US army investigates after young private follows the Base, which has vowed to recruit soldiers for so-called race war. An active-duty serviceman in the US army is openly following a proscribed neo-Nazi terrorist group on social media, one that has vowed to recruit soldiers in preparation for a so-called race war. Experts say examples like this shows how under Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon is allowing extremism to go unchecked. On the surface, following a TikTok account might seem like a minor infraction for a young private in the 1st Infantry Division. But not only has that private followed the Base, a violent neo-Nazi terrorist organization once the target of an FBI investigation, there are directives issued under Joe Biden that discourages that kind of social media activity. But in February, the Department of Defense issued a memo halting a major counter-extremism initiative rooting out white nationalists and far-right influences among servicemen, citing that it was not in line with Donald Trump’s executive orders. Since, the efficacy of rooting out the far right within the ranks remains unclear. In the wake of the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill and early revelations that at least 151 of those attackers had a military background, the Pentagon issued a historic stand-down order and created a working group on extremism. By December 2021, it released new policies on what constitutes extremist activities, namely policing how soldiers behave on social media, which included any affiliations to extremist organizations. On an obscure and secretive TikTok account the Base operates for recruitment, counting just 30 followers, a private and mortarmen in the 1st Infantry Division is listed as a follower. Posts on the account promote the Base’s assassination and sabotage mission in Ukraine, neo-Nazi iconography, and plans to create “platoon-sized units of highly dedicated, trained men”. The Guardian provided the name and rank to the US army, which said it was now investigating the matter. (…) On the private’s Instagram account, he appears to be an airsoft gun enthusiast and a second world war re-enactor that has played as a member of a unit of what appears to be Germany’s Nazi-era Wehrmacht. “The TikTok account affiliated with the group includes a clear statement supporting accelerationism and advises joining the group to be linked up with other individuals to exploit ‘collapse’,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, a longtime far-right analyst and expert on the Base who noticed the soldier following the account. “The Base has been designated as a terrorist group by the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.” Fisher-Birch pointed out that the Base and other adjacent groups, like the now-defunct Atomwaffen Division, are still interested in political violence and continue to prioritize the recruitment of soldiers because “combat experience and military training are prized”. But under the reign of the new Pentagon, extremism and the far right are an afterthought, while policing and deleting away “woke” ideologies remains paramount. Hegseth has his own connections to Christian nationalism and was reported by a servicemember for alleged extremist tattoos that prevented him from attending president Biden’s inauguration.
via guardian: Fears over extremism in US military as soldier revealed as neo-Nazi TikTok follower