This is frightening

There are some who claim that the United States in its war on terror has reduced itself to the moral equivalent of the fundamentalists it claims to oppose. I've always disagreed with this viewpoint, if only because there is a much more pluralist element in the Western powers' claims, of upholding democracy, freedom, and whatnot. Thus, something like this in the news ought to give us all serious pause. This comes on the tail of the last several months of reporting of the pressures that army recruiters are facing, and the measures they take to fill quotas. Now, one consequence is that neo-nazis and white supremacists have started infiltrating the ranks of the U.S. armed forces. I suspect that these people are being kept in the army out of necessity, but probably also because they make for more zealous, effective soldiers:

The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members."

The article also quotes a white supremacist site, just in case the sheer madness of racism has worn off for anyone today:

Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war...It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.'

It continues:

As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood.

It is interesting to me how something like this not only highlights the issues that face our society, but how by way of analogy, adds a more tangible element to the idea of a militant fundamentalist. If you consider this guy the American version of a militant fanatic, then the depth of the problem facing the world as a whole really comes into perspective.