Pentagon Press Secretary, John Kirby, said in a press briefing, the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, ordered a 60-day “stand-down” of the U.S. military to get rid of “racists and extremists.”
The decision was apparently made after those who were within the Capitol Building were found to be veterans of various military branches.
Kirby said, “Even though the numbers might be small, they may not be as small as we would like them to be, or we believe them to be. And that no matter what it is, it is not an insignificant problem.”
He continued to say, “The events of Jan. 6 served as a wake-up call for this department.”
There is still no information currently that outlines specifically how the Department of Defense will tackle this issue. The Department of Defense also doesn’t outline what constitutes extremism or extremist activity.
A senior House official told CNN, “”There’s a lot to be learned about domestic extremism in the military, and the US Government has not put the kind of analytical rigor and bodies on this target that it has on other issues, like Islamic extremism after 9/11.”
During Llyod’s confirmation hearings he said, “The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies. But we can’t do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks.”
