February 24, 2026 • 55 mins
The world's most powerful has numerous policies regarding equality -- but how do the policies on paper translate to action? In today's episode, the gang dives into the all-too-often unexplored, ongoing conspiracy taking place within the US Armed Forces: supremacists and separatists are infiltrating the military, often with the active goal of later using their training and expertise to wage war against the very nation they swore to protect.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realists, Welcome back to our classic episode. This
one is going to be unfortunately prescient again. As we
all recall, towards the very end of October twenty twenty,
we started answering some questions about white supremacist groups infiltrating
(00:26):
the military.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, I know, it would seem today maybe a little
more concerned with white supremacist groups infiltrating the paramilitary in
the form of ICE agents that are not very well vetted,
if vetted at all. You know, somebody pointed out to me, guys,
how come the Proud Boys aren't showing up to demonstrations anymore.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I'll tell you why. Because they're the ones in the masks.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, because they're working for ICE. They've got a schedule now.
They can't just willing nearly go to protests. They have
to get sent out unqualified to cause in dangerous ways.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
And proud voice, stand by, stand down. Whatever the hell
you said, it's coming to pass.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
I think we mentioned it in our last video episode
we made for Netflix, This is out of time. Who
knows you Nobody knows which one we're referring to. We
just mentioned it. There was the specific video of somebody
in what looks like a taco joint calling out several
people because they were suspected of being ice or something.
(01:30):
It's really interesting to think about just our comparisons right
now of the thing we're experiencing as immigration customs enforcement
and all of that that's happening with Department of Homeland Security,
and then the human beings that you see on your
screen in a video like that, who are They don't
appear to be people that we would necessarily associate at
(01:50):
all with white supremacy because they're they're not like Anglo
Saxon Caucasian dudes. But they are also members of this
thing we're associating it in a lot of ways with that.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
That's a great point, man, because we are in this
episode six years ago now almost six years ago, we
looked into a very dangerous logical question. If you are
a member of a domestic terrorist group, how do you
(02:23):
get training?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
How do you get military level training for your future Shenanigans.
It turns out that white supremacist groups have infiltrated the
United States military, And to be honest, folks, back when
we figured this out, thanks to help from our many
(02:46):
conspiracy realists in the crowd. We lightly predict what is
going to happen, but I think it's fair to say
we didn't know it would happen so hard, happened so soon.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
And there's other groups that we don't talk about in
here that are just popping up in news stories all
over the place, like what.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Was that one that just happened?
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Night Division? No, Night Division, Tactical that I had never
heard of, Patriot Front. There's all these interesting groups that
are at least accused of being a part of these movements.
Oh are they? And how much of that is a
story being told to us?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
All right, let's roll.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
It from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History
is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nol.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
They called me Ben weird Jo as always with our
super producer Paul, Mission Control decand most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. Today's episode, spoiler Alert is about
more than one conspiracy. We are exploring a rat's nest
(04:21):
or a rat king of interlinked events. These are things
that at a cursory glance might seem like isolated, tragic
cases of a lone wolf or what are sometimes called
bad apples. However, as we are going to find out
very shortly, each of these cases turns out to be
(04:41):
the facet of something much much larger and something incredibly dangerous. Because,
you see, folks, it turns out that the US military
may be training the domestic terrorist of the future. Oh boy, yeah,
that's I mean, have you guys we've talked about this,
you know, like Timothy McVeigh and various groups that aim
(05:06):
for insurrection or they want to secede from the nation.
I think there was a stat we learned years ago
that at any given time there are at least a
hundred secessionist groups of varying seriousness in the US alone.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Yeah, I mean, I mean there are, And I guess
the big question is how much has the military itself
been infiltrated by groups like this, right? Or how often
have these groups used the military as a tool for
training exactly?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Here are the facts. So the US military was segregated
for a long time. It was desegregated in nineteen forty eight,
which in the span of history still isn't really that
long ago. After it was formally desegregated, there were still
segregated military units until nineteen fifty four, the same time
(06:04):
that Bernese convinced America to help United Fruit with coup
in Guatemala. That's the same year that these final segregated
units were disbanded. And now, even though it might not
occur to a lot of people outside of the military,
the US military is one of the most ethnically diverse
(06:25):
and integrated institutions in the entire country. It's crazy when
you think about it.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Yeah, And you know, no matter where an individual comes from,
no matter what beliefs an individual has, this person, this
individual has to work with so many other people in
order to make any unit function within the military, you
(06:52):
just have to you have to do that to function,
at least in a mechanical way, right, And the United
States Department of Defense has actually prohibited members of the
military from any kind of active participation in you know,
hate groups, white supremacist groups, any other extremist groups since
nineteen ninety six. And this is you may recognize this.
(07:17):
We already mentioned his name in the episode. That's when
the decorated Gulf War veteran and white supremacist Timothy McVeigh
carried out the Oklahoma City bombing. And you can understand
why an event like that would cause action on you know,
of an entire institution wide basis.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Absolutely, I mean, because, of course, the Armed Services has
sort of safeguards in place that prohibit sort of which
you might consider it at the very basic level, conflicts
of interest, you know, prohibition of members being members of
other groups whose goals and I guess moral codes could
(07:58):
run counter to the goals of the military or the
nation at large. For example, you wouldn't want members of
an army to also be a member of another army
of another nation. I mean, that's the most basic way
of thinking about it. You wouldn't want someone on a
counter terrorism initiative also being in a terrorist group. It
seems silly, but this is the most cut and dry
(08:20):
way of thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, look, as of twenty twenty, there
are well over a million active duty personnel in the military.
They come from all over the country, have all like
a wide range of different beliefs, socioeconomic situations and so on.
These are people who in many cases wouldn't hang out
(08:44):
with each other for fun, you know what I mean,
may have never even had the chance to meet each other.
So we have to, as you guys point out, we
have to have a cohesive structure, and we have to
make sure that the people in that structure, the individual
links in the chain, are all working toward the same
(09:07):
common goal. So that's why you don't want someone who's
working in counter terrorism moonlighting as a terrorist. That's why
you don't want people who are ostensibly fighting for equality
or representing the goals of values of this nation to
also be members of groups that object to equality or
(09:31):
object to the goals of a nation. And so each
branch of the military has these kind of equal Opportunity
manuals that specifically prohibit service members from joining things like
the KKK or neo Nazi groups or other extremist organizations.
And troops who are caught with ties to white nationalism
(09:53):
are typically going to be punished by their commanders for
violating one of two things. It's either going to the
Article ninety two of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
or they can be punished under Article one hundred and
thirty four for engaging in conduct that is generally considered
(10:13):
discrediting and prejudicial to good order and discipline.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
And I would assume, like on the worst case side,
that would be a court martial and like a dishonorable discharge.
But I'm sure there's slap on the wrist versions of
this kind of punishment as well.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Right, Oh man, it goes yeah to say the least, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
There's a variance. And let's talk about that. Let's actually
look at some examples here. We'll give you a couple
quotes that are directly from the Army. This is at
least one directly from the Army quote. Participation in extremist
organizations and activities by Army personnel is inconsistent with the
responsibilities of military service. It is the policy of the
(10:54):
United States Army to provide equal opportunity and treatment for
all soldiers, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, or
national origin. Enforcement of this policy is a responsibility of command,
is vitally important to unit cohesion and morale, and is
essential to the Army's ability to accomplish its mission.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Ah, that pr person did a good job.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
I mean it does it does. It reads as pr
right a.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Million percent and it has to be written that way, honestly,
m M.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
I agreed. Well, let's talk about how they define extremist groups.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Get ready for some more breathtaking literature.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
You ready again? This is this is from the Army.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Here we go.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Organizations and activities are ones that advocate racial, gender, or
ethnic hatred or intolerance, advocate create, or engage in illegal
discrimination based on race, color, gender, religion, or national origin,
or advocate the use of force or violence, or unlawful
means to deprive individuals of their rights under the United
States Constitution or the laws of the United States, or
any state by unlawful means.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Oka news fest. Huh, I mean.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I'm struck by everything in there, except the part that
says in the United States Constitution or the laws of
the United States could be describing the military itself.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Oh like that?
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Especially well in the gender front, there's I think there's
some sand to what you're saying, But I don't think
racial or ethnic hatred at least in theory.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
No.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I mean, we hate our enemies, and some of them
are racially different than us, you know. I mean again,
I'm Sorry, I'm over saying the case a little bit.
But you know, I mean, if you think of people
in the Middle East, I mean there's certainly an in
grained distrust and dare I say hatred for people that
look a certain way?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
You know that.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I feel like people come out of, you know, the
conflicts in those countries perhaps with those kinds of feelings.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I don't know. I'm sure it's not everybody.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
It's it's weird, man. Because do you notice what we
talked about in that paragraph before. Enforcement of this policy
is a responsibility of command. Right now, that phrase alone
means you're gonna get varying results depending on who is command.
Who is this command?
Speaker 1 (13:14):
This is going to be very important later. But look, folks,
government manuals are probably never going to win a Pulitzer,
but they do make an important point. And let's put
it bluntly. Let's get past the jargon and the buzzwords here.
