USMC marines

=see active duty/infiltrationfrom the halls of montezuma (latinx) to the shore of tripoli (arab?)post geo f: <div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/confederate-battle-flag-banned-marine-corps-declares-it-a-threat-to-our-core-values/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/confederate-battle-flag-banned-marine-corps-declares-it-a-threat-to-our-core-values/</a></div><div>=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/msn/the-marine-corps-gave-marines-received-security-clearances-despite-their-participation-in-the-capitol-riot-report/">https://www.alternet.org/msn/the-marine-corps-gave-marines-received-security-clearances-despite-their-participation-in-the-capitol-riot-report/</a><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">4/22 edit bd</div><div>I don’t follow what every Democrat says. No one can. There’s no way for me to know whether the tenor and tone of their collective rhetoric changed last week. But it felt like it got stronger, sharper and angrier.Consider Brian Schatz.The Hawaii Senator took to the Senate floor to scorch his colleague Josh Hawley of Missouri, who’s been holding up appointments to the Department of Defense that are necessary to America’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Before he signs off, he said, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin must resign for his “failures” in Afghanistan.Schatz said that’s rich coming from a guy who raised his fist in solidarity with the J6 insurrectionists and who voted to acquit the former president for the high crime of extorting Ukraine’s president.“This comes from a guy who before the Russian invasion suggested that maybe it would be wise for [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy to make a few concessions about Ukraine and their willingness to join NATO.”
He added:“They withheld lethal aid until, unless Zelenskyy released false smears against Joe Biden's son. Then [Hawley] voted to exonerate President Trump for this. So spare me the new solidarity with the Ukrainians and with the free world, because this man's record is exactly the opposite.”His tirade amazed those of us longing for the Democrats to take a strong stand against the Republican Party’s lies and bad faith. Perhaps we’ll see more now that Greg Sargent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/08/brian-schatz-josh-hawley-ukraine-loudness-gap/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">put a brighter light</a> on it.The Post columnist interviewed Brian Schatz on Friday. “Democrats need to make more noise,” the Senator conceded. “We have to scream from the rooftops because this is a battle for the free world now.”Let’s not forget what Schatz said, however.He said Hawley is “doing a very specific thing.”“He is damaging the Department of Defense.”So far, Schatz is the only Democrat seeing what needs seeing.Though he says he’s outraged by the US pullout from Afghanistan, Josh Hawley is also attacking, directly, the military leadership itself. (He won’t move on appointments until the secretary of defense resigns.)Demanding Austin’s resignation is not a “reasonable request,” Schatz said. It can’t be. The point is sabotaging civilian control of the military.You read that right.The point is cleaving the ranks. The point is to create conditions in which military personnel feel inspired to take action that’s favorable to the Republicans’ (perhaps the former president’s) return to power.They are picking up where the J6 insurrection left off. But next time, it won’t be a mob of schlubs. It will be an army of highly-trained insurgents bent on restoring whiteness to the center of the republic.At gunpoint.Everyone should see what Schatz sees.So I interviewed Fred Wellman, founder of <a href="https://beerhallproject.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Beer Hall Project</a> and a 20-year Army veteran who served when Secretary Austin was General Austin. I called Fred after US Rep. Matt Gaetz <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/video/gaetz-clashes-with-secy-austin-over-wokeism-in-the-military-137061445694" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">failed to humiliate</a> the secretary in testimony before the House Arms Services Committee.Fred said: “A standing army can’t be a tool of a political party. Under the Trump years, it became more partisan. Now Matt Gaetz and his peers in the Republican Party are directly undermining the apolitical and nonpolitical nature of the military by dividing troops from leaders.”Matt Gaetz and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Thoughts?
