Just Don't Send Them Into Germany

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this seems fucking dumb:

Under pressure to meet wartime manpower goals, the U.S. military has relaxed standards designed to weed out racist extremists. Large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads and other white supremacists are now learning the art of warfare in the armed forces.

Department of Defense investigators estimate thousands of soldiers in the Army alone are involved in extremist or gang activity. "We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," said one investigator. "That's a problem."

Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen urged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to adopt a zero-tolerance policy regarding racist extremism among members of the U.S. military.

"Because hate group membership and extremist activity are antithetical to the values and mission of our armed forces, we urge you to adopt a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to white supremacy in the military and to take all necessary steps to ensure that the policy is rigorously enforced," Cohen wrote in a letter to Rumsfeld.

This is especially discouraging because the military is so often a true melting pot, with a lot of diversity at the infantry level. The last thing we need is racial tension within our own armed forces. Furthermore, white supremacist groups are obviously happy about having their members learn to fight with top-quality training and top-quality weapons, so they can take those killing-machine skills back home to the streets of America. Tim McVeigh was ex-military, right? Apparently hate groups are bragging about their infiltration into the military.

When you see an uptick in incidents of rape and murder of innocent civilians in Iraq, and you read a story like this, you can't help but put two and two together. And this is all happening because the Pentagon is freaked out by actually having to ask all of America to sacrifice for their misadventures abroad that they lower recruitment standards.

There's much more on this story by clammyc.