Uncle Sam is essentially saying, look, if we want people
(13:34):
to work together, we just can't have racist in the mix.
They are the weak link in the chain and they
are going to be undependable when hits the fan because
racism indicates a number of things one of the first
things it indicates is a lack of critical thinking skills,
which can be taught. But one of the second things
(13:56):
it indicates is a wrong a motive reaction rather than
a logical one. So they're not people you want on
the team.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
No, let me quickly walk back my little cute comment
that I mean. I am not in any way implying
that the military at large is an inherently racist organization
than anyone who serves in the military comes away with
racist ideas in any way, shape or form. I just again,
it was more a response to the absurd pr ness
of this kind of writing.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Well historically too, Noel, I think your point could hold
because consider all of the heavily racially charged propaganda of
World War Two and wars of yesteryear. Service members were
encouraged to have incredibly prejudicial attitudes, and they were indoctrinated
(14:47):
to a large degree.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
As recently as Vietnam. I mean, you know, the idea
of Charlie, and.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Of course operations in Afghanistan we've talked about before on
this show that the other ring that occurs there is
almost a necessity to to the mission to to well,
to get the mindset to to instill within an individual
the mindset that the person you're shooting at is is
(15:15):
less than human, is not a you know, a person
with a family, with feelings and all those things, right,
I mean, it's it's necessary. We've we've talked before about
how difficult it is to get an individual soldier to
actually fire at with intent to kill an enemy combatant.
That's not an easy thing to get into somebody's head.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
It shouldn't be, for sure.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Well yeah, no, I agree, it shouldn't be, but it's
it's not like it. It is not an easy thing
to do. So you have to use tactics like what
we're discussing here to to push push it over the line, basically.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
While at the same time, uh, somehow drawing a clear
line of demarcation and saying the people you were with,
the people you serve with have to be treated as
equals despite all of the stuff we're telling you about
people you're fighting. Anyway, it turns out these policies may
(16:16):
be fantastic on paper, but they are not as effective
in practice, and that is a massive understatement on my part.
So the question today is what exactly is going on
with supremacists in the military. Here's where it gets crazy.
There's quite a lot going on actually with a white supremacist,
(16:39):
in particular in the military. Let's consider the case of
one Christopher Hassan. He was a former US Coastguard lieutenant.
Just this January twenty twenty, he was sentenced to more
than thirteen years of prison for federal level drug and
gun crimes. He was also planning to commit mass murder,
(17:02):
a serial series of murders against various politicians and journalists
that he did not care for. He was a self
described white nationalist. He had served in the Marine Corps
from eighty eight to ninety three he became a corporal.
He'd also been in the National Guard before joining the
(17:22):
Coast Guard. I mean, this guy was in the system,
and the entire time he was serving in these roles,
he was radicalizing. He was reading white power manifestos online.
He was compiling this hit list. The alphabet soup. Guys
pulled his search histories and they're very not subtle. They're like,
(17:47):
where is best place to live DC? Democratic Senators, DC?
Do senators have protection?
Speaker 3 (17:54):
DC? Goodwill? On C four? Right?
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Well, yeah, and his hit list was an actual list
of hits, right, and it was focused on I guess
Democratic senators and other politicians that he thought would be
good targets. I guess due to his views like who
are in opposition to him?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah, and he was unstable, I mean he wasn't. The
thing is with folks who reach this level of I
would call it disassociation or bubbling.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
The goals or.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
The aims become increasingly disconnected from reality, by which I
mean the things they want to do become increasingly different
from the things they could realistically pull off. He wanted
to turn the Pacific Northwest into an all white homeland, you.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Know, like the good old days, which.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Is how Oregon has found it. That is true. He
wanted to use biological weapons too. And this is a
direct quote, kill almost every life, last person on Earth.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
That's extreme.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
It's also a tall order.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Yeah. Was he a part of an organization or was
he acting alone with all of this research he was
doing and or like, was he linked up with anyone?
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Are you aware of that?
Speaker 1 (19:18):
It's a good question because I am not directly aware
of prominent membership and things. But we have to understand
the concept of membership has evolved with the rise of
social media. If you are a mod on a forum
for neo Nazis. That means you're probably a neo Nazi, right,
or you work for the FBI. But does it mean
(19:41):
that you are a member of you know, Stormfront or
something like that. Not necessarily, It's tricky. But the thing
is about this guy. He was caught before he was
able to carry out any of these planned assassinations or attacks.
And there are more Christopher Hassan's out there. There are many,
(20:04):
many more than you might think, and some don't wait
to get booted out to join a supremacist organization. I'd
love to if we can just briefly talk about one
of the strangest racists I guess you could call him
supremacist organizations that have infiltrated in some part the US military.
(20:30):
We did an episode on this previously, but I'm still
I'm still fascinated and very confused by this group.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Okay, so let's think about another case, the case of
US Army Private Ethan Melzer, who enlisted in twenty eighteen
and was deployed in October of twenty nineteen. He was
radicalized by reading propaganda from things like the organization you're
talking about, the Order of the Nine Angles, and while
he was deployed, he had designs on orchestrating an ambush
(21:03):
of his own unit, sending intel about the unit to
an alleged member of al Qaeda.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
What that's a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
He sent texts mind you to an nine to a
thread arguing his military training, survival and links to other
groups could be an asset.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
If this was over telegram, uh the messaging service. Uh
yeah yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
We have this statement from in part from a press
release by Audrey Strauss, the acting US Attorney for the
Southern District of New York, and Strauss walks us through
the ins and outs of how Melser attempted to sell out.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
His unit, and here's what she had to say. Melzer
allegedly attempted to orchestrate a murderous ambush on his own
unit by unlawfully revealing its location, strength, and armaments to
a neo Nazi anarchist white supremacist group. Melzer allegedly provided
this potentially deadly information, intending that it'd be conveyed to
(22:12):
Jihadis terrorists. As alleged, Melzer was motivated by racism and
hatred as he attempted to carry out this ultimate act
of betrayal.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And as you might recognize from previous episodes, the order
of the Nine Angles is not And I guess you can't
call them your garden variety white power group. They wouldn't
call themselves a cult, but they do a lot of
culty stuff. They practice what's known as left hand magic,
and they're into some real their beliefs are really disturbing,
(22:45):
but they're really confusing. Please dive into that rabbit hole,
find our previous episode, and then do your.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Own research for sure. Like Ben said, it's confusing and
it's difficult to decipher from the outside.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
So yeah, just is left hand magic like when you
make coins disappear and stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Or oh no, that's the right hand magic. Left hand
magic is like the the curse your family, the seventh generation,
the all the stuff you hear about you hear people
being accused of in which trials.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I'd take offense to that as a left handed person,
is the left hand like the evil hand historically in culture. Yeah,
unfortunately it's even redheads just really get on.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
We're all in that boat.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
So also, uh, a huge percentage of US presidents are
left handed, so it's it's it's a rare and noble trait,
I would say, and the people, uh, the people in
civilization's passed with their discrimination, were just being dicks. Don't
(23:57):
brush them off.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
It's okay, it's that's lesson.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Less actually figures into my day to day life, as
I very rarely write things with an implement, and I
do everything else right handed, so no one would know
unless you see me, like sign a credit card receipt
or something.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Yeah, I mean, I feel you, man, I'm technically ambidextrous,
but I love that point you make. How many people
do write longhand it would be called our.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Buddy Alex Williams does.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
He keeps a little notepad with him and anytime you
give him a recommendation or suggestion for something to read
or listen to, he always jots it down.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I find it charming.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Technically I'm tried dexterous, but we can talk about that later.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I'm a big fan of writing long hand. I think
it helps your brain process things differently than typing, so
I encourage everybody. Like you can't see off camera, but
I have just piles of weird notebooks and stuff. So
the mole schemes, which are overpriced but I still love them.
It's nostalgia. Any they end.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Up in a lot of swag bags. So I do
have a few mole skins laying around from giveaway.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
It's not mole skin, it's mole skin, I honest, I think.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
The jury still out on that. I've heard. I've heard
it said both ways.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I like to say mole scheme just because it sounds
fun and it's a nonsensical thing, whereas we know what
moleskin is.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
But I don't know, what do you think, Ben.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
I just clearly haven't had enough in my life. I
need to get more in my life.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I think we'll act surprise when when the holidays come around.
Matt also, I just think moleskin feels kind of gross.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Yeah, a little bit of a little bit.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
But speaking of gross things, what is the scope of
this conspiracy? Are these indeed just a few bad apples?
It's a question will answer after we pause for a
word from our sponsor and we're back.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
So let's look at at a survey from twenty nineteen.
It was from readers of Military Times, this is an
independent news outlet, and this is what they found. More
than thirty six percent of active duty troops surveyed said
they had personally witnessed examples of white nationalism or ideological
driven racism within the ranks in recent months, and that
(26:24):
was a fourteen percent increase from a similar survey that
was done the year before, in twenty eighteen. And then
in June of this year, something interesting came the way
of Congress military officials. They drew a line between active
participation and quote mere membership. Those are two quotes there,
(26:44):
active participation versus mere membership. The officials said, mere membership
in white supremacist groups is quote not prohibited for American
service members. But active participation and this is defined as
you know, going to a rally, going to a fundraising event,
or fundraising yourself for a racist group. That is wrong.