My main frustration has always been with the “performance wing” of the Republican Party. They don’t want to govern. They want to act.In this case, Matt Gaetz tried convincing people that “wokeism,” or trying to get a more diverse American military force, is hurting our ability to fight wars. It shows how monumentally stupid he is.He's dragging culture wars into national defense. That he does so while sitting on the House Armed Service Committee is outrageous.It’s a committee responsible for oversight of the men and women in uniform, but it’s oversight partially provided by someone as monumentally asinine as Matt Gaetz – that’s just disgusting to me.Good point. When a country sends people overseas, the presumption should be that leaders will take that responsibility deadly seriously. Deadly serious responsibility is the opposite of Matt Gaetz.I'm a 20-year Army veteran. I rose through the ranks to be a lieutenant colonel. I retired after Desert Storm and three Iraq tours. I’m the son of a World War II Marine veteran. My son is an Army veteran. My son-in-law continues to serve in the National Guard.But not everybody can serve.Less than 7 percent of our nation is veterans. Less than 1 percent serve at all. Less than one-third of the eligible population is capable of serving. I'm talking about fitness, criminal record, mental health, etc. This is the reality of maintaining and growing an all-volunteer force.That's the point of trying to increase the diversity of the officer corps. That's the point of trying to increase the diversity of the pilot corps. That's the point of welcoming all races and creeds. As Secretary Austin said, anybody who's eligible, who has the capability to serve, should be welcomed even if they're non-binary, gay, straight, whatever.If they're capable of serving, of meeting the physical and mental requirements we need in our military, we've got to open our arms.There are just not enough white dudes left.When you have someone like the Florida congressman directly attacking that, that turns away possible recruits. Gaetz is literally undermining those who serve and who may serve in the future.Sounds like you’re angry?I am angry.The Matt Gaetzs and Marsha Blackburns of the world are openly undermining good order and military discipline with a culture war for political effect. A representative sitting on the Armed Services Committee should understand the challenges of an all-volunteer force.Civilian oversight of the military matters even though those civilians may never have served, may not have been qualified to serve. People like me, people like Secretary Austin – we understand that. Someone who rose to the rank of four-star understands he’s going to answer to some 25-year-old kid on the Armed Services Committee.That's the nature of it.But what frustrates me is the lack of respect for the office and a lack of respect for the military as an apolitical and non-political entity.One of the biggest fears of our founding fathers was a standing army. They didn't want one and that undermined efforts early on in the republic because of rebellions. We had no army to address them.Even Washington was like, man, we need an army.A standing army can’t be a tool of a political party. Under the Trump years, it became more partisan. Now Matt Gaetz and his peers in the Republican Party are directly undermining the apolitical and nonpolitical nature of the military by dividing troops from leaders.The troops love Trump, they believe, but the troops are being failed by “woke” leaders. Where the fuck do you think the leaders are? You don't just magically make a general. Secretary Austin started as a fucking second lieutenant. He rose through the ranks. This is dangerous.I do not say this lightly.This is incredibly dangerous.They attack the military leadership as “woke” because they're trying to cause a break in the ranks. They're literally undermining good order and military discipline deliberately to break the chain of command.I've never seen that in my lifetime.You’re describing national security risk. Is that overstating it?No, I don't think so.The very nature of our republic relies on an apolitical military every American knows serves them, no matter their race, creed, religion, color, region, political party, whatever. Our republic depends on everyone knowing a standing army is not a threat to the country.Many in the Republican Party are super-fans of Putin, let's be honest. They're having CPAC in Hungary, for God's sake, a country led by a rightwing dictator, a Putin fan. Imagine a scenario in which they’re in power and we can't fight because they’ve undermined the military.It's terrifying to think where this could go.I've seen reports of white nationalism gaining traction in the ranks of the military. There's an effort from above to deal with that.I learned in military science 101 at West Point that an all-volunteer force is a direct reflection of our society. You raised your children for 18 years before they get into the military. I give them 12 weeks of basic training. That won’t overcome 18 years of raising them as racists.All I can do is ensure they don't act on those beliefs and undermine good order and military discipline. If they do behave inappropriately, we use the separate military system to discipline them appropriately and remove them from the military as they're no longer a threat.But we do know white nationalist and patriot front-type groups have been actively sending “their troops,” if you will, into the military for military training. Right-wing nationalist groups are infiltrating the ranks and recruiting veterans after they get out of the military.At one point, 10 percent of Jan6 cases were United States military and veterans. One of them is an active-duty Marine Corps major!How horrifying that is.Talk about the fundamental tension between universal values, like honor, and individual interest, like investment in whiteness.Some really extreme right-wing politicians say universal values are an attack on conservative thought. It's not against conservative thought.Conservative thought should mean taxes and “pulling up my bootstraps and raising myself up by going into the military” – that's fine.Saying Black people are inferior soldiers, assaulting the ranks, inciting homophobia and transphobia and attacking fellow service members – That’s not conservative. That’s extremism, white nationalism.That needs to be stomped out.There have been several surveys of service members saying the biggest threat they face isn’t Muslim terrorists. It’s extremism in the ranks....