Group warns Congress of racial extremists within military

Saying that the U.S. military may inadvertently be training "future domestic terrorists," the Southern Poverty Law Center on Friday asked Congress to strengthen policies against racial extremists in uniform.

"Evidence continues to mount that current Pentagon policies are inadequate to prevent racial extremists from joining and serving in the armed forces," Morris Dees, founder of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, wrote to the heads of four congressional committees. "Because the presence of extremists in the armed forces is a serious threat to the safety of the American public, we believe Congressional action is warranted."

In the 1980s and 1990s, defense officials issued and strengthened regulations against hate speech and activity. But the center's 2006 report to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not produce any action, said Heidi Beirich, the organization's director of research. Pentagon officials insisted regulations prohibiting participation in white supremacist groups were adequate, she said.

Dees noted that center has recently found dozens of personal profiles of self-described military members on a neo-Nazi Web site. Many contain pictures of individuals in front of Nazi flags, some in military uniforms. The individuals don't use their real or full names on the site, and the center didn't try to determine who they were.

Two men identified themselves as sailors on the white supremacist Internet forum New Saxon, Beirich said. One used the screen name "gunman88" - 88 being neo-Nazi shorthand for "Heil Hitler" - while the other went by "clarkpatrick88."

"These guys are pretty bad news," Beirich said. "Clarkpatrick has listed on here that one of his favorite books is Mein Kampf," Adolph Hitler's opus. His dislikes: "Race-mixing traitors, and the Navy. Why did I join?" He also wrote, "I'm not liking the idea of fighting for a country run by you-know-who."

Beirich noted that Timothy McVeigh, who carried out the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, was trained in the military use of explosives. And Eric Rudolph, who set off a bomb that killed a bystander at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, had a military background.

One Navy officer the center wants to see banned from service is Lt. Cmdr. John Sharpe. Sharpe was a Norfolk-based public affairs officer aboard the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in 2007 when a newspaper called attention to essays and books he had written and edited.

Sharpe, who is Catholic, wrote numerous essays after the 9/11 attacks. In one, he contended that the real enemy is not Islamic extremism or al-Qaida, it is "mindless pluralism which moves toward a universal brotherhood of nations" in which "all the separate races and religions shall disappear."

"God grant that this pluralism may be defeated - a pluralism which is a poor disguise for the triumph of Judeo-Masonic will," Sharpe wrote in one such essay.

Sharpe eventually faced a non-judicial proceeding, called a captain's mast, which resulted in "appropriate administrative and disciplinary action," according to a Navy spokesman. Details of such proceedings are kept private.

Sharpe is still a naval officer, though he no longer serves in public affairs.

Beirich said the problem stems from military regulations that are not specific enough about what constitutes participation in a supremacist group. Regulations should state that people who post extremist messages on the Web or attend hate group rallies cannot serve in the military, instead of simply prohibiting membership in such groups, she said.

The Navy's regulation against supremacist activities, enacted in 1997, prohibits participation in any organization that espouses supremacist causes or attempts to create illegal discrimination based on race, creed, color, sex, religion or national origin.

The term participate is defined as "acts or conduct, performed alone or in concert with another, such as demonstrating, rallying, fundraising, recruiting, training or leading such organizations."

A Navy spokesman did not respond Friday to a request for comment on the letter.

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com