(27:07):
But if you're just you know, if you're just in
the club, what are we gonna do? That's essentially what
what was told to Congress.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah, but what does that mean if you if you
think about that, Like I was trying to figure out
a good example of this, So say, for instance, so
I have a fun example and I have a disturbing one.
All right, The fun example would be like, uh, I
don't know who's a who's a quirky celebrity, like a
(27:35):
niche celebrity or musician.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
You guys like Zach Gallifanakis.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Perfect, thank you, so Zach Galifanakis.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Let's say you are in the Zach Gallifanakis fan club, right,
and you have joined the fan club. You have a
little card that says Zach Galifanakis Fan Club.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
They send you a swag bag with your Zach Galifanakis
mole skiing uh and your tea sure and maybe some
like branded Provolactics or something.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Copy of The Hangover to on DVD.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Yeah, and they say Zach Gallifanatics on it.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yes that that Matt, Yes they do, Yes, they do, Matt.
So you remember the Zach Gallifanatics and you have the
swag bag.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And then someone says, hey, you don't actually like Zach Gallifanakis,
do you poser?
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Get out?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And then you say no, no, why would I Look,
it's just my right as an American. It's free speech,
uh for me to be a member of this group.
But I would never buy a DVD of his work.
I would never go to a Zach Gallifanakas show.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I'm would never get this tattoo of his character from
Dinner for Schmucks. Right, that's not that's not there.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
So that's that's the U. See see how that line
between just being a member and being active is very,
very troubling because the just disturbing example would be something
like people who join those pro child abuse networks, those
(29:18):
pro pedophilia networks like Nambler or something. They can say, oh,
I'm just a member.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
That's gross, you know that.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Just imagining somebody saying that I'm just a member of Nambler.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
What I mean?
Speaker 2 (29:33):
You could make the argument that you're infiltrating the network
of pedophiles and Zach gallifan attics. You know, to be clear,
those are two separate things.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Those are two separate things.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
But you know that could be the argument you're making,
or you're just checking it out just seeing like you know,
like in fight Club where the dude goes to what
is it like bereavement meetings?
Speaker 3 (30:01):
What are they like? Narcotics?
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Anonymous type things, sex, sex addict naning, that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
And there's a real life analog of that argument, none
other than Pete Townsend of the Who You remember that
when he said that when he was caught studying depictions
of child abuse.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
He said, I.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
Don't remember that.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
I vaguely remember that.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, he said, it was research.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
To take down the pe doos.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
So you see how that that gets sticky in the idea.
We can say all the livelong day that someone is
just a member of an extremist group for some reason,
And the question is at what point, like, what is
the difference between actively supporting something and passively being a
(30:53):
member of it? Will we look forward to hearing your
stance on this, Zach alliphanatics, There's something else that happen.
So there are two things we talked about. That guy
in the order of the Nine angles, he was like
in his early twenties when this happened, at which point,
of course, there is the psychological argument that the brain
(31:17):
is not fully formed, which does have some sand to it.
But what we need to talk about also would be veterans.
They play a big part in this conspiracy. Some veterans,
a very small percentage of veterans. Veterans have held leadership
roles in some of the most prominent, some of the
most well known white supremacist groups. Investigative journalists are still
(31:41):
uncovering new members of violent racist groups who are also
current members of the Army, the Marine Corps, Air Force,
and so on. But just another snapshot. The same month
that Hassan was convicted, in twenty twenty eight January, a
US Army vet and a former combat engineer from the
(32:01):
Canadian Army Reserve were found to be alleged members of
a neo Nazi group known as the Base. The Base
may be familiar to some of us because prosecutors say
the Base was discussing plans to create violence at a
pro gun rally in Virginia, with the ultimate aim of
(32:22):
sparking a civil war.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Wow, it's still hard for me to wrap my head
around that being the end goal for some of these groups,
but we know it historically that has been one of
the one of the reasons for joining a group like
this before the existence of a group like this is
to folment. One of the first things is to folment
a civil war. Let's get a civil war going on
so we can then go in through the ashes of
(32:46):
the country and rebuild it as we see fit.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And you know, without putting too fine a political point
on it, it starts to feel like the idea of
these proud boys and some of these groups that were
seeing today could be that thing, you know, the kind
of foot soldiers in the streets sort of trying to
foment that civil war and bringing the war home or
or whatever and trying to you know, shut down the Libs.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Literally.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah. And you know there's an author, they're numerous authors,
one in particular who would agree with that point. Kathleen
Bellew who is the author of a book called Bring
the War Home, notes that US veterans have played key
roles in white supremacist movements in the United States for
more than one hundred years. I mean, the ku Klux
(33:36):
Klan had new waves of resurgence after both World Wars,
after the Vietnam War. Also, it was founded by a
group of Confederate veterans. This author sees similarities just like
you pointed out, in the recent wave of alt right
white supremacists organizing. And she says that this has been
(33:56):
shaped to a great degree by America's war on terror
in the Middle East. And we see something interesting here
because again, the US military is trying to filter out
racists in the recruiting process, and this has led some
(34:20):
supremacist groups to adopt a different strategy to encourage young
members to join the US military because of the training
and the access to weapons that they will gain, and
then they can use that access and use that expertise
to teach other members of the organizations after they leave
(34:42):
the service or during their time in the service, maybe
even actively recruit vulnerable people who are serving with them.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
Man, that's pretty disturbing again, using the military as a
training and weapons acquisition up opportunity, And just one thing
to just put a point on there, we are talking
specifically about white supremacist groups and organizations and individuals who
have been, you know, using this tactic. But like we
(35:14):
said in the beginning, this applies to any hate based
or discriminatory based organization or group, right. It's it could
be anything, and it really is just I mean, just
even talking about this is a super touchy subject in
the concept of the military being used in this way,
(35:36):
and unfortunately, there have been attempts and plans put in
place to fix this problem. But as we've seen in
the past and we will continue to see in the future,
unless there's a massive change taking action from you know,
politicians within the United States, specifically within Congress to actually
(35:57):
write a bill or you know, something to fix this issue,
to change something it's been difficult historically and again probably
in the future. In two thousand and nine, under the
Obama administration, there were Republican members of Congress and they
were essentially attempting to get the Department of Homeland Security
(36:17):
chief to apologize after there was an intelligence briefing that
warned about some of this stuff that the US military
veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be
vulnerable to some type of radicalization by white supremacists and
by anti government groups and some of the alt right
(36:39):
more extremist splinter groups that we've seen.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, and it was a good flag to raise on
the side of Homeland Security because they're just they're conveying
what they find in an intelligence briefing. The reaction from
the reaction from those who objected to this characterization or
this intelligence briefing. They were really reacting to what they
(37:06):
saw as something that was somehow offensive or an attack
on conservative identifying people at large, And they said, well,
what is it. This implies that all conservatives are somehow
a bigger threat to the US than al Qaeda, which
is incredible, Like cartoonishly misleading. It is so clear that
(37:29):
supremacist and conservative people are not the same because just
because you might have a more conservative view on something
like how much you should pay in taxes, right, that
doesn't automatically mean that same person is somehow pro genocide.
It's it's frankly kind of ridiculous that we would even
(37:52):
have to spell that out here. But that's some of
the vitriol that was happening, and there was of an
appeal to emotion.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
But well, yeah, and I would just add to that,
just because someone would view themselves as morally conservative even
has no correlation with these other hate groups. There's absolutely
zero correlation. Don't ever let yourself believe that, no matter
what you read on you know, whatever social media outlet
(38:23):
you're looking at. Just just be aware that's all.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Again, you know, it's the danger of the broad brush,
which is very convenient for many powerful organizations, the media included.
So while objecting to that intelligence briefing may have been
a good short term move for the politicians in question,
(38:50):
you know, get them some headlines, get them some column
space in the newspapers. Of note, in the long term,
it was not It's not a helpful thing, because the
problem is real, and the problem seems to be increasing.
When we talked about this conspiracy. If you look at
cases of white nationalism in the US military since the
(39:11):
attacks on September eleventh, two thousand and one, you are
going to find dozens and dozens of cases of white
nationalists in the military. And these are just the examples
of troops who have been caught, who have been written
about in the media and have been disciplined or punished.
And if we think about that earlier poll, if more
(39:34):
than one in three troops today have witnessed something like
this in the ranks, then we have to think along
the lines of the excellent article written by David Chrissinger
for warhorse dot org where he asked how many white
nationalists in the military don't just slip through the cracks
(39:54):
during the recruitment process, how many also remain undetected on
account of four and unpunished. And he has a quote
here that I think sums up the problem really well.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yes, and Chris Singer writes this quote, the truth is
that no one knows how prevalent white nationalism is in
the US military. During a hearing of the House Armed
Services sub Committee on Military Personnel. In February twenty twenty,
representatives of Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Army's Criminal
Investigation Division testified they had no reliable data on how
(40:32):
many troops have been administratively discharged for promoting white supremacist ideologies.
