Radicalized Veterans Supporting Trump in the Vanguard of January 6 Insurrection
by John Lawrence
Time magazine has an excellent article by Vera Bergengruen/Arab, Ala. and W.J. Hennigan/Washington, "From Combat to Conspiracy" detailing how radicalized veterans led the insurrection on January 6. I wrote about this previously in an article The Militarization of the American Mind. The fact of the matter is that the US military-industrial complex is composed not only of active military and corporations profiting from military hardware, but also a large number of civilians who are ex-military. The whole meme about honoring veterans - "Thank you for your service" - presupposes that these people are loyal Americans, not an out of control mob attempting to overthrow the government. Veterans are routinely honored at least in lip service and discounts, but the truth is far more disconcerting. These men and women have been processed through a system that has taught them not to think critically but to follow orders. They are more or less taught to espouse conservative politics.The Times article continues: "Of the more than 500 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, at least 1 in 10 was a current or former member of the U.S. military, according to a George Washington University analysis. Many had served in the protracted post-9/11 conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, returning home to a country that paid them lip service but moved on without much notice to the wars they had fought."
The insurrectionists' attitude is a reflection of the fact that the US is a militarized nation with over 800 bases in almost every country of the world. Defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and others form the economic backbone of the nation. Is it any wonder then that at least a sizable minority of the nation's people favor an autocrat like Donald Trump to an experienced public servant like either Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden? When I worked in the military-industrial complex for General Dynamics and the Naval Electronics Laboratory, we were encouraged to vote Republican for fear our funding would decline under a Democratic administration and we would be RIFed (Reduction in Force-ed). This is how insidious the militarization of the American mind actually is. The Times article continues: "[One veteran] became involved with local chapters of the Oath Keepers in central Florida, whose recruiting materials reminded members that their oath was forever. “America’s veterans truly are like a sleeping giant. It is time to awaken them and fill them with a terrible resolve to defeat the domestic enemies of our Constitution,” says one chapter’s mission statement, according to documents reviewed by TIME. “If we can’t get the veterans to step up … to save our Republic, then how can we expect to get the rest of our people to do what must be done?”"
"As with other veterans whose involvement in right-wing groups like the Oath Keepers led them to the Capitol on Jan. 6, James’ descent into alleged extremism seemed less an expression of long-held political fervor than the desire to be part of a larger patriotic cause.
"Little data is kept on how often and why veterans get involved with extremist groups, but there are plenty of high-profile examples throughout American history. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate army general, was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. George Lincoln Rockwell, a Navy veteran, founded the American Nazi Party. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, both Army veterans, were convicted of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
"Founded by a former Army paratrooper in 2009, the Oath Keepers has quickly become one of America’s largest antigovernment extremist groups. It heavily recruits current and former military and law-enforcement members, encouraging them to see themselves as “the last line of defense against tyranny,” according to Oath Keepers websites. The group’s name refers to the oath sworn by members of the military and law enforcement “to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Some members falsely believe that the federal government has been taken over by “a cabal of elites actively trying to strip American citizens of their rights,” according to the FBI."
The military had become for many veterans a way of life that they missed after returning to civilian life. "“Militia groups have really familiar structures of command,” [author] Belew says. “They have structures of fraternal bonding, they have the organizational social elements that are very similar to the armed forces—and they’re built that way deliberately.
"Only now are federal authorities formally drawing up a strategy to handle the problem of military veterans’ joining extremist groups. The Biden Administration’s strategy to combat domestic terrorism includes plans to prevent veterans from being recruited by extremists. Currently, there are no efforts that focus on veterans once they have left service, despite evidence that they are increasingly the targets of online misinformation and extremist recruitment.
"Security analysts, veterans’ groups and experts say it will be vital to combat both the isolation and the fear-mongering that lead former service members to think of their fellow Americans as the enemy or, worse, take the law into their own hands. “It’s important not to fixate too much on the Oath Keepers as an organization but to think of them as a concrete example of a broader phenomenon in America,” says Sam Jackson, a homeland-security expert at the University of Albany who wrote a book on the group. The alleged radicalization of James, the growth of local chapters and the national organization should be “seen as a Russian nesting doll” that shows a much larger movement, he says, “of people who view America as being hijacked by internal and external enemies.” But little is likely to change unless more Americans come to agree on what it means to be an extremist and what it means to be a patriot."
Wake up, America, and smell the coffee. The militarization of the American mind reflects the militarization of America's purported purpose in the world which is to exert military force projected over the whole world. A person like exPresident George W Bush, who lied us into the war in Iraq, has the nerve to criticize Joe Biden for withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan after a 20 year futile war which accomplished nothing. We got Bin Laden in an operation which had nothing to do with boots on the ground in Afghanistan. He was in Pakistan. Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11. The attitude of both civilian and military leaders from the top down legitimizes the US' continued military presence throughout the world and thoroughly indoctrinates American veterans and civilians in the military mindset. Until the US becomes a nation which is more interested in promoting development throughout the world and contributing to the betterment of peoples' lives throughout the world, a large number of Americans will favor right wing causes and conservative politics.