</div>=an 621 <div class="widget" elid="2653567085" data-category="Push Notification" style="position: relative; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px; width: 815.597px; display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; padding-top: 10px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); padding-bottom: 40px; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><article elid="2653567085" data-is-frozen="false" class="clearfix page-article sm-mb-1 quality-MD post-2653567085" style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1.6rem; line-height: 1.4;"><div class="row px10" style="margin-bottom: -40px; margin-left: -10px; margin-right: -10px; overflow: hidden;"><div id="col-right" class="col" style="font-size: 1.6rem; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 40px; float: left; box-sizing: border-box; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; width: 417.798px;"><div class="widgetbody clearfix sm-mt-1"><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1em; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/marine/" aria-label="This US Marine bragged about planning white supremacist terror attacks: FBI" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height">This US Marine bragged about planning white supremacist terror attacks: FBI</a></h1><div class="social-author clearfix" style="margin-top: 10px; display: inline-block;"><a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/alex-henderson" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif;">Alex Henderson</a></div> <div class="social-date" style="margin-top: 8px; display: inline-block; color: rgb(164, 162, 160); font-size: 1.4rem; vertical-align: top;"> June 27, 2021</div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2653567085" style="margin-top: 10px; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; font-size: 17px; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow: hidden; display: -webkit-box; -webkit-line-clamp: 4; line-height: 31px;"><div class="body-description">Involvement in white supremacist and white nationalist terrorist groups is especially dangerous when someone has been enlisted in the U.S. military, as that person has been trained in the use of weapons. An <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/castrate-kill-remove-voting-rights-ex-marine-georgia-deputy-was-in-extremist-cell-feds-say/I6GKOE2SDJFS5FLEOAUW2V4BFE/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word;">article</a></div></div></div></div></div></article></div>=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/marines/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/marines/</a>Three Marine Corps veterans and their porn-star neo-Nazi guru, arrested <a href="https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article246744791.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">last month</a> on charges that they engaged in an interstate gun-running scheme, comprised a band of violent fascists who had recently moved to Idaho with the intent of making it a base of operations for their plans to engage in acts of domestic terrorism, <a href="https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article247332404.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">federal prosecutors revealed</a> this week.According to <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-ednc/press-release/file/1338501/download" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the grand-jury indictment</a> filed this week by prosecutors in North Carolina, the men's schemes went well beyond those with which they have been charged—namely, buying semiautomatic rifles, altering them into automatics, then shipping them from Idaho to North Carolina. The foursome not only engaged in paramilitary training in the Idaho desert, they surveilled two separate Black Lives Matters marches in Boise this summer and discussed killing participants. They also plotted to assassinate BLM founder Alicia Garza.Three of the four men—Justin Hermanson, 21, who used the code name "Sandman"; Liam Collins, 21, aka "Disciple"; and Jordan Duncan, 25, aka "Soldier"—had met while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. The fourth—Paul Kryscuk, 35, whose nom de plume was "Deacon"—was a porn star (under the stage name <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3166146/bio?ref=nm_ov_bio_sm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">"Pauly Harker"</a>) who had lived most of his life on Long Island, New York. He met the other men online in the now-defunct <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/02/15/visions-chaos-weighing-violent-legacy-iron-march" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">neo-Nazi message board Iron March</a>, and was the group's general leader, though all they identified as members of the terrorist organization <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/atomwaffen-division" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Atomwaffen Division</a>.Back in 2017, when Iron March was still active, the men had discussed among themselves how to create "a modern day SS," as one of them put it, referencing the Nazi paramilitary organization Schutzstaffel, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-ednc/press-release/file/1338501/download" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the indictment says</a>. Kryscuk outlined the group's long-range plan then:<blockquote style="font-size: small; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px;"><ul class="ee-ul" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 542.287px;"><li style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">"First order of business is knocking down The System, mounting it and smashing it's face until it has been beaten past the point of death … eventually we will have to bring the rifles out and go to work."
</li><li>"Second order of business ... is the seizing of territory and the Balkanization of North America. Buying property in remote areas that are already predominantly white and right leaning, networking with locals, training, farming, and stockpiling."
