Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is facing right-wing extremism in the armed forces, ordering all commanding and supervisory officers to issue a one-day suspension order to deal with extremism in the ranks.
In a Friday memo, Austin provided a 60-day window for military leaders to discuss “the importance of our oath of office; a description of inadmissible behavior; and procedures for reporting suspicious or actual extremist behavior” after reports that some of the protesters who invaded the Capitol on January 6 were active service members and military veterans.
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“We will not tolerate actions that go against the fundamental principles of the oath we share, including actions associated with extremist or dissident ideologies,” said the memo signed by Austin. “Service members, DoD civil servants and all those who support our mission deserve an environment free from discrimination, hatred and harassment.”
The withdrawal order was first announced by the Pentagon on Wednesday, when Austin noted that while the number of military personnel involved in the attack was “small”, they “were not as small as anyone would like”, reported the Department of Defense .
The department did not release information on how many active military personnel would have been present in the January 6 riot, but Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said during a news conference on Wednesday: “It doesn’t matter what it is, it is. .. not an insignificant problem and has to be solved. “
The defense secretary said that this order is only the first of a larger strategy to better understand the scope of extremism in the armed forces and “develop sustainable ways to eliminate the corrosive effects that extremist ideology and conduct have on the workforce. “.
Kirby said the fight against extremism is a “thorny problem” that the military has struggled with in the past.
A 2019 Military Times poll found that 36 percent of active-duty interviewers had personally witnessed “evidence of racist ideologies and white supremacy in the military” – a figure that jumped from 22 percent of respondents in 2018.
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Austin is the first Black Defense Secretary and must lead the charge in what the Pentagon said must be a downward leadership approach.
“We owe it to the oath each of us took and the confidence that the American people have in our institution,” he wrote in the memo.