The Marine Corps, which has seen its fair share of
white nationalism among its ranks, does not track the number
of Marines and discharges for ties to white nationalist groups.
So this goes back to that question I asked at
the top of the show, right, like, is there a
(40:53):
slap on the wrist version of this punishment that we're
talking about.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
It would seem so, Oh, it would seem way so.
And we'll talk more about that after a quick word
from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
And we're back. So in this episode, we've been setting
up a couple of things they've been alluded to that
have been foreshadowed. I'd like to present one of the
biggest problems with this. So one of the problems, as
Chrissinger put so succinctly, is that parts of the military
(41:33):
that should be keeping track of this stuff are not.
For one reason or another, maybe they've been prevented from
doing so. Maybe there's just red tape in the way.
It reminds me of the FBI's weird blind spot when
it comes to tallying disappearances in public parks. Now we
have to talk about the other problem, which is punishment, Matt.
(41:57):
As you mentioned in the earlier quote from the military's
Operations Manual, the severity of a punishment or discipline that
a white nationalist receives, and whether they're punished at all,
depends entirely on their commanders, and those commanders typically are
going to have almost one hundred percent discretion over how
(42:18):
any violation is investigated, prosecuted, or adjucated. So to know
the full extent of the supremacist infiltration occurring, the DoD
would have to do something like this. They would have
to go back and see how many people violated Articles
(42:39):
ninety two and one hundred and thirty four. They would
have to add those numbers together. But those numbers, again
only include the people who were caught and disciplined, So
it leaves out anyone who was caught and reported to
their commander but then had their commander say, I don't know,
(43:00):
we have bigger fish to fry. I don't know if
we need to investigate this or discipline this person, maybe
we just tell them stop.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
But it does make you wonder who's watching the watchman,
who's looking at the commanders to make sure they're above board.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
According to Carter F. Smith, he's a former criminal investigator.
Currently he's a criminal justice instructor at Middle Tennessee University
Middle Tennessee State University. According to him, military officials always
say the number of actual white nationalists in the ranks
are small, and because of that, because there's such a
(43:37):
small slice of the demographic, they're not really a priority.
And Carter's objection is this. He says, Okay, fine, maybe
the number is small, but it's like saying it's a
small dose of poison. He says, you know, they're like
a drop of cyanide in your drink. They're not the
(43:58):
majority of the liquid, but they can still do a
lot of damage. And I think that is a very
very good point. And I want to emphasize something here, Matt.
I think you may have mentioned this earlier, but extremism
is a danger in all forms, and there's a reason
that we're talking primarily about white nationalist groups today. They
(44:19):
receive the most attention. They've been linked to the highest
number of attempted or successfully carried out terrorist attacks domestically
in the US in this genre of terrorism and extremism.
But other supremacist groups exist, They exist, and they have
(44:44):
used some of the same strategies. You recruit alienated people
in the rank and file, You recruit isolated veterans who
feel like they're kind of lost after getting out of
the service, and use them as tools. You radicalize them,
and you make them a puppet for your agenda, and
(45:04):
make a mistake, you throw them away when you're done.
That's something that I think isn't emphasized enough for the
military members who experienced this stuff firsthand. White nationalism in
particular stands out the most frequently. So this is not
this is not us editorializing or quote unquote picking on
(45:28):
a specific genre of hate group. This is coming from
firsthand reports from troops. Like the troops who responded to
that poll we mentioned earlier cited white nationalism as a
greater national security threat than domestic terrorism with a connection
to Islam or immigration. So obviously the military does not
(45:51):
want racist recruits. This is hopefully not a hot take,
but race is a defect. It's a defect of the
mind that would render someone unable to serve to the
fullest extent of their physical fitness and their mental ability.
(46:13):
So obviously the military doesn't want that. However, it doesn't
have a solid, full proof system for screening those folks
out in the first place. Recruits go through a criminal
background check when they a list, of course, but this
only detects, like we said, extremist membership if they've been
charged with a crime relating to those kind of beliefs,
(46:34):
and the vetting system still doesn't really address social media,
and social media is where a huge deal of modern
radicalization and hate recruitment occurs, you know what I mean.
The Zach Gallifanatics exist online, they don't have a physical clubhouse.
And again I'm not calling the Zach Galifanatics a hate group.
(46:56):
I think they do very good work. And I'm a
big fan of Galafan Colon, so I hope to see
everybody there next year.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
I often do rituals reading from the Galapa Necronomicon.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yes, yeah, it's it's it's it's pretty. It's a pretty
comprehensive book, you know.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Dare we say a tome sir.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
A grimois a source a smirk waw anyway, gosh, So
this this means that the government has a lot to do.
It's got a lot of work ahead of it in
terms of how to address this. There are multiple studies
by multiple government entities and nonprofit institutions exploring this issue.
(47:42):
The findings are a subject of ongoing debate, and rightly so,
because the reality is that people know there is a
conspiracy here, but there's no foolproof way yet to stop
this infiltration, which is what it is in some cases.
And there's no foolproof way to prevent individuals with high
(48:02):
level military training from you know, leaving the service and
then going on to train members of your local hate group.
Like how would you how would you even begin to
legislate that?
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Right?
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Tell somebody, look, I know that you have learned all
these things. Now I have to write a law somehow.
That's that restricts, at every moment in your life, your
ability to use that experience or teach those things. You
know what I mean. It's it's very difficult.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
Yeah, I mean, I really don't. I don't know how
you how you fix it? And I wonder if the
way the way you fix it is to use pr
to make it seem like the problem was not so bad.
But I guess that would mean you're not actually fixing it,
you're just making it look as though it's not.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
Such a problem. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (49:01):
That's that's weird, man.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
And it's strange because you know, we have we have
a lot of veterans who are fellow listeners. We have
a lot of family members and friends who have been
or are currently serving in the military. And in the
course of my research for this, I talked to some
(49:25):
folks just off the record, you know, give me your
take what's going on. And I the responses I got,
you know, said that this is a very real thing.
One of the I'm laughing about serious subject. Because one
of the responses I got from person I won't identify
(49:46):
was just hilarious. They were like, I hate those people.
They're bad at their jobs. I said, well, that's the
number the number one problem you have, and and this
person said, well, look, yeah, okay, their beliefs are terrible,
but also their beliefs are a symptom of the fact
(50:08):
that they're not intelligent and they're bad at their jobs.
And them being bad at their jobs is what really
annoys me on a day to day basis.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
It's just to your point earlier Ben at the very
top of the show, it kind of points to a
certain lack of critical thinking abilities and this sort of
need to oversimplify problems and hang them on a particular
group when clearly it's a much larger issue than that.
(50:37):
And it's just such a leap of logic that these
folks are able to do that. It really just kind
of makes me think they're not particularly bright.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
That's about the shape of it there.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah, and I'm not good at their jobs, I guess
right now. And I'm you know, I'm tempted to agree
racism has learned. It's something they can be unlearned. Uh,
And it's something that people have to have.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
To work through.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
The issue here is the infiltration of one of the
most in the most powerful military force on the planet.
Speaker 5 (51:16):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Uh, this is this is dangerous when we think that
the most powerful military in the world may be unwittingly
training the people who want to destroy the country. This
military serves, you know what I mean? Yeah, like the
(51:38):
call is coming from inside the house, as they say
in horror stories and.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
It's j Edgarhova.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
And he didn't help things. And imagine, you know, there's
so many brilliant people in the military. There's so many
people who joined the services, uh because it represented an
opportunity that would not have otherwise been available, right, and
these people are doing incredibly important work, and stuff like this,
extremist groups and infiltration, this kind of stuff you should
(52:11):
be offensive to every member of the military.
Speaker 4 (52:14):
So as we reached the conclusion here, we really want
to know your experience, especially if you've been an active
military duty in any branch. We just want to hear
what you've seen while you were there and what you
think about this whole problem.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
And of course, thank you for your service so much.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
I mean, I hope none of this came off as
us like ragging on the military.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
I mean, it's.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Obviously an important and valuable institution, and like many important
and valuable institutions, there are inherent problems sometimes. But it
doesn't you mean, you know that the whole idea of
bad apples, you know, that's what we're talking about here.
It's such a ridiculous term as what is it Chris
Rock talking about bad apples in the police force or
(53:02):
we call them bad apples if they're pilots. You know,
there's a couple of bad apples crashing planes all the time.
You know, that's an interesting way looking at it. But
absolutely very much value are military members, and we particularly
want to hear from you because we know there are
folks that are in this that are seeing this firsthand,
(53:22):
and let us know what that's like and how it
affects you, how it affects day to day operations. Is
it something you have to tiptoe around? Is it in leadership?
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Let us know.