</li><li style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">"Start buying property now in the types of regions mentioned above and get to work on building your own group. …As time goes on in this conflict, we will expand our territories and slowly take back the land that is rightfully ours. ... As we build our forces and our numbers, we will move into the urban areas and clear them out. This will be a ground war very reminiscent of Iraq as we will essentially be facing an insurgent force made up of criminals and gang members."</li></ul></blockquote>Kryscuk bought a home in the Boise area in February 2020 and moved there, and Duncan and Collins gradually followed suit. Hermanson—who was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and remains an active member of the Marine Corps—joined them in July for a training exercise in the Idaho desert. The participants in compiled a video of the live footage from that training, showing Kryscuk and another person firing a variety of rifles. At the end, the four men—all outfitted in Atomwaffen masks—are seen giving the Nazi salute beneath a Sonnenrad, an occult Nazi symbol. The final frame reads: "Come home white man."Prosecutors say the purpose of the gun-running scheme was "to regularly and repetitively manufacture and transport firearms and firearm parts, to include suppressors, in a manner that the government would not know the recipients had them, for criminal purposes"—namely "in furtherance of a civil disorder."The "civil disorder" included attacking the Black Lives Matter movement, including its leadership. Garza <a href="https://twitter.com/aliciagarza/status/1319730483471679489" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">reported in a tweet</a> last week that the FBI had informed her that her name had appeared on a list of targets found in one of the men's homes in Boise."This is why this President is so dangerous," <a href="https://twitter.com/aliciagarza/status/1319730484390227969" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">she added</a>. "He is stoking fires he has no intention of controlling. I'm ok y'all, but this shit is not ok."The neo-Nazi gang had twice conducted surveillance on BLM events in Boise: First, on July 21, at a rally on the campus of Boise State University, Kryscuk was observed within visual range of the event, first sitting in a parked vehicle and driving around the gathering slowly.Then, on August 18, Kryscuk was observed lurking in the vicinity of a BLM rally/protest at a park in downtown Boise.Kryscuk and Duncan just last month discussed in a text chat how things would go down after their group—which they called "the BSN" (a prosecutors office spokesman declined to explain the meaning of the acronym)—attacked BLM marchers as they envisioned:"How the BSNs finna be pulling up to chipotle after hitting legs," Duncan asked."Death squad," Kryscuk answered, adding: "Assassins creed hoodies and suppressed 22 pistols.""People freaking tf out," Duncan replied."About what," Kryscuk asked."'The end of democracy'," Duncan wrote."One can hope," Kryscuk answered.<div class="around-the-web" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="text-transform: uppercase;">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/confederate-battle-flag-banned-marine-corps-declares-it-a-threat-to-our-core-values/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Confederate battle flag banned -- Marine Corps declares it a 'threat ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2006/11/marines_declare_war_on_christmas/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Marines declare war on Christmas - Alternet.org ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/top-us-marine-corps-commander-orders-removal-of-all-confederate-paraphernalia-from-installations-around-the-world/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Top US Marine Corps commander orders removal of all Confederate ... ›</a></li></ul><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 10px;">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2029717" class="around-the-web__link" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">SARS-CoV-2 Transmission among Marine Recruits during Quarantine ›</a></li></ul></div>==
// stars and stripes?<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/marine-corps-times-fact-checks-trumps-lie-about-biden-killing-hundreds-of-thousands-of-troops/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/marine-corps-times-fact-checks-trumps-lie-about-biden-killing-hundreds-of-thousands-of-troops/</a>=muy macho, murder<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/philippines-president-pardons-us-marine-in-transgender/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/philippines-president-pardons-us-marine-in-transgender/</a></div><div></div><div>
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</div><div></div><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/vasilios-pistolis-imprisoned-marine-hate-groups" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">https://www.propublica.org/article/vasilios-pistolis-imprisoned-marine-hate-groups</a>=<table width="560" style="border-collapse: collapse;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" margin="margin" auto="auto"><tbody><tr><td width="475" valign="top"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://rawstory.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=80b42ecc21f29763320aceb90&id=04e7ac72a9&e=4da1f92934" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Marines Move to Tackle Racial Extremists in the Corps</a><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-style="font-style" italic="italic" color="color" rgb="rgb">ProPublicaAn updated order emphasizes that participating in white supremacist groups is prohibited and calls on service members to report those who violate the policy</td></tr></tbody></table>=USMC<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/atomwaffen-division-hate-group-active-duty-military">https://www.propublica.org/article/atomwaffen-division-hate-group-active-duty-military</a> no lnx
18-year-old, excited by his handiwork at the bloody rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last summer, quickly went online to boast. He used the handle VasillistheGreek.
