The military blog Task & Purpose reports:
Membership in a white supremacist or neo-Nazi group won’t necessarily get a U.S. service member tossed out of the military, defense officials told a House subcommittee Tuesday.
The officials, including representatives of Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, appeared to make a distinction between membership in an extremist organization and “active participation” in deciding on recruitment and retention.
The testimony appeared to stun several members of the committee. “I am flummoxed by what I’ve heard today,” Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, chair of the Subcommittee, said after questioning Robert Grabosky, deputy director of Law Enforcement at the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
Read the full article. Read it.
U.S. military during World War II: “The Nazi war machine is bad and must be destroyed.”
U.S. military today: “Well, not all neo-Nazis…” (???) https://t.co/fm8euUK3lP pic.twitter.com/nWRX8Jl7XX— Jeremy Hsu (@jeremyhsu) February 12, 2020
Defense officials: Membership in a white supremacist or neo-Nazi group won’t necessarily get a US service member tossed out of the military.
Because ‘Murica!https://t.co/JAmS4cEz65
— Hayden Black (@haydenblack_) February 12, 2020
“The majority of the soldiers identified as participating to some extent in extremist activities are not subjects of criminal investigations” per @USArmy Criminal Intelligence Division Chief Joe Ethridge
— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) February 11, 2020
“The more common scenario is participation in an online forum that might be expressing extremist or supremacist views” per @USArmy‘s Ethridge
— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) February 11, 2020
.@USArmy‘s Criminal Intelligence Division has expanded its relationship w/@FBI with more focus on domestic terrorism, Ethridge tells #HASC
— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) February 11, 2020
Extremism monitor Heidi Beirich says it’s hard to pin down the scope of white supremacists in the military – she says there’s supposed to be an annual DoD report on it but we don’t know if it’s happening because “there’s no transparency and no data”
— Hannah Allam (@HannahAllam) February 11, 2020