Speaker 4 (53:33):
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter where we
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If you don't want to do those things, we have
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Leave us a message, tell us, tell us your experience,
(53:54):
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Speaker 1 (54:06):
Hold your Horses, you might be saying a phone call
in twenty twenty, perish the thought and embarrass the thought
of social media as well. If you are having those
thoughts race through the twisted hauls of your mind and
bounce around and your subconscious and you have something to say,
but you need an easier way to say it to us,
(54:31):
we have good news for you. We have an old
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Speaker 2 (54:42):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4 (55:03):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realists, Welcome back to our classic episode. This
one is going to be unfortunately prescient again. As we
all recall, towards the very end of October twenty twenty,
we started answering some questions about white supremacist groups infiltrating
(00:26):
the military.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, I know, it would seem today maybe a little
more concerned with white supremacist groups infiltrating the paramilitary in
the form of ICE agents that are not very well vetted,
if vetted at all. You know, somebody pointed out to me, guys,
how come the Proud Boys aren't showing up to demonstrations anymore.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I'll tell you why. Because they're the ones in the masks.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, because they're working for ICE. They've got a schedule now.
They can't just willing nearly go to protests. They have
to get sent out unqualified to cause in dangerous ways.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
And proud voice, stand by, stand down. Whatever the hell
you said, it's coming to pass.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
I think we mentioned it in our last video episode
we made for Netflix, This is out of time. Who
knows you Nobody knows which one we're referring to. We
just mentioned it. There was the specific video of somebody
in what looks like a taco joint calling out several
people because they were suspected of being ice or something.
(01:30):
It's really interesting to think about just our comparisons right
now of the thing we're experiencing as immigration customs enforcement
and all of that that's happening with Department of Homeland Security,
and then the human beings that you see on your
screen in a video like that, who are They don't
appear to be people that we would necessarily associate at
(01:50):
all with white supremacy because they're they're not like Anglo
Saxon Caucasian dudes. But they are also members of this
thing we're associating it in a lot of ways with that.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
That's a great point, man, because we are in this
episode six years ago now almost six years ago, we
looked into a very dangerous logical question. If you are
a member of a domestic terrorist group, how do you
(02:23):
get training?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
How do you get military level training for your future Shenanigans.
It turns out that white supremacist groups have infiltrated the
United States military, And to be honest, folks, back when
we figured this out, thanks to help from our many
(02:46):
conspiracy realists in the crowd. We lightly predict what is
going to happen, but I think it's fair to say
we didn't know it would happen so hard, happened so soon.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
And there's other groups that we don't talk about in
here that are just popping up in news stories all
over the place, like what.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Was that one that just happened?
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Night Division? No, Night Division, Tactical that I had never
heard of, Patriot Front. There's all these interesting groups that
are at least accused of being a part of these movements.
Oh are they? And how much of that is a
story being told to us?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
All right, let's roll.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
It from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History
is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nol.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
They called me Ben weird Jo as always with our
super producer Paul, Mission Control decand most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. Today's episode, spoiler Alert is about
more than one conspiracy. We are exploring a rat's nest
(04:21):
or a rat king of interlinked events. These are things
that at a cursory glance might seem like isolated, tragic
cases of a lone wolf or what are sometimes called
bad apples. However, as we are going to find out
very shortly, each of these cases turns out to be
(04:41):
the facet of something much much larger and something incredibly dangerous. Because,
you see, folks, it turns out that the US military
may be training the domestic terrorist of the future. Oh boy, yeah,
that's I mean, have you guys we've talked about this,
you know, like Timothy McVeigh and various groups that aim
(05:06):
for insurrection or they want to secede from the nation.
I think there was a stat we learned years ago
that at any given time there are at least a
hundred secessionist groups of varying seriousness in the US alone.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Yeah, I mean, I mean there are, And I guess
the big question is how much has the military itself
been infiltrated by groups like this, right? Or how often
have these groups used the military as a tool for
training exactly?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Here are the facts. So the US military was segregated
for a long time. It was desegregated in nineteen forty eight,
which in the span of history still isn't really that
long ago. After it was formally desegregated, there were still
segregated military units until nineteen fifty four, the same time
(06:04):
that Bernese convinced America to help United Fruit with coup
in Guatemala. That's the same year that these final segregated
units were disbanded. And now, even though it might not
occur to a lot of people outside of the military,
the US military is one of the most ethnically diverse
(06:25):
and integrated institutions in the entire country. It's crazy when
you think about it.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Yeah, And you know, no matter where an individual comes from,
no matter what beliefs an individual has, this person, this
individual has to work with so many other people in
order to make any unit function within the military, you
(06:52):
just have to you have to do that to function,
at least in a mechanical way, right, And the United
States Department of Defense has actually prohibited members of the
military from any kind of active participation in you know,
hate groups, white supremacist groups, any other extremist groups since
nineteen ninety six. And this is you may recognize this.
(07:17):
We already mentioned his name in the episode. That's when
the decorated Gulf War veteran and white supremacist Timothy McVeigh
carried out the Oklahoma City bombing. And you can understand
why an event like that would cause action on you know,
of an entire institution wide basis.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Absolutely, I mean, because, of course, the Armed Services has
sort of safeguards in place that prohibit sort of which
you might consider it at the very basic level, conflicts
of interest, you know, prohibition of members being members of
other groups whose goals and I guess moral codes could
(07:58):
run counter to the goals of the military or the
nation at large. For example, you wouldn't want members of
an army to also be a member of another army
of another nation. I mean, that's the most basic way
of thinking about it. You wouldn't want someone on a
counter terrorism initiative also being in a terrorist group. It
seems silly, but this is the most cut and dry
(08:20):
way of thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, look, as of twenty twenty, there
are well over a million active duty personnel in the military.
They come from all over the country, have all like
a wide range of different beliefs, socioeconomic situations and so on.
These are people who in many cases wouldn't hang out
(08:44):
with each other for fun, you know what I mean,
may have never even had the chance to meet each other.
So we have to, as you guys point out, we
have to have a cohesive structure, and we have to
make sure that the people in that structure, the individual
links in the chain, are all working toward the same
(09:07):
common goal. So that's why you don't want someone who's
working in counter terrorism moonlighting as a terrorist. That's why
you don't want people who are ostensibly fighting for equality
or representing the goals of values of this nation to
also be members of groups that object to equality or
(09:31):
object to the goals of a nation. And so each
branch of the military has these kind of equal Opportunity
manuals that specifically prohibit service members from joining things like
the KKK or neo Nazi groups or other extremist organizations.
And troops who are caught with ties to white nationalism
(09:53):
are typically going to be punished by their commanders for
violating one of two things. It's either going to the
Article ninety two of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
or they can be punished under Article one hundred and
thirty four for engaging in conduct that is generally considered
(10:13):
discrediting and prejudicial to good order and discipline.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
And I would assume, like on the worst case side,
that would be a court martial and like a dishonorable discharge.
But I'm sure there's slap on the wrist versions of
this kind of punishment as well.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Right, Oh man, it goes yeah to say the least, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
There's a variance. And let's talk about that. Let's actually
look at some examples here. We'll give you a couple
quotes that are directly from the Army. This is at
least one directly from the Army quote. Participation in extremist
organizations and activities by Army personnel is inconsistent with the
responsibilities of military service. It is the policy of the
(10:54):
United States Army to provide equal opportunity and treatment for
all soldiers, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, or
national origin. Enforcement of this policy is a responsibility of command,
is vitally important to unit cohesion and morale, and is
essential to the Army's ability to accomplish its mission.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Ah, that pr person did a good job.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
I mean it does it does. It reads as pr
right a.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Million percent and it has to be written that way, honestly,
m M.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
I agreed. Well, let's talk about how they define extremist groups.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Get ready for some more breathtaking literature.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
You ready again? This is this is from the Army.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Here we go.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Organizations and activities are ones that advocate racial, gender, or
ethnic hatred or intolerance, advocate create, or engage in illegal
discrimination based on race, color, gender, religion, or national origin,
or advocate the use of force or violence, or unlawful
means to deprive individuals of their rights under the United
States Constitution or the laws of the United States, or
any state by unlawful means.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Oka news fest. Huh, I mean.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I'm struck by everything in there, except the part that
says in the United States Constitution or the laws of
the United States could be describing the military itself.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Oh like that?
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Especially well in the gender front, there's I think there's
some sand to what you're saying, But I don't think
racial or ethnic hatred at least in theory.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
No.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I mean, we hate our enemies, and some of them
are racially different than us, you know. I mean again,
I'm Sorry, I'm over saying the case a little bit.
But you know, I mean, if you think of people
in the Middle East, I mean there's certainly an in
grained distrust and dare I say hatred for people that
look a certain way?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
You know that.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I feel like people come out of, you know, the
conflicts in those countries perhaps with those kinds of feelings.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I don't know. I'm sure it's not everybody.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
It's it's weird, man. Because do you notice what we
talked about in that paragraph before. Enforcement of this policy
is a responsibility of command. Right now, that phrase alone
means you're gonna get varying results depending on who is command.
Who is this command?
Speaker 1 (13:14):
This is going to be very important later. But look, folks,
government manuals are probably never going to win a Pulitzer,
but they do make an important point. And let's put
it bluntly. Let's get past the jargon and the buzzwords here.
Uncle Sam is essentially saying, look, if we want people
(13:34):
to work together, we just can't have racist in the mix.
