Warning that extremism in the ranks is increasing, Pentagon officials issue detailed new rules prohibiting service members from actively engaging in extremist activities.
The Pentagon has stopped short of creating a list of extremist groups that military
members cannot join and declined to say explicitly whether
refusing to view President Joe Biden as America’s legitimate
leader was a violation of policy.
The US military, like American society, is under political
strain after years of divisive politics. A small minority of
military service members have refused orders to get vaccinated,
after that issue became politicised, and some participated in
the deadly January 6 riot at the US Capitol by supporters of
then-president Donald Trump.
Following the riot, the Biden administration, which took
office on January 20, spent much of the year working to clarify its
definition of extremism and what kinds of military participation
in an extremist activity to explicitly prohibit, unveiling the
results on Monday.
The new definition includes everything from prohibiting “liking” extremist content on social media to fundraising or
demonstrating for an extremist organisation.
Punishment, if
there is any, could be up to local commanders.
Still, the Pentagon stopped short of prohibiting membership
in any group, from the Proud Boys to the Oath Keepers and the Ku
Klux Klan, and avoided weighing in on specific scenarios, like a
soldier’s view of the legitimacy of Biden as president.
Nearly 300 allegations of extremist activity by service members
Trump has repeatedly falsely claimed that his 2020 election
loss to the Democrat resulted from widespread voter fraud.
“If we got into coming up with a list of extremist groups,
it would be only probably as good as the day we published it
because these groups change,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said
at a news briefing.
US defence officials said, however, that the restrictions
announced on Monday meant that meaningful, active participation
in any such group would be impossible.
Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the military oversight
committee in the House of Representatives, praised the updated
policy.
“Protecting our service members from the threat of violent
extremism is far too important for partisan misinformation,” he
said in a tweet.
The Pentagon’s announcement came just weeks after the
Pentagon’s Inspector General cited 294 allegations of extremist
activity by US service members, including 10 allegations of
trespassing at the US Capitol on January 6 and 102 allegations of
participation in domestic extremist violence.
There were also 70 allegations of racially motivated violent
extremist activity and 73 allegations of anti-government or
anti-authority extremism.
Inconsistent tracking
The Inspector General faulted the Defense Department for
failing to consistently track the data in a uniform way.
“Until the DoD establishes DoD-wide policy for tracking and
reporting allegations of prohibited activities, the DoD will
continue to have inconsistent tracking … and difficulty
validating the accuracy of the data,” it said.
The Pentagon, in its report on extremism, said that
available data generally shows that cases of prohibited
extremist activity among servicemembers were rare. Kirby said
officials had found about 100 cases in total, but acknowledged
the Pentagon needed to do a better job collecting data.
Source: Reuters
US stops short of banning its military from joining extremist groups
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