“Today cracked 3 skulls open with virtually no damage to myself,” the young man wrote on Aug. 12, 2017.
Vasillios Pistolis had come to the now infamous Unite the Right rally eager for such violence. He belonged to a white supremacist group known as Atomwaffen Division, a secretive neo-Nazi organization whose members say they are preparing for a coming race war in the U.S. In online chats leading up to the rally, Pistolis had been encouraged to be vicious with any counterprotestors, maybe even sodomize someone with a knife. He’d responded by saying he was prepared to kill someone “if shit goes down.”
About This PartnershipThis story is part of an ongoing collaboration between ProPublica and Frontline that includes documentaries scheduled to begin on PBS in August 2018.
One of Pistolis’ victims that weekend was Emily Gorcenski, a data scientist and trans woman from Charlottesville who had shown up to confront the rally’s hundreds of white supremacists. In an online post, Pistolis delighted in how he had “drop kicked” that “tranny” during a violent nighttime march on the campus of the University of Virginia. He also wrote about a blood-soaked flag he’d kept as a memento.
“Not my blood,” he took care to note.
At the end of the weekend that shocked much of the country, Pistolis returned to his everyday life: serving in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Of the many white supremacist organizations that have sprung up in the past few years, Atomwaffen is among the more extreme, espousing the overthrow of the U.S. government through acts of political violence and guerrilla warfare.
Journalists with ProPublica and Frontline gained insight into Atomwaffen’s ideology, aims and membership after obtaining seven months of messages from a confidential chat room used by the group’s members. The chat logs, as well as interviews with a former member, reveal Atomwaffen has attracted a mixture of young men — fans of fringe heavy metal music, a private investigator, firearms aficionados — living in more than 20 states.
But a number are current or former members of the U.S. military. ProPublica and Frontline have identified three Atomwaffen members or associates who are currently employed by the Army or Navy. Another three served in the armed forces in the past. Pistolis, who remains an active-duty Marine, left Atomwaffen in a dispute late in 2017 and joined up with another white supremacist group. Reporters made the identifications through dozens of interviews, a range of social media and other online posts, and a review of the 250,000 confidential messages obtained earlier this year.

Pistolis in his Marine Corps dress uniform. He posted this selfie to his Facebook page.Joshua Beckett, who trained Atomwaffen members in firearms and hand-to-hand combat last fall, served in the Army from 2011 to 2015, according to service records. Online, Beckett, 26, has said that he worked as a combat engineer while in the army. Combat engineers are the army’s demolitions experts.
In Atomwaffen chats, Beckett, using the handle Johann Donarsson, said he was building assault rifles and would happily construct weapons for his fellow members. “Give me the parts and the receiver and I’ll get it all together for you,” Beckett wrote in August 2017.
Beckett also wrote about suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of combat in Afghanistan, and how his time in uniform caused him to radically revise his political beliefs, prompting him to abandon mainstream conservatism in favor of National Socialism.
In online discussions, Beckett encouraged Atomwaffen members to enlist in the military, so as to become proficient in the use of weaponry, and then turn their expertise against the U.S. government, which he believed to be controlled by a secret cabal of Jews.
“The army itself woke me up to race and the war woke me up to the Jews,” Beckett wrote, adding, “The US military gives great training…you learn how to fight, and survive.”
Another Atomwaffen member used the chats to talk about the combat he saw during the U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan.
“I was in the infantry in the army in Afghanistan and did a lot of…shit,” the member wrote. He said the Army wanted him to become a chemical weapons specialist, but he chose to join the infantry. He spent his time, he wrote, blasting “lead into sand niggers.”
ProPublica and Frontline specifically identified Pistolis and Beckett through interviews with a former Atomwaffen member who knew them, the group's internal records, and the men's digital footprints. In his online activities, Pistolis left many clues to his identity, including pictures of himself he uploaded to private white supremacist chat rooms and photos of himself on his public Facebook page. Beckett’s internet handles and Facebook content also helped us to confirm him as the man who had spent five years in the Army before joining Atomwaffen.

Reporters contacted Beckett via phone and Facebook messages, but did not get a response. Beckett’s Facebook page features an image of Donald Trump driving a white convertible emblazoned with the number 1488, a white supremacist code, and a call for whites to jump in the car.
