Last Thursday, ten U.S. Marines and three other U.S. service members were killed in a deadly terrorist attack in Kabul. That same morning, the headline on the Vice news website was a story entitled “Why Are So Many Marines Neo-Nazis?” by Nazi hunter Ben Makuch.
It was a distasteful headline based on the fact that over a three-year period, a shocking 7 former Marines were cited in an NPR report for having Neo-Nazi beliefs.
“Over the past three years, at least seven former Marines have openly avowed or been identified with neo-Nazism or the extreme right, with some alleged to have been involved in planned terrorist acts,” Makuch wrote.
During that same period, the Marine Corps trained 120,000 new recruits and maintained a force size of 210,000 including active duty Marines and reservists. The report also noted of the Marines cited, when exposed were also separated from the Marine Corps for the few who were actually active-duty Marines. Makuch stated most of the men cited in the report had been prior service Marines.
So why are so many Marines Neo Nazis? The answer is they’re not. According to Makuch’s own reporting, approximately 500,000 men and women serve in the Marine Corps during a 3 year period. During that same 3 year period, 7 Marines, either past or present were identified as neo-nazis.
In reality, the rate of confirmed Neo Nazis in the Marine Corps is .0014% or 1 in 71,428.
One thing we can learn from Makuch’s report, or as he’s been called on some Marine Corps veteran group social media pages, “Ma-cuck” is that he has never served in the Marine Corps…and probably doesn’t know anyone who served in the Marine Corps, because if he did, he would know some basic facts about the service he trashed in his neverending quest to see Neo Nazi’s everywhere he looks.
Marines are perhaps the most tolerant of all of the branches of the military when it comes to race.
The other thing we learned from Makuch’sreport is that he didn’t actually talk to any past or present Marines for his story. He didn’t talk to anyone in the present-day Marine Corps leadership. He just declared that “so many Marines are Neo Nazis.”
If Makuch reached out to any Marines, he would know immediately that the Marine Corps has zero-tolerance for any kind of racial, sexual or for that much, any division within their ranks.
In the first week of boot camp, Marines are taught one very basic fact. When civilians enter either Parris Island or San Diego recruit depots, one of the first lessons they learn is that everyone is equal. At first, equally worthless, but as time goes on, equally a Marine.
Marines are instilled almost immediately in boot camp that there is no white, brown, yellow or black, just green. Many lifelong relationships are cultivated in the Marine Corps between deep south farm boys and people of color they may not have even met prior. Marines are all brothers and sisters who will fight and die for each other regardless of race, religion, sex, or whatever. Meanwhile, people like Makuch whose entire existence is to hunt Neo Nazi ghosts in life are free to write liberal propaganda to tarnish the very people dying in the Global War on Terror and to do it on the very day that 10 of them died and several others lost their legs, arms and were critically maimed.
Vice News apologized for the timing of Makuch’s story, but not for the misleading clickbait headline that intended to defame the Marine Corps on the third bloodiest day in the twenty-year war in Afghanistan.
If the case against the Marine Corps made by Makuch was used against Vice, one can say drug use and drug dealing run rampant in the Vice media service. Last year, a Vice media editor was sentenced to nine years in prison for smuggling cocaine.
“Yaroslav Pastukhov, 29, best known under his pen name Slava Pastuk or his online alias Slava P, was found not to be the mastermind of the international plot that ended when four Canadians and one American were caught at Sydney airport with more than $20 million worth of pressed cocaine bricks glued into the lining of their suitcases,” the National Post reported.
In 2018, a Vice Media corresponded was sexually assaulted and claimed the news agency pushed her out of her job because of it.
On the topic of terrorism, two Vice reporters were deported from Turkey in 2015 after being charged with aiding a terrorist organization. The company, according to NBC News is known for its systemic sexual harassment.
“It’s the latest controversy for the hipster global content giant, and comes just a month after co-founder Shane Smith stepped down as CEO, and as the $5.7 billion company — supported by investors like Disney and 21st Century Fox — continues to reckon with reports of systemic sexual harassment and mistreatment of women,” NBC reported.
But let’s not forget who Ben Makuch really is. In 2017, he was infatuated with ISIS fighter Farah Mohamed Shirdon and fought the Candian government to cooperate in a case against Shirdon who was tied to terrorist activities. Even though Shirdon, was a member of an international terrorist organization responsible for assassinating innocent men, women and children, ISIS, he maintained his shield law rights as a journalist.