They are the weak link in the chain and they
are going to be undependable when hits the fan because
racism indicates a number of things one of the first
things it indicates is a lack of critical thinking skills,
which can be taught. But one of the second things
(13:56):
it indicates is a wrong a motive reaction rather than
a logical one. So they're not people you want on
the team.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
No, let me quickly walk back my little cute comment
that I mean. I am not in any way implying
that the military at large is an inherently racist organization
than anyone who serves in the military comes away with
racist ideas in any way, shape or form. I just again,
it was more a response to the absurd pr ness
of this kind of writing.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Well historically too, Noel, I think your point could hold
because consider all of the heavily racially charged propaganda of
World War Two and wars of yesteryear. Service members were
encouraged to have incredibly prejudicial attitudes, and they were indoctrinated
(14:47):
to a large degree.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
As recently as Vietnam. I mean, you know, the idea
of Charlie, and.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Of course operations in Afghanistan we've talked about before on
this show that the other ring that occurs there is
almost a necessity to to the mission to to well,
to get the mindset to to instill within an individual
the mindset that the person you're shooting at is is
(15:15):
less than human, is not a you know, a person
with a family, with feelings and all those things, right,
I mean, it's it's necessary. We've we've talked before about
how difficult it is to get an individual soldier to
actually fire at with intent to kill an enemy combatant.
That's not an easy thing to get into somebody's head.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
It shouldn't be, for sure.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Well yeah, no, I agree, it shouldn't be, but it's
it's not like it. It is not an easy thing
to do. So you have to use tactics like what
we're discussing here to to push push it over the line, basically.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
While at the same time, uh, somehow drawing a clear
line of demarcation and saying the people you were with,
the people you serve with have to be treated as
equals despite all of the stuff we're telling you about
people you're fighting. Anyway, it turns out these policies may
(16:16):
be fantastic on paper, but they are not as effective
in practice, and that is a massive understatement on my part.
So the question today is what exactly is going on
with supremacists in the military. Here's where it gets crazy.
There's quite a lot going on actually with a white supremacist,
(16:39):
in particular in the military. Let's consider the case of
one Christopher Hassan. He was a former US Coastguard lieutenant.
Just this January twenty twenty, he was sentenced to more
than thirteen years of prison for federal level drug and
gun crimes. He was also planning to commit mass murder,
(17:02):
a serial series of murders against various politicians and journalists
that he did not care for. He was a self
described white nationalist. He had served in the Marine Corps
from eighty eight to ninety three he became a corporal.
He'd also been in the National Guard before joining the
(17:22):
Coast Guard. I mean, this guy was in the system,
and the entire time he was serving in these roles,
he was radicalizing. He was reading white power manifestos online.
He was compiling this hit list. The alphabet soup. Guys
pulled his search histories and they're very not subtle. They're like,
(17:47):
where is best place to live DC? Democratic Senators, DC?
Do senators have protection?
Speaker 3 (17:54):
DC? Goodwill? On C four? Right?
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Well, yeah, and his hit list was an actual list
of hits, right, and it was focused on I guess
Democratic senators and other politicians that he thought would be
good targets. I guess due to his views like who
are in opposition to him?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah, and he was unstable, I mean he wasn't. The
thing is with folks who reach this level of I
would call it disassociation or bubbling.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
The goals or.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
The aims become increasingly disconnected from reality, by which I
mean the things they want to do become increasingly different
from the things they could realistically pull off. He wanted
to turn the Pacific Northwest into an all white homeland, you.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Know, like the good old days, which.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Is how Oregon has found it. That is true. He
wanted to use biological weapons too. And this is a
direct quote, kill almost every life, last person on Earth.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
That's extreme.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
It's also a tall order.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Yeah. Was he a part of an organization or was
he acting alone with all of this research he was
doing and or like, was he linked up with anyone?
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Are you aware of that?
Speaker 1 (19:18):
It's a good question because I am not directly aware
of prominent membership and things. But we have to understand
the concept of membership has evolved with the rise of
social media. If you are a mod on a forum
for neo Nazis. That means you're probably a neo Nazi, right,
or you work for the FBI. But does it mean
(19:41):
that you are a member of you know, Stormfront or
something like that. Not necessarily, It's tricky. But the thing
is about this guy. He was caught before he was
able to carry out any of these planned assassinations or attacks.
And there are more Christopher Hassan's out there. There are many,
(20:04):
many more than you might think, and some don't wait
to get booted out to join a supremacist organization. I'd
love to if we can just briefly talk about one
of the strangest racists I guess you could call him
supremacist organizations that have infiltrated in some part the US military.
(20:30):
We did an episode on this previously, but I'm still
I'm still fascinated and very confused by this group.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Okay, so let's think about another case, the case of
US Army Private Ethan Melzer, who enlisted in twenty eighteen
and was deployed in October of twenty nineteen. He was
radicalized by reading propaganda from things like the organization you're
talking about, the Order of the Nine Angles, and while
he was deployed, he had designs on orchestrating an ambush
(21:03):
of his own unit, sending intel about the unit to
an alleged member of al Qaeda.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
What that's a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
He sent texts mind you to an nine to a
thread arguing his military training, survival and links to other
groups could be an asset.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
If this was over telegram, uh the messaging service. Uh
yeah yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
We have this statement from in part from a press
release by Audrey Strauss, the acting US Attorney for the
Southern District of New York, and Strauss walks us through
the ins and outs of how Melser attempted to sell out.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
His unit, and here's what she had to say. Melzer
allegedly attempted to orchestrate a murderous ambush on his own
unit by unlawfully revealing its location, strength, and armaments to
a neo Nazi anarchist white supremacist group. Melzer allegedly provided
this potentially deadly information, intending that it'd be conveyed to
(22:12):
Jihadis terrorists. As alleged, Melzer was motivated by racism and
hatred as he attempted to carry out this ultimate act
of betrayal.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And as you might recognize from previous episodes, the order
of the Nine Angles is not And I guess you can't
call them your garden variety white power group. They wouldn't
call themselves a cult, but they do a lot of
culty stuff. They practice what's known as left hand magic,
and they're into some real their beliefs are really disturbing,
(22:45):
but they're really confusing. Please dive into that rabbit hole,
find our previous episode, and then do your.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Own research for sure. Like Ben said, it's confusing and
it's difficult to decipher from the outside.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
So yeah, just is left hand magic like when you
make coins disappear and stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Or oh no, that's the right hand magic. Left hand
magic is like the the curse your family, the seventh generation,
the all the stuff you hear about you hear people
being accused of in which trials.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I'd take offense to that as a left handed person,
is the left hand like the evil hand historically in culture. Yeah,
unfortunately it's even redheads just really get on.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
We're all in that boat.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
So also, uh, a huge percentage of US presidents are
left handed, so it's it's it's a rare and noble trait,
I would say, and the people, uh, the people in
civilization's passed with their discrimination, were just being dicks. Don't
(23:57):
brush them off.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
It's okay, it's that's lesson.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Less actually figures into my day to day life, as
I very rarely write things with an implement, and I
do everything else right handed, so no one would know
unless you see me, like sign a credit card receipt
or something.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Yeah, I mean, I feel you, man, I'm technically ambidextrous,
but I love that point you make. How many people
do write longhand it would be called our.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Buddy Alex Williams does.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
He keeps a little notepad with him and anytime you
give him a recommendation or suggestion for something to read
or listen to, he always jots it down.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I find it charming.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Technically I'm tried dexterous, but we can talk about that later.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I'm a big fan of writing long hand. I think
it helps your brain process things differently than typing, so
I encourage everybody. Like you can't see off camera, but
I have just piles of weird notebooks and stuff. So
the mole schemes, which are overpriced but I still love them.
It's nostalgia. Any they end.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Up in a lot of swag bags. So I do
have a few mole skins laying around from giveaway.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
It's not mole skin, it's mole skin, I honest, I think.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
The jury still out on that. I've heard. I've heard
it said both ways.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I like to say mole scheme just because it sounds
fun and it's a nonsensical thing, whereas we know what
moleskin is.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
But I don't know, what do you think, Ben.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
I just clearly haven't had enough in my life. I
need to get more in my life.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I think we'll act surprise when when the holidays come around.
Matt also, I just think moleskin feels kind of gross.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Yeah, a little bit of a little bit.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
But speaking of gross things, what is the scope of
this conspiracy? Are these indeed just a few bad apples?
It's a question will answer after we pause for a
word from our sponsor and we're back.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
So let's look at at a survey from twenty nineteen.
It was from readers of Military Times, this is an
independent news outlet, and this is what they found. More
than thirty six percent of active duty troops surveyed said
they had personally witnessed examples of white nationalism or ideological
driven racism within the ranks in recent months, and that
(26:24):
was a fourteen percent increase from a similar survey that
was done the year before, in twenty eighteen. And then
in June of this year, something interesting came the way
of Congress military officials. They drew a line between active
participation and quote mere membership. Those are two quotes there,
(26:44):
active participation versus mere membership. The officials said, mere membership
in white supremacist groups is quote not prohibited for American
service members. But active participation and this is defined as
you know, going to a rally, going to a fundraising event,
or fundraising yourself for a racist group. That is wrong.
(27:07):
But if you're just you know, if you're just in
the club, what are we gonna do? That's essentially what
what was told to Congress.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah, but what does that mean if you if you
think about that, Like I was trying to figure out
a good example of this, So say, for instance, so
I have a fun example and I have a disturbing one.
