelligence Report. Photographed
holding a red rose, he was recently splashed across the
cover of a weekly newsmagazine in Denver promoting his new
book, Date the Women of Your Dreams. The cover story made
no mention of his neo-Nazi past.
Training for Race War
According to a 1998 study commissioned by the Department of
Defense, "Young civilian extremists are encouraged by adult
leaders to enlist in the military to gain access to
weapons, training, and other military personnel."
The reasons are obvious: Soldiers are trained to be
proficient with weapons, combat tactics, and explosives, to
train others in their use, and to operate in a highly
disciplined culture that is focused on the organized
violence of war. This is why military extremists present an
elevated threat to public safety, and why extremists groups
both recruit active duty personnel -- especially those with
access to classified information or sophisticated weaponry
-- and influence their members to join the armed forces.
"The threats posed by extremism to the military are
simultaneously blatant and subtle," the Defense Department
study said. "On the one hand, high-profile terrorist acts
and hate crimes committed by active and former military
personnel can have seriously detrimental effects on the
civil-military relationship as well as on the morale and
security of military personnel. On the other hand, even the
non-violent activities of military personnel with extremist
tendencies (e.g., possessing literature and/or artifacts
from the extremist 'movement'; dabbling in extremism
through computerized telecommunications activities;
proselytizing extremist ideologies, etc.) can have
deleterious consequences for the good order, discipline,
readiness, and cohesion of military units."
Special Forces soldiers who double as extremist operatives
present a special danger, since they have commando skills
gained at huge taxpayer expense -- often including urban
warfare, long-range reconnaissance, and combat demolitions.
"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.
"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."
'White Soldier's Burden'
In April 1995, the same month Timothy McVeigh detonated a
7,000-pound truck bomb outside a federal building in
Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, the National Alliance
erected a billboard on the main road leading into Fort
Bragg, an Army base in Fayetteville, N.C. The billboard's
message read, "Enough! Let's Start Taking Back America,"
and listed the neo-Nazi group's toll-free number.
The billboard was the work of Robert Hunt, a National
Alliance recruiter and active duty member of the Army's
elite 82nd Airborne Division, which is based at Fort Bragg.
By late 1995, a large neo-Nazi skinhead gang had formed
within the 82nd Airborne. Members saluted a Nazi flag in
their barracks, distributed National Alliance literature on
base, and held drunken barracks parties where they blasted
"Third Reich," a rockabilly white power anthem by the band
Rahowa (short for "Racial Holy War") with lyrics about
killing blacks and Jews.
In December 1995, two members of the 82nd Airborne skinhead
gang gunned down a black couple in a random, racially
motivated double murder that shocked the nation and sparked
a major investigation of extremism in the military as well
as congressional hearings. The killers were eventually
sentenced to life in prison, and 19 other members of the
82nd Airborne were dishonorably discharged for neo-Nazi
gang activities.
"The fallout from the skinhead killings was immediate,"
racist skinhead Steve Smith recalled in his 2005 essay,
"The White Soldier's Burden." Smith was in the Army from
1991 to 1996 and was stationed at Fort Bragg at the time of
the murders. "White soldiers at Fort Bragg were inspected
to see if they had any 'racist' tattoos. The Army also held
mandatory classes on 'extremist' organizations."
Before the Fort Bragg slayings, military regulations on
extremist activity by active duty soldiers were ambiguous.
There were no specific regulations on extremism at all
until 1986, when it came to light that active duty soldiers
were providing guerilla training and stolen military
weapons to a paramilitary Ku Klux Klan faction led by a
former Green Beret. The Southern Poverty Law Center then
urged Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger to "prohibit
active-duty members of the armed services from holding
membership in groups like the Klan or from taking part in
their activities." Weinberger responded by issuing this
directive: "Military personnel must reject participation in
white supremacy, neo-Nazi and other such groups which
espouse or attempt to create overt discrimination. Active
participation, including public demonstrations, recruiting
and training members, and organizing or leading such
organizations is utterly incompatible with military
service."
Though sternly worded, many commanders interpreted that
order to mean that while active participation in extremist
groups was prohibited, so-called "passive support," such as
distributing propaganda, listening to hate rock, displaying
flags or symbols, and "mere membership," were still
allowed. After the Fort Bragg slayings, however, the
Department of Defense toughened military policy somewhat to
read, "Engaging in activities in relation to [extremist]
organizations, or in furtherance of the objectives of such
organizations that are viewed by command to be detrimental
to the good order of the unit is incompatible with Military
Service, and is, therefore, prohibited."
Then-Defense Secretary William Perry used even stronger
language to describe the intent of the updated regulation.
"Department of Defense policy leaves no room for racist and
extremist activities in the military," Perry stated. "We
must -- and we shall -- make every effort to erase bigotry,
racism, and extremist from the military. Extremist activity
compromises fairness, good order, and discipline. The armed
forces, which defend the nation and its values, must
exemplify those values beyond question."
