The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.” (New York Times )
The growing unpopularity of the war creates an incentive for quota-burdened recruiters to appeal to the basest sentiments in the American mentality, the xenophobia and reptilian tribalism that turn into torture and massacre. But it is misleading although convenient to focus as this report does on recruiting shortfalls as the cause; they only highlight the deeper issue. As this report makes clear, it was folly for the Pentagon to believe that it could eliminate extremism with regulations or policy when the mission of this war as shaped at the highest levels of administration policy is itself xenophobic, manipulative, dishonest and jingoistic.
