For over a decade, white supremacists have used the U.S. military as a training ground for their homebound intentions, according to a university military professor. A new report by The Huffington Post has captured the chat logs of seven members of the military who have been identified as part of just one white nationalist group.
The Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have identified their group, Identity Evropa, as an extremist group. The highly anti-Semitic and racist group included active members of the military:
‘Two Marines, two Army ROTC cadets, an Army physician, a member of the Texas National Guard, and one member of the Air Force.’
HuffPost received the chat logs of these seven members of Identity Evropa. The hate organization has used the Discord server frequently. An independent media collective Unicorn Riot published the server’s entire contents.
Then, HuffPost’s exclusive report identified seven men who have been active members of Identity Evropa while currently serving. Their purpose has been to spread propaganda, “stickers, and flyers in cities, and on college campuses.”
According to HuffPost, the various branches of the military confirmed that these individuals were indeed active. The publication’s queries spurred an investigation into the men. The military has rules about discrimination and extremist activity.
The timing has been especially relevant. A white nationalist just committed a mass shooting in two New Zealand mosques, killing 50 worshipers, thus far.
Donald Trump has had a long history of supporting white nationalists. However, when reporters asked the president whether he saw an international rise in white nationalism, he said:
‘I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess.’
Government officials arrested white nationalist Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Hasson for allegedly stockpiling weapons. His goal was to supply the means to:
‘…massacre leftists and reporters in a violent plot to establish a “white homeland.”’
ProPublica and Frontline reported on the results of their investigations last year. They found a number of violent neo-Nazi groups in the active military. In addition, a 2017 Military Times poll found 25 percent of all military members had “encountered white nationalists within their ranks:”
‘That poll found that 30 percent of troops said they saw white nationalism as a bigger threat to national security than the wars in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.’
Author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America Kathleen Belew told HuffPost that white nationalists in the U.S. military “pose a clear danger.” She said they have:
‘…played an instrumental role in moving weapons, training and tactics from military to civilian spaces (and) dramatically escalated the impact of white power violence on civilian populations.’
Identify Evropa said that it had hundreds of members. It has been trying to infiltrate the Republican party, too:
‘One member won an uncontested seat on his local Republican Party committee — and recruit members on college campuses. A recent report from the Anti-Defamation League found that Identity Evropa’s campus flyer campaigns were partly responsible for record-setting levels of white supremacist propaganda spotted across America last year.’
Immediately after the chat logs became public, leader of Identity Evropa Patrick Casey, 29, announced the group was rebranding its name. The group now goes by the name of the American Identity Movement.
