HATE GROUPS IN THE MILITARY?

Little news item from the New York Times website, a couple days ago:

HATE GROUPS ARE INFILTRATING THE MILITARY, GROUP ASSERTS

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 as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."

A Defense Department spokeswoman said officials there could not comment on the report because they had not yet seen it.

The entire story can be found here.

Now, not to denigrate the Southern Poverty Law Center for pointing out this rather alarming bit of information, but as an old GI from the late Cold War days I can say, fairly authoritatively, that racism and hatred are integral components of just about any military system. I know from my own experience just how virulent these low-budget idiocies are in the US armed forces; actually, I would go as far to say that the American military colossus is, itself, the largest hate-group of them all, especially when it's being wielded by the cabal of Neo-Con fanatics who're herding us all down the toilet bowl of oblivion.

Oh well -- it's just a thought.