According to a headline in The Hill newspaper, which takes a position typical of U.S. corporate media, “New Year’s attacks fuel fears of extremism in military.”
In other words, an institution openly dedicated to mass killing and destruction may have fallen victim to infiltration by “extremists.” As if there could be something more extreme than a military.
The reason for this approach is that two U.S. military veterans attempted mass murders that made the news on the same day — and their status as veterans (or in one case active duty) made the news. The fact that those guilty of mass shootings in the United States are, and have long been, very disproportionately veterans is, and has long been, strictly avoided by U.S. corporate media, including in reporting and commenting on these new incidents.
If people who drink and drive had very disproportionately been trained in binge drinking, we might reasonably suspect more than a mere correlation. But correlations are big news when it comes to mass shooters, as long as they don’t touch on anyone having been trained to kill.
The dirty little secret, although it’s right out in the open, is that mass killing is not called “extreme” if it’s done abroad for the U.S. military (in fact it is a “service” to “thank” people for); it becomes “extreme” purely because of where and to whom it is done or by association with an enemy of U.S. war propaganda (even if more often than not an ally of the U.S. military). Supporters of ISIS are “extreme” when killing in New Orleans, but heroes of democracy when taking over Syria.
Here’s how The Hill educates its readers:
“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.”
Imagine training people to kill en masse, for a governmental department likely soon to be run by a nominee who has publicly shouted “Kill all Muslims!” while simultaneously striving to “root out extremist beliefs.” Imagine generating articles depicting these efforts without bothering to explain what an extremist belief is. The Hill continues:
“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 problem, whether it’s white supremacists or Islamic extremists,’ she said. ‘These cases are a reminder of how important it is that people with potential to become extreme aren’t trained in military tactics.’”
This is a half-breakthrough, I’d say. This is an explicit recognition of the generally taboo fact that members of militaries have been trained to kill. This is almost certainly a huge part of why those who manage to commit mass killings are veterans, and why mass killings by veterans kill more people. But we’re still treating murder-training and “extremism” as completely unrelated to each other.
“Jabbar, the New Orleans attacker, drove a Ford pickup truck through the crowded Bourbon Street before he was shot and killed by police. In addition to the 14 people he killed, he injured dozens more. Jabbar, 42, was a U.S. citizen from Texas who served in the Army from 2007 to 2020, including a year or deployment in Afghanistan, and retired as a staff sergeant. It’s unclear if he served in combat, but he was trained as an information technology specialist. Police said they found an ISIS flag in his truck and social media posts online sympathizing with the U.S.-designated terrorist group.”
I can find public statements from the U.S. Secretary of State sympathizing with a U.S.-designated terrorist group. I condemn those statements. But I find them far less offensive than others from the same official sympathizing with Israeli genocide and opposing peace in Ukraine. Similarly, I’m disgusted by any such statements by Mr. Jabbar, but not nearly as much as I am by the killing he did in New Orleans and the killing around the world that he supported in the U.S. military.
“Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said in a Thursday press conference that Jabbar posted at least five videos propagating the ideology of ISIS, which the suspect claimed to have joined last year. Raia, who said there is no apparent connection between the New Orleans and Las Vegas attacks, explained the FBI was working to understand how Jabbar became radicalized. ‘A lot of questions we are still asking ourselves,’ he said. ‘That’s the stuff that in the coming days, as far as that path to radicalization, that we’re really going to be digging into and make it a priority.’”
So, now we know that extremism is a synonym for radicalization. But we still haven’t been told what either means, just as we are never told what terrorism means. We just know that these words are all used and not used based on by whom and to whom and where something is done, and not based on what that thing is.
“Less is known about the motivation of Livelsberger, who police have identified as the suspect behind the Cybertruck that exploded in front of the Trump hotel after it was loaded with explosives. Only Livelsberger was killed in the blast, but seven others were injured. Livelsberger was an active-duty Green Beret stationed in Germany but was on leave for the holidays, according to media reports. He was an operations master sergeant. Todd Helmus, senior behavioral scientist at RAND Corporation and a violent extremist expert, said he was surprised to learn about Livelsberger, as violent extremism is more prominent among veterans who often struggle with a range of factors once leaving service, like mental health issues, finding work and leaving behind comrades. ‘All these issues can be complicating challenges for veterans,’ he said. ‘These life challenges that can happen when people leave military services in the close-knit communities, they might be more at risk of radicalization or recruitment.’ Helmus added that it was ‘harder to be a terrorist’ in active-duty service. ‘You’re hanging out with fellows in your unit on a day-to-day basis,’ he said. ‘And there is a discipline structure that’s in place, so I think it’s probably more likely to get picked up if you were on the verge of conducting these types of attacks.’”
It’s harder to be a terrorist if you are actively engaged in organized mass killing and destruction. It’s an amazing statement.
“But it’s not the first case in recent history of an active military member engaged in extremist violence. In 2023, Robert Card, a U.S. Army reservist, carried out a deadly mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, that killed 18 people. In 2020, Steven Carrillo, an active-duty airman at the time, killed two police officers after expressing antigovernment beliefs. He is serving a 41-year sentence. And in one of the deadliest shootings ever on a U.S. military base, Nidal Hasan, an Army major and psychiatrist, killed 13 people and injured more than 30 others. Later investigations found that Hasan’s colleagues had been aware of signs of his radicalization.”
So why lead into those facts with comments from an “expert” who would clearly be “surprised” by them?
“Both veterans and active-duty military personnel have been charged with or convicted for involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, rioting at the U.S. Capitol, where supporters attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election in favor of President-elect Trump. The Violence Prevention Project has tracked mass shootings from 1996 to 2024. In their database, the project lists dozens of mass shooters with a military background.”
This is on the edge of being a major breakthrough in U.S. corporate reporting. Unlike Mother Jones magazine, whose database I have analyzed for years, the Violence Prevention Project bothers to mention when shooters are or are not veterans. Its website appears to show 51 of 160 mass shooters being veterans, or 31.9 percent, which is very similar to what Mother Jones’ database shows once you add to it who is and is not a veteran. Only a tiny percentage of men under 60 in the overall population are veterans, meaning that a veteran is probably at least three times as likely as a non-veteran to be a mass shooter.
Needless to say, mass shooters are a teeny tiny group. Virtually every veteran is not a mass shooter. And over two-thirds of mass shooters are not veterans. Needless to say, lots of other correlations (mental health, misogyny, etc.) are interesting as well. Needless to say, getting rid of the guns (even if not the cars and trucks) would reduce the killing.
But why can’t The Hill follow through to make the point that veterans are disproportionately killers, not only where the killing is a “service” but also where it is not? And why can it look not only to the technical weapons training but also to the training and conditioning to kill? Killing is not an easy act for most people, and — like most difficult acts — comes easier with repetition. Those who have killed will, to at least some degree in some cases, find it easier to kill more. I assume the reason that The Hill cannot say this is that some readers might understand that training people to kill is a choice, and that wiser choices could be made. Instead, The Hill steers its readers back toward the topic of “extremism,” finally arriving, after some additional paragraphs, at this bit of information:
“A late 2023 report commissioned for the Pentagon largely sought to downplay the role of extremists in the military, saying it ‘found no evidence that the number of violent extremists in the military is disproportionate to the number of violent extremists in the United States as a whole.’”
The Hill offers no such evidence itself. But if “extremism” (whatever it may be) is no more common in than out of the U.S. military, then why is the entire article about “extremism” instead of being about militarism?