AMAC Exclusive
The memo, issued by the Department of Defense, is titled “Immediate Actions to Counter Extremism in the Department and the Establishment of the Countering Extremism Working Group,” or the CEWG.
Among other things, the memo explains that the CEWG is tasked with updating the definition of “Extremism” so the military can “revise its definition of prohibited extremist activities among uniformed military personnel.” It will also help the Department of Defense review and update screening questions “about current or previous extremist behavior,” and oversee the implementation of a study “on extremist behavior within our Total Force [i.e., the entire military], to include gaining greater fidelity on the scope of the problem.” The CEWG will also be responsible for developing mid-term and long-term recommendations “for continued engagement on this issue.”
In developing these recommendations, the CEWG will pursue “four initial Lines of Effort.” Those lines of effort will empower it to make recommendations on potential changes to the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ); making it easier to report “extremist” behavior; improving the Department of Defense’s ability to “screen” for extremists, including “continuous vetting for national security positions”; and updating the “education and training” on the issue of “extremism” throughout the entire military. The CEWG will also address “gray areas” in training related to “reading, following, and liking extremist material and content in social media forums and platforms.” Combined with the “continuous vetting” for various positions, this arguably entails monitoring everything any service member says, likes, or even reads on the internet—all for the purpose of addressing “extremism.”
So—what does the Department of Defense mean by all this talk of “extremism”? Are they referring to Islamist extremism? Left-wing extremism? Or something else?
We can make an educated guess as to what the Biden Administration means by “extremism” based on the man who was appointed to lead the CEWG. As Fox News and others have reported, his name is Bishop Garrison. The memo describes him as “Senior Advisor on Human Capital and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.”
The military is getting its own “equity czar,” in the same way many universities already have. As AMAC Newsline has discussed elsewhere, “equity” in leftist parlance means nothing less than equality of results between different groups—a fundamental tenet of Communism. If group outcomes are not the same, “inequity” remains, and people like Bishop Garrison will be called in to “fix” it, all while blaming it on “extremism.”
But what would Bishop Garrison consider “extreme”? The evidence is frightening.
For example, Garrison tweeted the following about the widely discredited “1619 Project” of the New York Times:
I don’t care what color you are, how you identify, your socio-economic status, or how your family got to this country. Stop what you’re doing & read this & other pieces of the #1619project. These are American stories we all need to hear.
On July 16, 2020, when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that the 1619 Project presented a false view of American history, Garrison tweeted back: “I know this was for an audience of one, but this is pretty silly even for that. It’d be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.” [Emphasis added]
Logically, it seems Garrison believes the numerous scholars who have criticized the basic contentions of the 1619 Project—including eminent historians such as Gordon Wood—are also “dangerous.”
As early as June 2020, at the height of the riots following the death of George Floyd, Garrison was on the record appealing to the national security community “to fight racial injustice.”
And in a tweet thread on July 27, 2019, Garrison wrote the following about President Trump and his supporters (emphasis added):
Silence from our Congressional leaders is complicity. He is only going to get worse from here, & his party and its leadership are watching it happen while doing nothing to stop it. Support for him, a racist, is support for ALL his beliefs. He is dragging a lot of bad actors (misogynist, extremists, other racists) out into the light, normalizing their actions. If you support the President, you support that. There is no room for nuance with this. There is no more “but I’m not like that” talk. Because you’re watching what he says. You’re listening to his careful choice of words. And you’re still willing to follow him and/or not speak out. So yes, you’re very much like that. It’s time we all step up.
In other words, Garrison considers President Trump—and all those who supported him—as racists. He doesn’t accept that there can be legitimate policy disagreement on any of this. “There is no room for nuance with this,” he says. Trump is a racist. Supporting him is tantamount to racism. This is the man who will oversee the purge of “extremists” from the United States military. All of those MAGA-hat wearing troops in the rank-and-file had better watch out.