Racism in The U.S. Military Part Two: A Cause

Bravo Company is just one case of racism in the troops, which is not just immoral but also undermines the military campaign as I explained in part one. But how pronounced is this racism in the U.S. military as a whole? If the data indicates anything, it is that White Nationalism is shockingly prevalent. A Military Times poll in October of 2017 found that nearly one in four active duty members has observed White Nationalism among the troops. Among non-white soldiers, the numbers are even worse; about 40% observed White Nationalism, compared to about 20% among white soldiers. Even some of the people polled were themselves suspicious. One navy commander wrote, “White Nationalism is not a terrorist organization,” and an air force staff sergeant wrote, “You do realize White Nationalists and racists are two totally different types of people?”

There is evidently an unnerving amount of disgusting ideology in the armed forces, but what happens when these corrupt men return home? Unsurprisingly, they join domestic White Supremacist groups and use their experience and training in the military to bolster the forces of hatred in the U.S. Journalists from ProPublica infiltrated the message forums of a Neo-Nazi group known as AtomWaffen, whose goals involve overthrowing the U.S. government using guerrilla warfare. Several members were identified as current or former members of the military. One of these was Joshua Beckett, a combat engineer, otherwise known as a demolition expert, who served in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2015. He told the group he would happily construct assault rifles for them if he was given the parts, and eagerly encouraged them to join the military so they could become proficient in firearms usage. He also notably believes the government is controlled by a secret cabal of Jews.

Another member reportedly told the group, “I was in the infantry in the army in Afghanistan and did a lot of…shit,” then elaborated on his delightful adventures by adding that he spent his time blasting “lead into sand niggers.” AtomWaffen’s founder and member of the National Guard, Brandon Russell, was arrested in 2017 after investigators found a massive cache of weapons and explosives in his home. But he is not the only White Supremacist leader to descend from the armed forces; others include George Lincoln Rockwell, commander of the American Nazi Party, Louis Beam, leader of the KKK, and Richard Butler, founder of Aryan Nation. A report by the DHS in coordination with the FBI also noted that Right-Wing extremist groups in the U.S were actively recruiting disgruntled, returning veterans.

A Catalyst for Racism

I would pose that the very face of my country, President Donald Trump, is one of many factors propelling the surge in bigotry. With both his policy and rhetoric, he has fostered a national climate that is conducive to such behavior, and there is evidence to support this. This year, the Southern Poverty Law Center conducted a study that found more than 950 extremist groups exist in the country, with about 220 of them being black extremist groups and over 600 of them being white extremist groups. Overall, that is an increase of 4% since 2016, the year of the election, and the rhetoric has been shaping the public zeitgeist since the inception of Trump’s campaign well before that. More data from the FBI indicate that hate crimes have increased with an alarming spike in 2016. There were almost 300 more cases than the prior year, with 5,850 during 2015 and 6,120 in 2016. Before then, the number was generally decreasing.

I genuinely cannot determine whether Donald Trump is a manipulative political genius, or just an intuitive, incompetent fool. His inability to speak, write or read anything higher than a fourth grade level in tandem with his lack of understanding of most issues would suggest the latter, but he has also gripped every fundamental pillar of the moral system that predicates the Conservative temperament with astounding aptitude. The tariffs, the travel ban, the border wall, it all taps into that atavistic desire to cleanse the in-group of “the other,” expel any foreign threats that attempt to infiltrate and protect the well-being of those inside. Change is scary to a lot of people, and Trump took hold of that fear, assuming the role of a comforting father-figure telling his children he would make the boogeyman go back into the closet. He would “make America great again,” or in other words, “reverse all of that scary change” that has been rocking the American boat since the 1960s.

Specifically related to the fuel spilling from his mouth into the engines of White Nationalists in our military, Trump has spewed a lot of filthy rhetoric regarding Muslims, and to pretend that what he has said, even if you want to construe it as not necessarily being racist, is at best so ambiguous that it gives the green light for already hateful individuals to tout him as their Messiah, which they explicitly do. There have been countless instances where he has had a clear opportunity to denounce bigotry and make it clear that he does not advocate for those kinds of ideas, but he always opts for a meaningless statement, dancing around the relevant subject so as not to dissuade any of his supporters.

