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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 4:08 pm Post subject: White supremacists enlisting in military, report says |
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As we all know, the Army is having difficulty recruting new people. It is getting needy enough that it really doesn't care so much about a person's past apparently.
SF Chron article
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A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.
"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator from a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem." |
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happeningthang
Joined: 26 Apr 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 7:36 pm Post subject: Re: White supremacists enlisting in military, report says |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
As we all know, the Army is having difficulty recruting new people. It is getting needy enough that it really doesn't care so much about a person's past apparently.
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Looks like it....
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Barfield said Army recruiters eager to meet their goals have been overlooking applicants' gang tattoos and getting waivers for criminal backgrounds.
"We're lowering our standards," Barfield said. |
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-gangs01.html# |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 11:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Extremists from all quarters of the earth have long been attracted to the idea of killing & torture etc of the "OTHER". |
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in_seoul_2003
Joined: 24 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 12:55 am Post subject: |
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...
Last edited by in_seoul_2003 on Fri Aug 17, 2007 8:19 am; edited 1 time in total |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 6:13 am Post subject: |
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| Lots of people have experienced far greater stress (yes, even greater than watching your buddy's legs get blown off) and have gone on to survive with integrity. The reality is that so many of these perverts were looking for the opportunity to express their tendencies long before they even stepped off U.S. soil. |
Is it really a case of people looking for the opportunity, or it more a case of people being given the opportunity?
I've been violently mugged twice, the second time requiring a trip to the hospital. Both times, I entertained myself in the weeks following with fantasy scenarios in which I tortured and killed my assailants in a manner that went far beyond what they did to me. (Slowly running a chainsaw through their skulls while their family members watched was, I recall, a common motif).
Now, obviously, I didn't put any of those fantasies into practice, but why is that? Is it I because I have no sadisitic tendencies? Or is it because I knew for certain that there was no way I could get away with doing that kind of stuff? The question is not "Did OTOH act on his sadistic tendencies", but rather "Would OTOH have acted on his sadistic tendencies if he had been presented with a way to do so without getting caught?" Like, suppose someone I knew and trusted offered me the use of a cabin in the woods, where I could dismember my assailants, Lady Vengeance style, and bury the bodies with no one ever being able to trace them to me. Would I do it? I honestly don't know for sure. I do know that the IDEA of doing that certainly gave me a lot of pleasure, in the weeks following both assaults.
None of this is to absolve either the alternative-universe OTOH or the soldiers from responsibility for our crimes. If I got caught dismembering my muggers, I wouldn't expect the judge to say "well, you've been mugged and that was pretty traumatic, so I'm gonna let you off with a warning": even if presented with a fool-proof scheme to avoid detection, I would still be at total liberty NOT to carry out my revenge fantasies. Hovever, I also don't think that it would be accurate to suggest that my crime had nothing to do with what I had endured during the muggings, and that my only reason for walking down a dark street that night was to meet a mugger and act out my life-long desire to dismember someone with a chainsaw. |
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bignate
Joined: 30 Apr 2003
Location: Hell's Ditch
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| Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 8:48 am Post subject: |
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An interesting book on the subject, or at least related to the subject, in relation to Canadian Peacekeepers is:
Dark Threats & White Knights: the Somalial Affair, Peacekeeping, and hte New Imperialism, by Sherene H. Razack
Essentialy she looks at the issue in "today's military" of how soldiers meant to do good, end up falling into treating those who they to protect, in racist and demeaning manners. She describes their actions as being the result of the fact that, because of where peacekeeping operations occur, there is a tendency for the normalization of violence against people of colour by white soldiers from Western Nations...often legitimized by the violent and dangerous nature of their assignment, and the tacit approval of their commanders.
You get white soldiers, who seeing themselves as being the enforcers of "Good" against an often unappreciative coloured adversaries who are implicitely "Evil" come to the realization that they are also inferior, and somehow sub-human, not worthy of normal relations.
It is a situation that will only become worse with already minded individuals becoming more prevelant in these forces... |
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in_seoul_2003
Joined: 24 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 8:53 am Post subject: |
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