The MAGA mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 shared many surface similarities with the ideologically opposed mobs that fought against police in American cities over the past few years: improvised weaponry; social media fixation; an emphasis on combat tactics over strategic objectives. But there’s also a crucial exception: the January 6 mob included many U.S. military veterans. Amid the whooping, Instagramming throng of red-hatted rioters in cobbled-together tactical gear, lines of individuals in full battle rattle could be seen moving in quietly disciplined “stack” formations towards their objective. Veterans who had sworn on oath to protect and defend the United States made up these attack squads. In the thundering, anxiety-inducing documentary “Against All Enemies,” Charlie Sadoff asks why it’s so easy for some veterans, who make up over ten percent of those charged with the January 6 attack, to betray their oaths and attack their government?
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In some ways, the documentary answers those questions easily. The oath seems clear, tying the person who affirms it to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” But the expansiveness of the wording leaves room for those looking to exploit it. All that’s required is for an oath-taker to redefine for themselves what constitutes an “enemy.” According to many of the experts gathered by Sadoff, that line of thinking is a lot simpler than it would seem, largely because of what some veterans were subjected to during the War on Terror.
“It’s so enticing,” says Denver Riggleman, a veteran and former Republican congressman who, after being drummed out of office for supporting President Donald Trump’s impeachment, used his Air Force intelligence officer training for the Congressional investigation into January 6. He and others describe a familiar arc for many Afghanistan and Iraq veterans. After fighting in those murky and inconclusive wars, many seem lost after demobilization, adrift in a home country largely ignorant of their sacrifices and missing the intense camaraderie of combat. Veteran-heavy anti-government extremist groups like the Three Percenters and the Oath Keepers promise a galvanizing sense of mission with like-minded comrades. “You get to fight again,” Riggleman says about each group’s intrigue. But these groups also entice through conspiracy theories flush with diabolical enemies (Democrats, minorities, immigrants) and apocalyptic overtones (stolen elections, a subverted Constitution) that draws on tropes dating back to the Ku Klux Klan.
Add in patriotic regalia and comforting military-speak to those theories and a shift in meaning for the word “enemy” comes with surprising ease. Sadoff and his co-writers Kenneth Harbaugh and Sebastian Junger don’t have a hard time making that basic argument. Though “Against All Enemies” is somewhat short on extremist interviewees, footage of an Oath Keepers operation illustrates the group’s attraction for certain veterans. In one scene, the Oath Keepers show up at a gathering in Louisville during the September 2020 unrest where crowds protest the lack of charges against the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor, seemingly to protect businesses from rioters. But the adrenalized excitement in the heavily armed and armored veterans makes clear what they want to happen in the dark. “Hopefully they light shit on fire,” one says wistfully. This is a chance for them to fight an adversary, at least people they designate as one.
Sadoff’s film provides less detail explaining the specific appeal of far-right movements. Iraq veteran Kristofer Goldsmith describes coming home and falling into a YouTube rabbit hole of anti-Semitic conspiracy videos, making him not that different from many other lost young men in the post-truth era. But more convincing is when extremist researcher Kathleen Belew, one of many experts who work very hard here to scare the hell out of the audience, uses the case of Louis Beam. A traumatized Vietnam veteran and organizationally adept Aryan Nations seditionist, Beam successfully recruited others like him who also wanted to bring the violence they experienced in battles overseas to the country they believe betrayed them.
Other interviewees, like ex-FBI al Qaeda hunter Ali Soufan (one of the agents dramatized in “The Looming Tower“) and former Joint Special Operations Command leader General Stanley McChrystal, say these extremist groups remind them of what they saw overseas. Both make a direct link between the outfits they chased in their old jobs and cells like the Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and the Proud Boys. Soufan even states any person taking part in the assault on the US capital (which extremist veterans in the film themselves term a “coup” and an attempted “insurrection”) is “frankly a terrorist.”
Veteran in Congress like Seth Moulton and Jason Crow also provide nervous warnings about these groups. A Ranger who did three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Crow remembers being in the Capitol on January 6 and wonders “how did I end up on one side of the door” while the insurrectionist veterans “end up on the other side?” His question echoes the understandable inability of many Americans to comprehend what sends veterans into the arms of extremist groups. Combined with the film’s later sections that detail how QAnon and election denialism fed the anti-government narrative into the mainstream of the Republican Party also suggests that an effective counter-narrative may not come soon. Is it really just a matter of time before another incident like January 6 happens?
‘Against All Enemies’ is largely unremarkable in its style, with mostly straight-to-camera interviews interspersed with chaotic footage from January 6 and Charlottesville, VA. And the film hammers home its warning message almost too relentlessly. But though Sadoff’s chilling documentary sometimes resembles less a film than a briefing (albeit one narrated by Peter Coyote), the warning here is dire; simplicity may be the best tactic to get the message across. [B+]