Friday, May 13, 2011

From continental empire to world empire

Paul D’Amato explains that U.S. military has a long racist history of using Native American names–one that goes beyond its recent use of “Geronimo.”

Socialist Worker, May 12, 2011

A Kentucky regiment in Puerto Rico during the Spanish American War
A Kentucky regiment in Puerto Rico during the Spanish American War

NATIVE AMERICAN organizations across the U.S. are objecting to the use of “Geronimo” as the code name for Osama bin Laden in the operation that led to his assassination last week. The military’s message to the White House after bin Laden’s murder was “Geronimo EKIA”–Enemy Killed In Action.

Geronimo was an Apache leader who, with a small number of warriors, fought off 8,000 U.S. and Mexican troops in the mountains of Arizona and Mexico until his surrender and life imprisonment in 1886. “It’s another attempt to label Native Americans as terrorists,” remarked Paula Antoine, a member of the South Dakota Rosebud Sioux.

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