Here are just some of the things Donald Trump has said regarding Muslims:

At a town hall in New Hampshire, a man shouted out, “We have a problem in this country, it’s called Muslims!” Then asked about getting rid of “Muslim training camps,” to which Trump responded, “We're going to be looking at a lot of different things. You know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We're going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.”

In an interview, Trump said he wants to watch mosques in the U.S and would strongly consider shutting them down.

In a speech, Trump said he wanted to shut down all Muslims entering the U.S, also implying that hatred and anger were coming from the mosques.

On Fox News, Trump answered a question about the reason behind banning the entry of all Muslims rather than just countries linked to terrorism by saying, “They’re sick people. There’s a sickness going on.” Even Fox News admitted he was ambiguous during the interview. This just leaves more room for interpretation by White Supremacists.

On CNN, when asked if Islam is at war with the West, Trump said, “I think Islam hates us. There’s something there that — there’s a tremendous hatred there. There’s a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There’s an unbelievable hatred of us.”

But what about the very real threat of Islamic extremism? Maybe Trump is just a blithering idiot messily trying to address an important national and global issue, but in doing so he has made an already larger problem much worse. A study from the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute and Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting found that between 2008 and 2017, Right-Wing extremists committed or attempted to commit almost twice as many domestic terror attacks as Islamic extremists, 115 compared to 63. 76% of those Islamic incidents were prevented by law enforcement. Compared to only 36% for the Right-Wing ones. Additionally, half of the foiled Islamic incidents were sting operations, a percentage four times as high as Right-Wing incidents, which shows where our efforts are focused.

While the Right-Wing extremists caused fatalities about a third of the time, Islamic extremists causing fatalities 13% of the time, the total number of deaths by the Islamists was larger. However, this was due to a few particularly lethal cases in which almost all of the deaths occured, notably San Bernardino, Fort Hood, and Orlando. Another report from the ADL at the end of 2017 indicated that 71% of domestic-extremist related killings during the last decade were committed by Right-Wing extremists, with 26% by Islamic extremists. Even the deadliest bombing in U.S history, the 1995 Oklahoma City car-bomb that killed 168 and wounded over 680, was carried out by Timothy McVeigh, a Right-Wing extremist who served in the Persian-Gulf War.

In a politically intelligent move, Trump has tried to eradicate one problem by rallying behind him all of the perpetrators of a larger problem. In this sense, the cure is worse than the disease, because the doctor administering it doesn’t understand how to use a needle. So as Trump implements an ineffective travel ban that is more symbolic than anything, his actions are directly influencing the increase in actual domestic terrorism.

The presence of White Nationalism in our military is likely to only increase, unfortunately. When obesity rates in the U.S are increasing and the size of the military is proliferating, recruiters are struggling to find qualified applicants. When this happens, they have to lower the standards for recruits, which opens the door to more abusive soldiers committing the kinds of atrocities Bravo Company did.

The military classifies those who score in the bottom third of standard tests as “Category Four,” and there is a limit on the percentage of new recruits who can be pulled from this pool. During times of high demand, that percentage goes up, such as in 2005 when more troops were needed for Iraq and Afghanistan. The consequences of this were shown in 2006 when a girl in Iraq was raped and her family murdered by a group of soldiers, one of whom was only admitted for service because his minor criminal activity and poor educational background were waived.

It is very apparent that racism is alive in America, and unfortunately, the President has been breathing new life into it. Whether the effects of such a revitalized hatred for specific demographics take place in Charlottesville, Virginia, or Kandahar, Afghanistan, we need to exert political pressure on those with the power to restructure the system. Obviously, not all soldiers are like the ones previously described; those are a minority. It is just as asinine to portray all soldiers as brave, honorable people as it is to portray them all as predatory brutes. But before you return to our lovely world, you do support the troops, don’t you?