THE RACE WAR IN IRAQ?

This is Matt Buschbacher. He is now a Navy Seal.

As if the United States does not already suffer from an international image problem, I learned from the NY Times about a frightening report by the Southern Poverty Law Center of how "recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed 'large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists' to infiltrate the military."

The SPLC report includes a chronicle of Matt Buschbacher, a Neo-Nazi leader in the National Alliance. The photo, above, is of him attending a Kentucky skinhead festival known as the Imperial Klans of America's Nordic Fest in May 2000. I hope I haven't missed Nordic Fest 2006!

Buschbacker is now a Navy Seal, fighting in Iraq. According to the SPLC, he stayed active in the Neo-Nazi movement during his military service, without any repercussions.

When President Bush said this war on terrorism would be a "crusade," apparently Matt Buschbacher took his words at face value. I will attempt to refrain from making a cheap joke about the fact that Matt's last name sounds a lot like "Bush-backer."

This SPLC report might very well be sensationalized and the extent of white supremacist recruiting may be over-exaggerated. But military investigators apparently found Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad. And according to Scott Barfield, a Department of Defense investigator, the number of extremists are "well into the thousands, just in the Army."

Here is the most alarming quote from Barfield in the report:

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. ... [Recruiters] don't want to make a big deal again about neo-Nazis in the military, because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists.

Assuming this is true, I find it infuriating that the military -- so desperate for more bodies to fight this war -- would knowingly recruit and retain active white supremacists, but dismiss soldiers who happen to love another person of the same gender.

No doubt, the report certainly casts the torture in Abu Ghraib, the civilian massacre in Haditha, and the deaths in Guantanamo in an even darker light.

Have we reached the bottom yet?

--Junichi