Lowering Standards
Neo-Nazis have no respect for the values of a free
democracy or the shining example of equal opportunity its
military is meant to be. When Jon Fain, the Army engineer,
was interviewed in 2004 for a Resistance article titled,
"On the Front Lines for the Jews," he advised neo-Nazis
considering a military career to "[n]ever allow yourself to
be brainwashed into the 'everybody's green' lie." In the
Stormfront discussion on joining the military, neo-Nazi
"Ulfur Engil" wrote that he was stationed with the Army in
Europe and offered this guidance: "Nothing will change what
you are. If you join, you are still the same enlightened
white man (or woman) you always have been."
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."
Extremists in the military are tricky to unmask. "They're a
lot smarter about it than street gang members," said
Barfield. "They don't brag and boast like gang bangers."
The best way to reduce the number of extremists in the
armed forces is to prevent them from entering the military
in the first place. "But now we're lowering our recruiting
standards. We're accepting lesser quality soldiers,"
Barfield said. In a move to boost enlistment, the military
is allowing more and more recruits with criminal records to
sign up. A recent Chicago Sun-Times article revealed the
percentage of recruits granted "moral waivers" for past
misdemeanors had more than doubled since 2001. The military
also revised its rules on inductee tattoos earlier this
year to allow all tattoos except those on the front of the
face. Both changes in the rules made it easier for
extremists to join. And while military regulations prohibit
(PDF) all gang-related or white supremacist tattoos, many
recruiters are ignoring such tattoos, or even literally
covering them up. "I had one case where a recruiter and his
wife took a guy to their house and covered up his tattoos
with make-up so he could pass his [physical examination],"
Barfield said.
Military regulations also call for any superior officer who
spots a soldier with a neo-Nazi or white supremacist tattoo
to refer the soldier to a commander, who then is supposed
to demand the soldier have the tattoo removed. If the
soldier refuses, he's supposed to be kicked out.
"But there's a loophole," Barfield said. "If they never
refer them, they can't refuse, so they just never refer
them, and they stay in."
"If you have any kind of tattoo prior to going in, they
will require you to write out a statement as to what it is,
and what it means to you," advised a neo-Nazi in the
Stormfront military forum. "If it's something obvious like
a swazi [swastika], then they will probably say, 'No go.'
But, something more obscure, like a Schwarze Sonne [a
"black sun," another Nazi symbol] or a Celtic cross would
probably be okay, so long as no phraseology accompanies
it."
"The average Joe recruiter can spot the most obvious
tattoos," said Leyden, who trains the military in
identifying hate group members. "But the vast majority of
them don't know what 'White Power' in German looks like,
they don't know what 88 in Roman numerals means, and now,
they may not even care, because they're under this extreme
pressure to fill the void, and who are they filling the
void with? Therein lies the danger."
'Switchblades and Smeared Blood'
The large tattoo on the right arm of Air Force airman
Robert Lee West depicts a menacing wizard with a scythe.
His recruiter probably saw no problem there, but the photo
of himself West has up on his EveryonesSpace web page
should wave a red flag. In it, West, with his head shaved,
is standing in front of a swastika and Iron Eagle banner,
holding twin AR-15 assault rifles. West, 23, who's
stationed at Warner Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, lists
his general interests as "switchblades and smeared blood."
In his "About Me" section, he writes: "I train most days
for marksmanship, combat, demolition, politics, economics,
religion, military tactics, oratory, and propaganda. I will
give my life for a cause greater than my own. My mind and
spirit shall ensure life for my people, and death for
yours. I shall fight until I have achieved victory. Just
remember when you speak to me that I don't play by ZOG
[Zionist Occupation Government] rules and I will not
hesitate to sever your subclavian artery."
Special Agent Will Manuel of Air Force's Office of Special
Investigations at Warner Robins said he's "well aware" of
West's neo-Nazi identity. "We've seen all his pictures,
we've read his website, and we know what's he doing." Yet
despite the toughened policy declared by the Pentagon a
decade ago, Manuel says, "We're not going to go after him
just based on what he says he believes, or on him making a
lot of claims. There has to be an overt act first. He has
to actually organize or recruit or commit a crime. But even
his pictures and writings raise concerns, obviously,
because we know that where you have one [neo-Nazi], there's
usually another, and what he claims to represent totally
goes against the core values of the military."
Ten years after the military crackdown on extremism, it's
clear that there are still a great many Robert Lee Wests in
the U.S. armed forces. And that should worry all Americans.
In 1996, the Ft. Bragg murders sparked Congressional
hearings on extremism in the military. Then-Air Force
Secretary Sheila E. Windall said in her testimony, "We have
an absolute obligation, and the American people have an
absolute right to expect, that military members will use
their expertise and the lethal tools of their trade to
protect them and never to harm them."
But some in the military appear to have lost sight of that
obligation in the fog of war. "The regulations could use
some fine tuning, but they're already on the books,"
Barfield said. "They're just not being enforced. My fear is
that it's going to take another Fort Bragg before that
changes."
Anthony Griggs, Joseph Roy Sr., and Laurie Wood contributed
to this report. |