In a series of phone and email exchanges, Pistolis claimed he did not attend the Charlottesville rally and did not assault Gorcenski or anyone else. His online messages about Gorcenski, he said, were nothing more than jokes. He admitted to harboring “alt right” or white supremacist beliefs, though he claimed he had “infiltrated” Atomwaffen on behalf of another extremist group and was never actually a member.
Pistolis, who indicated to reporters that he is stationed in North Carolina, pulled down his personal Twitter account shortly after being contacted by ProPublica and Frontline. He also took down his account on Gab, a discussion channel favored by white supremacists, many of whom have been banned from Twitter and other social media platforms. His postings indicate that after leaving Atomwaffen last November — other members accused him of risking unwanted attention for the group by showing up with Atomwaffen flag at a rally in Tennessee — he became an active participant in online forums involving the Traditionalist Workers Party,  another neo-Nazi group.
Since May 2017, three people involved with Atomwaffen have been charged with five murders. Devon Arthurs, an early Atomwaffen recruit, is facing trial for allegedly murdering two other members of the group in Florida. A teenager in Virginia stands accused of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents, who had tried to keep their daughter away from him; the 17-year-old, who was in the process of joining Atomwaffen, is being tried as a juvenile. Atomwaffen member Samuel Woodward, 20, has pleaded not guilty in the slaying of Blaze Bernstein, a gay, Jewish college student whose body was discovered in a Southern California park early this year. Authorities believe Woodward stabbed Bernstein more than 20 times.
Despite the mounting body count, it is unclear just how aggressive law enforcement — at the federal or local level — has been in investigating the group. None of the men charged in the homicides had a military background.
The FBI had no comment when asked about Atomwaffen.
One Atomwaffen member caught up in a high-profile criminal case has a quite direct link to the armed forces.
Atomwaffen’s founder, Brandon Russell, 22, was arrested last year after investigators discovered a cache of weapons, detonators and volatile chemical compounds in his home, including a cooler full of HMTD, a powerful explosive often used by bomb-makers, and ammonium nitrate, the substance used by Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City attack. Russell was also in possession of two radioactive isotopes, americium and thorium. In September 2017, he pleaded guilty to a single charge of unlawful possession of explosives and was later sentenced to five years in federal prison.
At the time of his arrest, Russell, 22, had been serving in the 53rd Brigade Special Troops Battalion of Florida’s Army National Guard. A spokesman for the Marine Corps, Major Brian Block, said the corps would be looking into Pistolis and would likely open a formal probe into his activities last summer.
“There is no place for racial hatred or extremism in the Marine Corps,” Block said in a written statement. “Bigotry and racial extremism run contrary to our core values.”

He added, “The guidance to Marines is clear: Participation in supremacist or extremist organizations or activities is a violation of Department of Defense and Marine Corps orders” and can lead to expulsion from the service.
Contacted by ProPublica and Frontline, Carla Gleason, a Department of Defense spokesperson and Air Force major, said the military relies on its commanders to identify problematic activities and respond judiciously.
“What we’re doing is empowering commanders at every level to counsel service members on their conduct, and take disciplinary action where appropriate,” she said.
“We do recognize the right to free speech and thought,” said Gleason. But, she added, the Department of Defense insists that service members observe the military’s policies prohibiting discrimination and extremist behavior.
ProPublica and Frontline documented Pistolis’ role in Charlottesville through an analysis of photos and video footage from the rally and his own online admissions, including a statement Pistolis posted to an Atomwaffen chat room saying he “kicked Emily gorcenski” during the march at the University of Virginia.
ProPublica and Frontline contacted the University of Virginia Police Department to check the accuracy of the material involving Pistolis at the Unite the Right Rally, and to see if there was an investigation underway. Sgt. Casey Acord reviewed the material and later said his agency would investigate Pistolis’ apparent role in the melee that occurred during the torch-lit march on school property.
Reporters also showed pictures, video and chat posts to Gorcenski, the activist attacked in Charlottsville. While she didn’t suffer any significant physical injuries that night, the experience, Gorcenski said, was profoundly traumatizing — and she has faced frequent harassment from fascists and white supremacists since the rally. She said she plans to move out of the country.
Gorcenski quickly identified Pistolis as the man who kicked her.
“He’s telling the truth in these logs about what happened,” she said.
