Progressives Keep Hunting Illusive Extremists in the Military

Congress Says Stop Looking for Extremists Among the Troops

In its Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the SASC considered the number of potential white supremacists in the US military to be so small it gave instruction to discontinue the search for such bad actors, presumably because a second such report would prove embarrassing to those who make headlines from the supremacist rhetoric. There is more evidence the scourge of white supremacists, white extremists, or white nationalists in the military may be overblown. Under the category of “domestic terrorism,” if you go to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) webpage identifying the “Most Wanted,” and filter on any of the “white” adjectives above there are precisely zero hits. If individuals with “white” before their political points of view were so socially odious, you’d think they might make the FBI’s list. There is not one white nationalist, extremist, or supremacist on the Ten Most Wanted. Congress was right to direct the Department of Defense to concentrate on more critical matters. As the FY2023 NDAA explains:

“In a force of 2.1 million active and reserve personnel, this is a case rate of .005 percent, one servicemember out of every 21,000…the case incident rate does not warrant a Department-wide effort on the issue… to combat exceptionally rare instances of extremism in the military is an inappropriate use of taxpayer funds and should be discontinued by the Department of Defense immediately.”

However, the low, almost imperceptible, incidence of white extremist behavior does not stop media reports from pushing the fear-mongering narrative. One such Military Times article, titled “Dems accuse GOP lawmaker of condoning white supremacy among troops,” warns:

“Supporters of the Defense Department training and the broader anti-extremism efforts point to recurring issues of violent ideology among individuals linked to [not in] the military. For example, in the eight months following the mandated stand-down [for anti-extremist training], defense officials reported 100 cases of service members engaging in prohibited acts of extremism…”