By J. M. Phelps | WND
Recently, a U.S. Army anti-terrorism brief from Fort Liberty, North Carolina, identified various pro-life organizations as terrorist groups. Base officials have since denied this designation represents the Army’s official position, but only after the incident was exposed on social media by independent journalist Sam Shoemate, or @samosaur on X.
In an official response, Fort Liberty officials released the following statement:
“After conducting a commander’s inquiry, we determined that the slides presented on social media were not vetted by the appropriate approval authorities, and do not reflect the views of the XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Liberty, the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.
“The slides were developed by a local garrison employee to train soldiers manning access control points at Fort Liberty.
“These slides will no longer be used, and all future training products will be reviewed to ensure they align with the current DoD anti-terrorism guidance.”
Shoemate has since posted on X of being “notified that the soldiers recently part of training on Fort Liberty (Bragg), who were told that certain pro-life groups are terrorists, are now under investigation.”
I’ve just been notified that the soldiers recently part of training on Fort Liberty (Bragg), who were told that certain pro-life groups are terrorists, are now under investigation.
Tag your representatives on this post and share. Despite the Army saying “the slides do not… pic.twitter.com/dgazn7jHio
— Shoe (@samosaur) July 21, 2024
“I’ve just been notified that the soldiers recently part of training on Fort Liberty (Bragg), who were told that certain pro-life groups are terrorists, are now under investigation. Tag your representatives on this post and share. Despite the Army saying “the slides do not reflect the views of the 18th Airborne Corps, Fort Liberty, the U.S. Army or Department of Defense,” and casting blame on a contractor, an investigation to find who sent those slides to me is fully underway.”
Despite Fort Liberty’s public disapproval, the source who provided the original image of the slide presentation to Shoemate told the Gateway Pundit,
“The whole military is fundamentally and systematically infected with an ideology that is diametrically opposed to the fundamental mission of our armed forces: increasing lethality and winning wars.”
Retired Army Public Affairs Officer Dr. Chase Spears agrees, telling WND,
“The aggressively social justice-focused Army I recently departed after 20 years is not the combat-focused force I joined.”
While conceding the slide presentation may have “gone rogue by not following the letter of the law,” he said “it did not go rogue philosophically.” In fact, says Spears, the incident aligns with what today’s senior military leadership is willing to support. “They’re only sorry that they got caught.”
“You have to ask yourself: Are the measures put in place to keep this from happening not working, or are these really rogue individuals [who aren’t following the rules] truly the ones responsible?” Spears asked.
He added that there is another potential option: “Is this in fact what the military believes, and thus commanders are choosing not to discourage the addition of clearly leftist ideology into training materials?”
“Within the first 10 years I was in the Army,” Spears told WND, “I would have been the devil’s advocate, believing some guy or gal got overzealous and did something they weren’t supposed to.”
However, in the last decade, he argues, “the military has gone through an extraordinary ideological transformation. This is not the first incident like this. It is not difficult to imagine that they’re just saying the quiet part out loud.”
The first time Spears attended a briefing he considered “clearly antithetical” to the U.S. military was in 2011, upon the repeal of the long-time “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in place regarding homosexual service members. From this point forward, he said, examples of blatant disdain and disregard for Christians and conservatives escalated.
“What’s really embarrassing for the force is that they’ve been caught time and time again,” Spears told WND.
For example, in 2013, slides shared during a U.S. Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief labeled Christians as religious extremists, alongside the Ku Klux Klan, al-Qaida, Hamas and others. Later in 2013, former Army Secretary John McHugh ordered a halt to listing Christians as extremists, and even the ACLU applauded his decision.
That same year, Spears recalled, training slides created by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, or DEOMI, “categorized America’s founders as holding to extreme ideologies in seeking independence from the British crown.”
“What’s the purpose celebrating of the 4th of July?” Spears asked. “What would be the purpose of the stars and stripes of the American flag and the oaths that we all take if DEOMI officially maintains that independence from Britain is actually an extremist ideology?”
“For any service member that believes this, I cannot trust that he or she has the best interest of American security in mind,” he said. “I can’t trust such a person to believe the Constitution and feel any kind of loyalty to it.”
Spears also noted that last year officials at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, put out an “unofficial” message warning their airman not to attend a rally by Turning Point USA which helps advocate for conservative politics across the country’s various education systems. “After this attempt at infringing on the rights of military members assigned there made the news,” he said, “they walked it back.”
Spears pointed out the common thread connecting the various examples of Christians and conservatives being depicted as extremists.
“It’s only when military officials get caught that they correct themselves, and fall back in line with the law,” he explained, adding that “‘ask for forgiveness, not permission’ is a frequent refrain among mid-grade military decision makers.”
“We’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg, because most service members who attend these kinds of required training events are not going to speak out against or take pictures of it because they’re terrified of retribution,” he argued. “I promise you it’s happening way more often than we realize.”
“If we continue on the current trajectory, efforts to intimidate, stigmatize and silence Christians and conservatives in the force will become more brazen,” Spears warned.
“Too many military commanders today already ignore the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act and Department of Defense policy on convictional freedom, and they have gotten away with it,” he told WND, adding:
“A military that hates conservative values is one that will be incapable of its most basic purpose: to defend the nation.”
DOD Training Materials Call Conservatives ‘Extremists (Washington Free Beacon, 23 Aug 2013)
Judicial Watch obtained Defense Department training materials on Friday that described conservative and civil liberties organizations as “hate groups.”
The training materials used by the Air Force were created to help students “recognize extremists ideologies.” The materials identified conservative values, such as individual liberties and states’ rights, as recruiting rhetoric used by “extremists.”
According to Judicial Watch:
Under a section labeled “Extremist Ideologies” the document states, “In U.S. history, there are many examples of extremist ideologies and movements. The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule and the Confederate states who sought to secede from the Northern states are just two examples.”
The documents were published by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute in January 2013. They cited the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center repeatedly as a source to use when identifying hate groups.
The documents discussed Islamic extremism only in reference to Sudan and 9/11.
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