Like many white supremacist groups, Atomwaffen initially coalesced in cyberspace — the founders and early members met each other through a fascist discussion forum called Iron March, which is now defunct. But in the past few years, the organization — it is estimated to have 80 to 100 members — has moved into the real world.
Atomwaffen has conducted weapons and other training exercises in at least four states, according to the chat logs and interviews. Current and former members of the military have found that their skills are highly valued by Atomwaffen and have assumed leadership roles within the group. Drawing on their battlefield experience, Marines and soldiers have helped to shape the group into a loose collection of armed cells, according to the chat logs and people with direct knowledge of the organization.
There has long been a worrisome if not fully understood nexus between the military and the white supremacist movement. Over the past half-century, many of the movement’s key leaders have come from the ranks of the military, including George Lincoln Rockwell, commander of the American Nazi Party, Ku Klux Klan leader Louis Beam, and Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler. 
Pete Simi, co-author of the book “American Swastika” and an associate professor at Chapman University in California, said white supremacists often draw inspiration from the armed forces.
“Extremist culture tends to be paramilitary — the Klan, for instance, is a clearly paramilitary organization, it was started by former military officers,” said Simi. “A lot of traditional neo-Nazi groups tend to emulate military structure … Some skinhead groups do that as well.”
Read More
Inside Atomwaffen As It Celebrates a Member for Allegedly Killing a Gay Jewish College StudentProPublica obtained the chat logs of Atomwaffen, a notorious white supremacist group. When Samuel Woodward was charged with killing 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein last month in California, other Atomwaffen members cheered the death, concerned only that the group’s cover might have been blown.Organizations like Atomwaffen, he said, “need military people who have explosives experience, firearms experience, combat fighting experience” that they can pass on to other members. But there’s also another factor, in Simi’s view. “I think there’s also a credibility aspect to it, in that it gives more credibility to the group to have people who served in the U.S. military. It brings a certain gravitas.”
Last year, nearly 25 percent of active-duty service members surveyed by the Military Times said they’d encountered white nationalists within the ranks. The publication polled more than 1,000 service members.
The results are jarring in a number of ways, not least because each branch of the armed forces has regulations that bar service members from joining white supremacist organizations. Army policy, for example, forbids soldiers from participating in “extremist groups” that foster “racial, gender, or ethnic hatred or intolerance.” The Marine Corps has a similar regulation, Order 1900.16, which mandates swift penalties for Marines caught engaging in “extremist or supremacist activities.”
Air Force directives note that airmen who participate in racist organizations can face court martial for disobedience.
For Simi, a key question is whether the Department of Defense and various military branches are effectively enforcing these policies by screening volunteers as they enter the service and thoroughly investigating reports of extremist activity by service members. If the figures in the Military Times survey “are anywhere close to credible, then there’s clearly a problem that isn’t being addressed,” Simi said.
A former Marine who currently works for a government intelligence agency told ProPublica and Frontline that the military’s seriousness about combating white supremacists in its ranks can vary.
“At the command level — and publicly — the military takes any extremism seriously,” the ex-Marine said. “There is a zero-tolerance policy regarding Nazis. We defeated them in World War II, and they have no business currently serving in the U.S. military.”
“At the unit level, I believe there’s a willful ignorance,” the former Marine added. “‘If neo-Nazis aren’t allowed to enlist in the military, and if nobody I know is a neo-Nazi, there must not be any within my unit’ seems to be the standard. It’s difficult to take seriously that which you don’t believe exists.”
Pistolis appears to have gotten involved in the neo-Nazi movement long before he joined the armed forces. In online conversations with members of Atomwaffen, Pistolis said that he’d started hanging around with the National Socialist Movement “and other skinheads” when he was 16. He listed some of his favorite books: “Mein Kampf” was one; the autobiography of American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell was another. A third was “The Turner Diaries,” the notorious 1978 novel about race war in America that inspired McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.
Pistolis said in the chats he was also a fan of “Siege,” a 563-page tome preaching the virtues of assassination, political terrorism and guerrilla warfare against the U.S. government that has become something of a bible for Atomwaffen members.
After joining Atomwaffen, Pistolis took on a leadership role in the summer of 2017, running the North Carolina cell and vetting new recruits to the group, according to the chat messages as well as a former member.