All right, The fun example would be like, uh, I
don't know who's a who's a quirky celebrity, like a
(27:35):
niche celebrity or musician.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
You guys like Zach Gallifanakis.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Perfect, thank you, so Zach Galifanakis.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Let's say you are in the Zach Gallifanakis fan club, right,
and you have joined the fan club. You have a
little card that says Zach Galifanakis Fan Club.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
They send you a swag bag with your Zach Galifanakis
mole skiing uh and your tea sure and maybe some
like branded Provolactics or something.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Copy of The Hangover to on DVD.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Yeah, and they say Zach Gallifanatics on it.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yes that that Matt, Yes they do, Yes, they do, Matt.
So you remember the Zach Gallifanatics and you have the
swag bag.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And then someone says, hey, you don't actually like Zach Gallifanakis,
do you poser?
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Get out?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And then you say no, no, why would I Look,
it's just my right as an American. It's free speech,
uh for me to be a member of this group.
But I would never buy a DVD of his work.
I would never go to a Zach Gallifanakas show.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I'm would never get this tattoo of his character from
Dinner for Schmucks. Right, that's not that's not there.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
So that's that's the U. See see how that line
between just being a member and being active is very,
very troubling because the just disturbing example would be something
like people who join those pro child abuse networks, those
(29:18):
pro pedophilia networks like Nambler or something. They can say, oh,
I'm just a member.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
That's gross, you know that.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Just imagining somebody saying that I'm just a member of Nambler.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
What I mean?
Speaker 2 (29:33):
You could make the argument that you're infiltrating the network
of pedophiles and Zach gallifan attics. You know, to be clear,
those are two separate things.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Those are two separate things.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
But you know that could be the argument you're making,
or you're just checking it out just seeing like you know,
like in fight Club where the dude goes to what
is it like bereavement meetings?
Speaker 3 (30:01):
What are they like? Narcotics?
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Anonymous type things, sex, sex addict naning, that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
And there's a real life analog of that argument, none
other than Pete Townsend of the Who You remember that
when he said that when he was caught studying depictions
of child abuse.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
He said, I.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
Don't remember that.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
I vaguely remember that.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, he said, it was research.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
To take down the pe doos.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
So you see how that that gets sticky in the idea.
We can say all the livelong day that someone is
just a member of an extremist group for some reason,
And the question is at what point, like, what is
the difference between actively supporting something and passively being a
(30:53):
member of it? Will we look forward to hearing your
stance on this, Zach alliphanatics, There's something else that happen.
So there are two things we talked about. That guy
in the order of the Nine angles, he was like
in his early twenties when this happened, at which point,
of course, there is the psychological argument that the brain
(31:17):
is not fully formed, which does have some sand to it.
But what we need to talk about also would be veterans.
They play a big part in this conspiracy. Some veterans,
a very small percentage of veterans. Veterans have held leadership
roles in some of the most prominent, some of the
most well known white supremacist groups. Investigative journalists are still
(31:41):
uncovering new members of violent racist groups who are also
current members of the Army, the Marine Corps, Air Force,
and so on. But just another snapshot. The same month
that Hassan was convicted, in twenty twenty eight January, a
US Army vet and a former combat engineer from the
(32:01):
Canadian Army Reserve were found to be alleged members of
a neo Nazi group known as the Base. The Base
may be familiar to some of us because prosecutors say
the Base was discussing plans to create violence at a
pro gun rally in Virginia, with the ultimate aim of
(32:22):
sparking a civil war.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Wow, it's still hard for me to wrap my head
around that being the end goal for some of these groups,
but we know it historically that has been one of
the one of the reasons for joining a group like
this before the existence of a group like this is
to folment. One of the first things is to folment
a civil war. Let's get a civil war going on
so we can then go in through the ashes of
(32:46):
the country and rebuild it as we see fit.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And you know, without putting too fine a political point
on it, it starts to feel like the idea of
these proud boys and some of these groups that were
seeing today could be that thing, you know, the kind
of foot soldiers in the streets sort of trying to
foment that civil war and bringing the war home or
or whatever and trying to you know, shut down the Libs.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Literally.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah. And you know there's an author, they're numerous authors,
one in particular who would agree with that point. Kathleen
Bellew who is the author of a book called Bring
the War Home, notes that US veterans have played key
roles in white supremacist movements in the United States for
more than one hundred years. I mean, the ku Klux
(33:36):
Klan had new waves of resurgence after both World Wars,
after the Vietnam War. Also, it was founded by a
group of Confederate veterans. This author sees similarities just like
you pointed out, in the recent wave of alt right
white supremacists organizing. And she says that this has been
(33:56):
shaped to a great degree by America's war on terror
in the Middle East. And we see something interesting here
because again, the US military is trying to filter out
racists in the recruiting process, and this has led some
(34:20):
supremacist groups to adopt a different strategy to encourage young
members to join the US military because of the training
and the access to weapons that they will gain, and
then they can use that access and use that expertise
to teach other members of the organizations after they leave
(34:42):
the service or during their time in the service, maybe
even actively recruit vulnerable people who are serving with them.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
Man, that's pretty disturbing again, using the military as a
training and weapons acquisition up opportunity, And just one thing
to just put a point on there, we are talking
specifically about white supremacist groups and organizations and individuals who
have been, you know, using this tactic. But like we
(35:14):
said in the beginning, this applies to any hate based
or discriminatory based organization or group, right. It's it could
be anything, and it really is just I mean, just
even talking about this is a super touchy subject in
the concept of the military being used in this way,
(35:36):
and unfortunately, there have been attempts and plans put in
place to fix this problem. But as we've seen in
the past and we will continue to see in the future,
unless there's a massive change taking action from you know,
politicians within the United States, specifically within Congress to actually
(35:57):
write a bill or you know, something to fix this issue,
to change something it's been difficult historically and again probably
in the future. In two thousand and nine, under the
Obama administration, there were Republican members of Congress and they
were essentially attempting to get the Department of Homeland Security
(36:17):
chief to apologize after there was an intelligence briefing that
warned about some of this stuff that the US military
veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be
vulnerable to some type of radicalization by white supremacists and
by anti government groups and some of the alt right
(36:39):
more extremist splinter groups that we've seen.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, and it was a good flag to raise on
the side of Homeland Security because they're just they're conveying
what they find in an intelligence briefing. The reaction from
the reaction from those who objected to this characterization or
this intelligence briefing. They were really reacting to what they
(37:06):
saw as something that was somehow offensive or an attack
on conservative identifying people at large, And they said, well,
what is it. This implies that all conservatives are somehow
a bigger threat to the US than al Qaeda, which
is incredible, Like cartoonishly misleading. It is so clear that
(37:29):
supremacist and conservative people are not the same because just
because you might have a more conservative view on something
like how much you should pay in taxes, right, that
doesn't automatically mean that same person is somehow pro genocide.
It's it's frankly kind of ridiculous that we would even
(37:52):
have to spell that out here. But that's some of
the vitriol that was happening, and there was of an
appeal to emotion.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
But well, yeah, and I would just add to that,
just because someone would view themselves as morally conservative even
has no correlation with these other hate groups. There's absolutely
zero correlation. Don't ever let yourself believe that, no matter
what you read on you know, whatever social media outlet
(38:23):
you're looking at. Just just be aware that's all.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Again, you know, it's the danger of the broad brush,
which is very convenient for many powerful organizations, the media included.
So while objecting to that intelligence briefing may have been
a good short term move for the politicians in question,
(38:50):
you know, get them some headlines, get them some column
space in the newspapers. Of note, in the long term,
it was not It's not a helpful thing, because the
problem is real, and the problem seems to be increasing.
When we talked about this conspiracy. If you look at
cases of white nationalism in the US military since the
(39:11):
attacks on September eleventh, two thousand and one, you are
going to find dozens and dozens of cases of white
nationalists in the military. And these are just the examples
of troops who have been caught, who have been written
about in the media and have been disciplined or punished.
And if we think about that earlier poll, if more
(39:34):
than one in three troops today have witnessed something like
this in the ranks, then we have to think along
the lines of the excellent article written by David Chrissinger
for warhorse dot org where he asked how many white
nationalists in the military don't just slip through the cracks
(39:54):
during the recruitment process, how many also remain undetected on
account of four and unpunished. And he has a quote
here that I think sums up the problem really well.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yes, and Chris Singer writes this quote, the truth is
that no one knows how prevalent white nationalism is in
the US military. During a hearing of the House Armed
Services sub Committee on Military Personnel. In February twenty twenty,
representatives of Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Army's Criminal
Investigation Division testified they had no reliable data on how
(40:32):
many troops have been administratively discharged for promoting white supremacist ideologies.
The Marine Corps, which has seen its fair share of
white nationalism among its ranks, does not track the number
of Marines and discharges for ties to white nationalist groups.
So this goes back to that question I asked at
the top of the show, right, like, is there a
(40:53):
slap on the wrist version of this punishment that we're
talking about.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
It would seem so, Oh, it would seem way so.
