The primary suspects in two deadly attacks on New Year’s Day shared a history of service in the U.S. military, underscoring persistent fears over extremism within the armed services that officials have struggled to uproot.
The suspect behind a truck rampage in New Orleans that killed 14 people, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was an Army veteran, while the man allegedly behind the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside of the international Trump hotel in Las Vegas, Matthew Livelsberger, was an active-duty service member in the Army.
While not the first acts of military extremism, the two deadly attacks amplify questions about the number of radical and unstable veterans and active-duty troops and whether the Pentagon’s efforts to identify and root out extremist beliefs is working.
Heidi Beirich, a co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism who has studied military extremist activity for decades, said the unresolved problem was particularly dangerous because veterans and active-duty service members can kill more efficiently.
“The military has not adequately addressed the […]
Thank God we’re getting “real news” from The Hill. Glad that none of these acts are tied to the fact that we’ve been running a world wide empire for decades, suppressing democratic impulses rooted in the local population. Thank God, The Hill didn’t dare speak about the fact the US military has been supporting an overt genocide in Israel’s war on Palestine. Thank God, they didn’t speak of our murderous behavior toward the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan. Or our support for a “friendly” dictator in Egypt. Whew, that article was a close one. Had it mentioned these things, it might have caused us to look in the mirror.
I think it is disingenuous to link these two military men to MAGA. The article never mentioned a single thing about MAGA. While I have an extremely low opinion of MAGA and its nutty devotion to a felon president-to-be, nothing has come up that links these two men to MAGA.
Do further research, Terri. They were both Trumpers.
IMHO, part of what we are experiencing is derived from the Global War on Terror (GWAT). For decades I have noted we have no idea what the total cost of GWOT will be.
On this sir, we agree.
I have never found The Hill to be the sine qua non of reportage. In fact, generally it’s been the opposite. I do remember reading reports in the 80s in relation to a small number of military having been radicalized. This is NOT new. That said, I believe the military as a whole, and especially. considering the numbers, does an amazing job of training and oversight. If the numbers of radicals are rising, I attribute that to DJT. I agree with John, two men does not mean the entire armed forces are swinging to extremes. I began studying non violent communication around the same time the military began to include that training. As I recall, it was under General Stanley McCrystal, an officer who was responsible for launching some extraordinary forward thinking training programs. NVC was one of those.
That said, I strongly believe that U.S. military will continue to play important valuable roles in the design and coordination of our collective future.