Before the Unite the Right rally, Pistolis, who is slim with dark close-cropped hair and a distinctive widow’s peak, sketched out designs for two flags he wanted to bring to the event. One was yellow and black and featured a coiled snake poised to strike and the logo of the Golden Dawn, a Greek fascist party linked to murders and violence in that country. On the other flag, he blended the stars-and-bars of the Confederate battle flag with the Sonnenrad, a circular emblem used by the Nazis and adopted by the new generation of white supremacists.

In online chats with other neo-Nazis, Pistolis shared this photo. He had the flag – a mash-up of the Confederate battle flag and the Nazi Sonnenrad symbol – made specifically for the Charlottesville rally. (Courtesy of Unicorn Riot)Pistolis paid a company to manufacture the flags and shared a picture of them online in a private chat room for people attending the rally; the chat logs were obtained by Unicorn Riot, a leftist media collective.
Over a span of roughly two months, Pistolis posted at least 82 messages in the chat room, which was hosted by Discord, an online messaging service aimed at video gamers.
His views were quite clear: Charlottesville Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy, who is African American, was a “monkey” in a fancy suit. He shared photos of Bellamy and Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer, who is Jewish, captioned with the words, “Niggers, Jews…Bad News.”
In Charlottesville, Pistolis, wearing a black-and-white Adidas track suit, was among the hundreds of torch-bearing young men who marched onto the campus of the University of Virginia after sunset on Aug. 11 chanting “blood and soil,” a slogan of the Third Reich, and performing straight-arm Nazi salutes. Photos and video from that night show Pistolis participating in the event.
The march ended at a monument to Thomas Jefferson, where the white supremacists were met by a small group of anti-fascist counterprotesters, many of them students, who had gathered at the foot of the statue. There was pushing and punching. Pistolis ran through the crowd and launched a flying kick at Gorcenski.
“He traveled here from out of state with the intent to do violence,” said Gorcenski. “His own statements match up perfectly to what’s happened.
“The military is supposed to protect American civilians and here we see that our soldiers are attacking American civilians — and celebrating it.”
The melee that night immediately intensified, as white supremacists bludgeoned the counterprotesters with lit torches and streams of pepper spray shot in all directions. Dozens of men attacked the anti-fascists.
Pistolis was front and center, according to his post. He told his fellow Atomwaffen members how to spot him in videos of the altercation that were popping up on YouTube. “If you see a guy in a tracksuit that’s me,” Pistolis wrote.
Another Atomwaffen member reminded Pistolis that he could face a court martial if he was arrested for brawling.
“So don’t get caught doing stupid shit,” wrote the Atomwaffen member, an Army soldier.
The day after the torch march, Pistolis was fighting again, this time in the streets surrounding Charlottesville’s Emancipation Park. He was carrying one of the flags he’d had specially made for the rally and wearing a black baseball cap, combat boots, and a T-shirt with the stylized skull logo of the Punisher, the comic book vigilante.
At least two photos taken by a Getty Images photographer capture him smashing a counterprotester with the wooden flagpole.
Later, Pistolis shared a photo of the aftermath with his friends in Atomwaffen. The blue and red flag was splattered with blood. He said he’d “cracked a skull” and left “3 mother fuckers bleeding.”
Another member asked if he could share the “bloody flag” picture on Atomwaffen’s Twitter account.
About a month after the rally, Pistolis got into an online conversation with an Atomwaffen member from Virginia. Unite the Right was “so much fun,” the Virginia man wrote.
Pistolis promptly uploaded two photos of himself from that weekend.
“I can confir[m],” he wrote.

WL:

The Stratfor emails reveal a company that cultivates close ties with US government agencies and employs former US government staff. It is preparing the 3-year Forecast for the Commandant of the US Marine Corps, and it trains US marines and "other government intelligence agencies" in "becoming government Stratfors". Stratfor’s Vice-President for Intelligence, Fred Burton, was formerly a special agent with the US State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and was their Deputy Chief of the counterterrorism division. Despite the governmental ties, Stratfor and similar companies operate in complete secrecy with no political oversight or accountability. Stratfor claims that it operates "without ideology, agenda or national bias", yet the emails reveal private intelligence staff who align themselves closely with US government policies and channel tips to the Mossad – including through an information mule in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Yossi Melman, who conspired with Guardian journalist David Leigh to secretly, and in violation of WikiLeaks’ contract with the Guardian, move WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables to Israel.

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