And we'll talk more about that after a quick word
from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
And we're back. So in this episode, we've been setting
up a couple of things they've been alluded to that
have been foreshadowed. I'd like to present one of the
biggest problems with this. So one of the problems, as
Chrissinger put so succinctly, is that parts of the military
(41:33):
that should be keeping track of this stuff are not.
For one reason or another, maybe they've been prevented from
doing so. Maybe there's just red tape in the way.
It reminds me of the FBI's weird blind spot when
it comes to tallying disappearances in public parks. Now we
have to talk about the other problem, which is punishment, Matt.
(41:57):
As you mentioned in the earlier quote from the military's
Operations Manual, the severity of a punishment or discipline that
a white nationalist receives, and whether they're punished at all,
depends entirely on their commanders, and those commanders typically are
going to have almost one hundred percent discretion over how
(42:18):
any violation is investigated, prosecuted, or adjucated. So to know
the full extent of the supremacist infiltration occurring, the DoD
would have to do something like this. They would have
to go back and see how many people violated Articles
(42:39):
ninety two and one hundred and thirty four. They would
have to add those numbers together. But those numbers, again
only include the people who were caught and disciplined, So
it leaves out anyone who was caught and reported to
their commander but then had their commander say, I don't know,
(43:00):
we have bigger fish to fry. I don't know if
we need to investigate this or discipline this person, maybe
we just tell them stop.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
But it does make you wonder who's watching the watchman,
who's looking at the commanders to make sure they're above board.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
According to Carter F. Smith, he's a former criminal investigator.
Currently he's a criminal justice instructor at Middle Tennessee University
Middle Tennessee State University. According to him, military officials always
say the number of actual white nationalists in the ranks
are small, and because of that, because there's such a
(43:37):
small slice of the demographic, they're not really a priority.
And Carter's objection is this. He says, Okay, fine, maybe
the number is small, but it's like saying it's a
small dose of poison. He says, you know, they're like
a drop of cyanide in your drink. They're not the
(43:58):
majority of the liquid, but they can still do a
lot of damage. And I think that is a very
very good point. And I want to emphasize something here, Matt.
I think you may have mentioned this earlier, but extremism
is a danger in all forms, and there's a reason
that we're talking primarily about white nationalist groups today. They
(44:19):
receive the most attention. They've been linked to the highest
number of attempted or successfully carried out terrorist attacks domestically
in the US in this genre of terrorism and extremism.
But other supremacist groups exist, They exist, and they have
(44:44):
used some of the same strategies. You recruit alienated people
in the rank and file, You recruit isolated veterans who
feel like they're kind of lost after getting out of
the service, and use them as tools. You radicalize them,
and you make them a puppet for your agenda, and
(45:04):
make a mistake, you throw them away when you're done.
That's something that I think isn't emphasized enough for the
military members who experienced this stuff firsthand. White nationalism in
particular stands out the most frequently. So this is not
this is not us editorializing or quote unquote picking on
(45:28):
a specific genre of hate group. This is coming from
firsthand reports from troops. Like the troops who responded to
that poll we mentioned earlier cited white nationalism as a
greater national security threat than domestic terrorism with a connection
to Islam or immigration. So obviously the military does not
(45:51):
want racist recruits. This is hopefully not a hot take,
but race is a defect. It's a defect of the
mind that would render someone unable to serve to the
fullest extent of their physical fitness and their mental ability.
(46:13):
So obviously the military doesn't want that. However, it doesn't
have a solid, full proof system for screening those folks
out in the first place. Recruits go through a criminal
background check when they a list, of course, but this
only detects, like we said, extremist membership if they've been
charged with a crime relating to those kind of beliefs,
(46:34):
and the vetting system still doesn't really address social media,
and social media is where a huge deal of modern
radicalization and hate recruitment occurs, you know what I mean.
The Zach Gallifanatics exist online, they don't have a physical clubhouse.
And again I'm not calling the Zach Galifanatics a hate group.
(46:56):
I think they do very good work. And I'm a
big fan of Galafan Colon, so I hope to see
everybody there next year.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
I often do rituals reading from the Galapa Necronomicon.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yes, yeah, it's it's it's it's pretty. It's a pretty
comprehensive book, you know.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Dare we say a tome sir.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
A grimois a source a smirk waw anyway, gosh, So
this this means that the government has a lot to do.
It's got a lot of work ahead of it in
terms of how to address this. There are multiple studies
by multiple government entities and nonprofit institutions exploring this issue.
(47:42):
The findings are a subject of ongoing debate, and rightly so,
because the reality is that people know there is a
conspiracy here, but there's no foolproof way yet to stop
this infiltration, which is what it is in some cases.
And there's no foolproof way to prevent individuals with high
(48:02):
level military training from you know, leaving the service and
then going on to train members of your local hate group.
Like how would you how would you even begin to
legislate that?
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Right?
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Tell somebody, look, I know that you have learned all
these things. Now I have to write a law somehow.
That's that restricts, at every moment in your life, your
ability to use that experience or teach those things. You
know what I mean. It's it's very difficult.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
Yeah, I mean, I really don't. I don't know how
you how you fix it? And I wonder if the
way the way you fix it is to use pr
to make it seem like the problem was not so bad.
But I guess that would mean you're not actually fixing it,
you're just making it look as though it's not.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
Such a problem. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (49:01):
That's that's weird, man.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
And it's strange because you know, we have we have
a lot of veterans who are fellow listeners. We have
a lot of family members and friends who have been
or are currently serving in the military. And in the
course of my research for this, I talked to some
(49:25):
folks just off the record, you know, give me your
take what's going on. And I the responses I got,
you know, said that this is a very real thing.
One of the I'm laughing about serious subject. Because one
of the responses I got from person I won't identify
(49:46):
was just hilarious. They were like, I hate those people.
They're bad at their jobs. I said, well, that's the
number the number one problem you have, and and this
person said, well, look, yeah, okay, their beliefs are terrible,
but also their beliefs are a symptom of the fact
(50:08):
that they're not intelligent and they're bad at their jobs.
And them being bad at their jobs is what really
annoys me on a day to day basis.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
It's just to your point earlier Ben at the very
top of the show, it kind of points to a
certain lack of critical thinking abilities and this sort of
need to oversimplify problems and hang them on a particular
group when clearly it's a much larger issue than that.
(50:37):
And it's just such a leap of logic that these
folks are able to do that. It really just kind
of makes me think they're not particularly bright.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
That's about the shape of it there.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah, and I'm not good at their jobs, I guess
right now. And I'm you know, I'm tempted to agree
racism has learned. It's something they can be unlearned. Uh,
And it's something that people have to have.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
To work through.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
The issue here is the infiltration of one of the
most in the most powerful military force on the planet.
Speaker 5 (51:16):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Uh, this is this is dangerous when we think that
the most powerful military in the world may be unwittingly
training the people who want to destroy the country. This
military serves, you know what I mean? Yeah, like the
(51:38):
call is coming from inside the house, as they say
in horror stories and.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
It's j Edgarhova.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
And he didn't help things. And imagine, you know, there's
so many brilliant people in the military. There's so many
people who joined the services, uh because it represented an
opportunity that would not have otherwise been available, right, and
these people are doing incredibly important work, and stuff like this,
extremist groups and infiltration, this kind of stuff you should
(52:11):
be offensive to every member of the military.
Speaker 4 (52:14):
So as we reached the conclusion here, we really want
to know your experience, especially if you've been an active
military duty in any branch. We just want to hear
what you've seen while you were there and what you
think about this whole problem.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
And of course, thank you for your service so much.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
I mean, I hope none of this came off as
us like ragging on the military.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
I mean, it's.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Obviously an important and valuable institution, and like many important
and valuable institutions, there are inherent problems sometimes. But it
doesn't you mean, you know that the whole idea of
bad apples, you know, that's what we're talking about here.
It's such a ridiculous term as what is it Chris
Rock talking about bad apples in the police force or
(53:02):
we call them bad apples if they're pilots. You know,
there's a couple of bad apples crashing planes all the time.
You know, that's an interesting way looking at it. But
absolutely very much value are military members, and we particularly
want to hear from you because we know there are
folks that are in this that are seeing this firsthand,
(53:22):
and let us know what that's like and how it
affects you, how it affects day to day operations. Is
it something you have to tiptoe around? Is it in leadership?
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Let us know.
Speaker 4 (53:33):
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter where we
are conspiracy stuff. On Instagram we are a conspiracy stuff show.
If you don't want to do those things, we have
a number you can call what use your phone as
a phone crazy. Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK.
Leave us a message, tell us, tell us your experience,
(53:54):
tell us about an episode you'd like to see us cover,
or anything else, but especially let us know if you're
okay with us using your name if the message gets
played on air in one of our listener mail episodes.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Hold your Horses, you might be saying a phone call
in twenty twenty, perish the thought and embarrass the thought
of social media as well. If you are having those
thoughts race through the twisted hauls of your mind and
bounce around and your subconscious and you have something to say,
but you need an easier way to say it to us,
(54:31):
we have good news for you. We have an old
fashioned email address. You can reach us anytime, wherever you are,
whomever you are. All you have to do is drop
us a line where we.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4 (55:03):
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