The Pentagon has announced new rules to slow the spread of extremism in the military, one of which will discipline soldiers for liking or resharing white nationalist and other extremist content on social media. The Pentagon announcement comes just two weeks before the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, where more than 80 of the 700 individuals charged with the attack had ties to the U.S. military. Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project Susan Corke says these rule changes are welcomed by her organization but don’t go far enough to stop extremism in the armed forces. “It shouldn’t have taken January 6 to rouse us to really address the problem of extremism in the military,” says Corke.
I mean, one, we were pleased to see that Secretary Austin has made this a real priority. Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking and reporting on extremism in the military since the mid-1980s as part of our work monitoring the activities of domestic hate groups and extremists. And we’ve been alerting the Defense Department since then. So, you know, with Secretary Austin making it a priority — and they did reach out to experts in civil society, civil rights organizations, like ours, academia, veterans’ rights groups, so we did feel like we were consulted in the course of this process. But, you know, it’s important to note, though, that it shouldn’t have taken January 6th to rouse us to really address the problem of extremism in the military. There has been a dangerous and disturbing trend for many years. And it’s not unique to the military, of course. This is a part of a problem in society at large.
And you’re right: We did track that more than 80 of the 700 individuals charged by the Justice Department do have ties to the U.S. military. Most of those are veterans. Some are active-duty personnel. And that came as actually no surprise to us, because for the hate and extremist
— source democracynow.org | Dec 23, 2021