Report exposes white supremacists in the U.S. military

A story published this month by the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) exposes the activities of racist extremists in the U.S. military. Department of Defense investigator Scott Barfield said he submitted evidence on 320 extremists in the military in the past year, but only two have been discharged since then. “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 Barfield.

Of course, the extent of the racist atrocities currently being carried out by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot

be attributed to the recruitment of extremist elements—its roots run much deeper. Troops, many coming from working class backgrounds, are force-fed racist ideology by the military brass to condition them for the brutal tasks of imperialist war.  

Military indoctrination reduces the targets of empire to racist caricatures—“terrorists,” “extremists who do not share our values,” “people who hate our freedoms.” The acts of torture at Abu Ghraib, the obliteration of Fallujah, and last November’s gruesome massacre of 24 civilians in Haditha have given us only glimpses of the daily carnage taking place in Iraq. Few human beings would be capable of such barbaric acts without first being thoroughly brainwashed and desensitized by the military.

Nevertheless, the fact that white supremacists are tolerated—even welcomed—in the ranks of the military, certainly helps push those barbaric acts further. Their racist mentality is a valuable asset to those who seek to subjugate another people.

The revelations contained in the SPLC report, although repulsive, are hardly surprising. Such virulent racist elements have been thriving in the institutions of the U.S. capitalist state since its birth.

The founders of the original Ku Klux Klan were all veterans of the Confederate Army. Louis Oaks, chief of the infamously racist Los Angeles Police Department from 1922 to 1923, was a Klan member. In 1990, five military policemen at Carswell Air Force Base in Texas were discharged for recruiting for the Klan. One of them, Sgt. Timothy Hall, was found to be the Klan’s chief recruiter in Texas. In 1992, retired Green Beret Steven Barry founded Special Forces Underground, a white supremacist organization for active duty and veteran Special Forces soldiers.

Racism is a tool for maintaining the dominance of the capitalist class, both abroad and at home, by dividing workers and perpetuating national oppression. We must continue to fight all of its manifestations without forgetting that its final eradication must be built upon the foundations of a socialist revolution.