Archive of Irregular Army
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Noam Chomsky interviewed by our own Matt Kennard
Matt Kennard, author of Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror, recently interviewed linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, who had a thing or two to say about the media:
"My impression in general is that the business press is more open, more free, often more critical, less constrained by external power and external influences."
Latin America:
"Latin Ameirca has begun to address its horrendous internal problems. This is an area of the world that ought to be pretty rich and successful. [...] Compare it with East Asia which is far poorer in resources, many faced with hostile powers and internal conflicts, which South America isn't - but it's grown extensively and developed."
and US-backed coups:
"The first was in Venezuela in 2002 when the US quite openly backed a coup attempt which was successful for a few days but was then overturned. [...] The second was in Haiti in 2004 when the traditional torturers of Haiti, France and the US, combined to give not-so-tacit support to a military uprising, and intervened to kidnap the elected president and send him off to central Africa [...] The third case was Honduras, where the elected president, Zelaya, was expelled by the military."
Visit the FT to read the interview in full. -
Matt Kennard discusses the erosion of military recruiting standards on MSNBC
Over the weekend, Matt Kennard, author of the forthcoming Irregular Army, appeared alongside Ret. Col Jack Jacobs on MSNBC to discuss recruiting standards—or the startling lack thereof—in the United States military. "The fact is that the US military does have regulations to govern the recruitment of neo-Nazis and white supremacists," Kennard explains, "and they were completely torn up during the War on Terror because the army was failing to recruit sufficient troops."
Visit MSNBC to watch the episode in full. -
In the polls, in the streets and in the Army: the fortunes of contemporary fascists
"Forget about ideas and think about selling them" was Nick Griffin's advice to the BNP party faithful at the beginning of his decade long campaign to make fascism bland enough for the British political palate. In Bloody Nasty People journalist Daniel Trilling follows the BNP from its electoral heights to its human depths, as Griffin attempted to cover-up his "boots and fists" past as a street-fighting thug and rebrand himself, and his party, in the model of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Front National, France's successful fascist organisation.
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Matt Kennard on Al Jazeera
In this video, Al Jazeera reports on a "flourishing" neo-Nazi music scene in the United States, citing Southern Poverty Law Center findings that selling music is a "primary source of income for racist groups."
Rob Reynolds interviews Matt Kennard, author of the forthcoming Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror, about extremism in American institutions.
According to his research, says Kennard, "it could be too late ... [the military] has spent the last ten years arming and training the most dangerous extremists and neo-Nazis in the country." -
After Oak Creek, Matt Kennard leads the scrutiny of the US military's neo-Nazi elements
In a New York Times Room for Debate segment discussing white hate groups in light of the Oak Creek gurdwara shooting, Matt Kennard, author of the forthcoming Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror, examines the US military's conspicuous license of neo-Nazis, criminals, and gang members that compose the infantry of America's Long War. He writes,
Meanwhile, in Al Jazeera, Belén Fernández cites Irregular Army to detail the extremist danger at the heart of the US Army, how "leaders of the white supremacist movement view enlistment as a means of preparation for a domestic race war...[with] access to a laboratory of Iraqis:"The military ripped up the thin regulations it had on far-right radicals as it struggled to stock its fighting force with sufficient numbers of soldiers for the war on terrorism.
The armed forces should have known better after terrorist attacks like the Oklahoma City bombing, which was carried out by its extremist veterans. The significant number of white supremacist veterans now back in the United States, battle hardened and with weapons training gained in Iraq and Afghanistan, should scare every American.
According to a 2005 report sponsored by the US Department of Defence itself, "the military has a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy pertaining to extremism". However, Kennard's investigations suggest that even blatant "telling" often fails to incur meaningful repercussions. For starters, he reports telephoning five different Army recruitment centres, posing as an aspiring soldier curious as to whether his tattoo of Nazi SS lightning bolts will impede his soldiering aspirations. The upshot: "Despite being outlined in Army regulations as a tattoo to look out for, none of the recruiters reacted negatively and, when pressed directly about the tattoo, not one of them said it would be an outright problem".
Visit the New York Times and Al Jazeera to read the articles in full.