US army investigates after young private follows the Base, which has vowed to recruit soldiers for so-called race war
An active-duty serviceman in the US army is openly following a proscribed neo-Nazi terrorist group on social media, one that has vowed to recruit soldiers in preparation for a so-called race war.
Experts say examples like this shows how under Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon is allowing extremism to go unchecked.
On the surface, following a TikTok account might seem like a minor infraction for a young private in the 1st Infantry Division. But not only has that private followed the Base, a violent neo-Nazi terrorist organization once the target of an FBI investigation, there are directives issued under Joe Biden that discourages that kind of social media activity.
But in February, the DoD issued a memo halting a major counter-extremism initiative rooting out white nationalists and far-right influences among servicemen, citing that it was not in line with Donald Trump’s executive orders. Since, the efficacy of rooting out the far right within the ranks remains unclear.
I mean, this isn’t good obviously, but it also doesn’t feel like news.
The US military employs almost 3million people. I challenge you to grab a broad swath of 3 million people and not have a few neo-nazis in the bunch.
Which isn’t to say that it’s okay or should be tolerated. Just that, like, it isn’t news. Or, at least, not any more news than “Nazi sypathizer exists on earth” is news.
It’s more, “hey this is not being allowed to happen without repercussion”
I mean, the Army is on the record in the article as saying that the behavior would not be tolerated and that they are investigating. He’ll probably get UCMJ’d. I think “without repercussion” is strong.
Should there be more protections to detect this stuff early? Maybe. But, like, that doesn’t feel like as flashy a headline I guess.
And idk, should the Armed Forces have people actively monitoring all their personnel’s private lives 24/7? Seems a little much to me.
I’m just having trouble figuring out what the takeaway is. What “repercussions” do you want to see here? He gets punished in some way? Cause odds are good he will, if they can figure out who it is (since the Guardian didn’t share the name with the Army, per the article.) So what’s the story?
The story is these measures to start having an effect with extremism becoming more visibly prevalent.
I mean, you say more visible, but it’s not like these things haven’t always happened. I personally knew a guy a few years back who was UCMJ’d for being a racist.
I suppose you’re right that he didn’t have an article written in the Guardian about him, so it’s more visible in that sense. But it seems a little tautological to write an article saying things are more visible, if the “more visibility” in question is that you wrote an article about them.
Fair point. I guess we will see how things develop.
Yep, and if you monitored people’s personal lives constantly minority groups like LGBT would be far less likely to join.