Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's STACLU's latest exercise in irrationality, a post titled NY Times Paints US Military as a Bunch of Racists. The post is written by Ian from Expose the Left, but all he really does is expose his own lack of reasoning skills. He's up in arms about this article in the NY Times, which points out that the Pentagon is concerned about an increasing number of members of racist hate groups joining the military. He begins by claiming that Times is saying that, "Our troops are not only cold blooded murderers, rapists, or war-mongers, but now they're racists" and he then cites the following from the Times article:
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."
Is the New York Times claiming that "our troops" are racists? Of course not. They are only saying that some people from racist groups have infiltrated the military. Now, I think we can all agree that having Aryan Nations neo-Nazis in the military is a bad thing, right? I mean, even the dolts at STACLU would have to agree that we don't want such people in the military, that they are precisely the sort of people who can be counted on to commit unnecessary atrocities and cause massive problems for the military. I mean, the Pentagon itself clearly recognizes that, which is why they've got an investigation going on the subject.
So why, then, is reporting that such an investigation is going on somehow doing something unpatriotic, as Ian claims? Your guess is as good as mine. If it's true - and the Pentagon's own investigators say it is, on the record in the article - then why is the Times wrong to report it? Wouldn't someone who recognizes that this is a bad thing want such information available so that pressure can be brought to bear to correct the problem? That is, after all, the principle job of the press.
This is exactly the kind of kneejerk irrationality that kills the credibility of the STACLU crowd. They exaggerate the positions of their opponents beyond all recognition, draw completely illogical conclusions from those exaggerations, and then post about it with the most hyperbolic rhetoric they can dream up.
Comments
Ed, you silly. It's unpatriotic for precisely the same reason that reporting about [NSA surveillance] [data mining] [monitoring financial transactions] [torture] [cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment] [secret prisons] [torture renditions] (pick one or more) is unpatriotic. It [makes the President] [makes the Administration] [makes the country] [makes our troops] [makes the military] (pick one or more) look bad, and [is treasonous] [gives aid and comfort to the enemy] [will hurt the war on terror] [will hurt the country] [encourages the terrorists] (pick one or more) and, as we all know, will eventually lead to [liberalism] [anarchy] [homosexuality] [gay marriage] [sodomy] [abortion] [persecution of Christians] [complete loss of morality] (pick one or more).
It's so obvious. Get it?
Posted by: Dan
| July 10, 2006 10:39 AM
Now that you've explained it so clearly, I'm ashamed of the role I've played in the downfall of this country. May Reagan forgive me.
Posted by: Ed Brayton
| July 10, 2006 10:54 AM
I heard an interview with a journalist investigating this story. She said she found web sights admonishing neo-nazis and other white supremecists to join the infantry to get training for "the coming race war in America." Saying that "your street fighting abilities will come to nought, without military training you won't be able to sweep house to house driving the gays and lesser races into the countryside where they can be hunted and cleansed from our nation."
And the interview made it clear that not only are known hate groupies getting in, when their commanders in Iraq become aware of their hate group status they aren't removed from the field.
No one was claiming the military is racist - it just doesn't take many neo-nazis in tow to do some real damage. And apparently we have several thousand in Iraq.
Posted by: Treban
| July 10, 2006 11:19 AM
Dan put up a pretty solid Ad-Lib explaination for all of these "transgressions." It's truly amazing that when these incidents happen, it isn't the people who committed the crime/violation/atrocity, it's the whistleblower who was the bad guy/girl. Bill O'Reilly is a prime example, he knows there have been incidents of American troops going over the line, he just prefers to ignore them and minimize them except when he can get an historical incident completely backwards in an effort to minimize the acts of today.
They don't want to hear about it because then they can pretend these things don't happen and go on believing that Americans are somehow inherently superior to all other countries/races, etc.
Posted by: dogmeatIB
| July 10, 2006 11:29 AM
I think the best response would be to simply take the skin-heads bowling ...
Posted by: dogmeatIB
| July 10, 2006 11:30 AM
It's not every day that one hears a Camper Van Beethoven reference when reading about STACLUeless.
I'm usually thinking of the Pistols' "Pretty Vacant" when I read STACLU's garbage...
Posted by: MisterDNA
| July 10, 2006 11:55 AM
I think you're needlessly splitting hairs in distinguishing between the skinheads/race warriors/religious fundies/anti-immigration xenophobic crowd. When you add all those up you'll have people that watch the same channels, read the same mags, and so on. And when added up, that's more than a few thousand. These are people that enable and sustain each other's views over the course of day to day activities -- if you think blogs are a closed echo chamber try being in a hierarchical, closed organization.
If the military didn't want them in, they wouldn't be in, but they happen to be expedient right now. And although the military has highly professional people, one should remember that this is a volunteer force, and it being a volunteer force is one of the main reasons that the current crop can't skedaddle to Canada.
In essence many of them are filling the role of really cheap security corps when compared to Halliburton contractors or Blackwater types makinh 6-10x as much per month. It's an experience of a lifetime for trailer types across America. Where else can you blow away civilians in a free fire zone and have your bosses look the other way; you ain't gonna do that around the block and not wind up in prison.
There's a reason that we don't do ICC.
Posted by: Ted
| July 10, 2006 12:48 PM
Credibility?
Posted by: Bill from Dover
| July 10, 2006 1:20 PM
I find the reading incomprehension and attitude of STACLU suspiciously similar to Dave Scot, of Uncomment Descent fame. I wonder....
Posted by: Barry
| July 10, 2006 5:11 PM
I think you're needlessly splitting hairs in distinguishing between the skinheads/race warriors/religious fundies/anti-immigration xenophobic crowd. When you add all those up you'll have people that watch the same channels, read the same mags, and so on. And when added up, that's more than a few thousand. These are people that enable and sustain each other's views over the course of day to day activities -- if you think blogs are a closed echo chamber try being in a hierarchical, closed organization.
It is far from splitting hairs. The folks calling for an all out race war - going door to door cleansing the unclean races, are a far cry from your average right wing extremist. I am far from being a supporter of the righties but racial extremists are in a catagory all their own. It's the difference between people who, while deluded, go to war believing they are protecting their country and people who are going to war to get training to become domestic terrorists and tear this country apart not by rhetoric but by extreme violence.
Posted by: Treban
| July 11, 2006 10:03 AM