Native American leaders are criticizing the US military’s code name “Geronimo” for Osama bin Laden during the weekend raid that killed him, pointing out that Geronimo was an Apache leader who fought against US and Mexican armies until his surrender in 1886, and to ascribe his name to a world-renowned terrorist is offensive:
Loretta Tuell, staff director and chief counsel for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said it was inappropriate to link Geronimo, whom she called “one of the greatest Native American heroes,” with one of the most hated enemies of the United States.
“These inappropriate uses of Native American icons and cultures are prevalent throughout our society, and the impacts to Native and non-Native children are devastating,” she said.
The Senate Indian Affairs committee, which was scheduled to hold a hearing Thursday on racist Native American stereotypes, is now also slated to discuss the military’s use of the code-name Geronimo. Let’s start the discussion off, shall we?
wasn’t “Geronimo” the code word for if they found him there? or was it if they actually killed/captured him?
it was definitely to specifically communicate that bin Laden was present somehow.
not cool.
@51 So Hierarchically:
Operation name: pretty bad
Code IF Osama present: Worse
Code name FOR Osama: really bad
Is there any way it would have been even less bad or more worse? This is why we should only use names from ancient cultures, or maybe extinct animals (but only ones we didn’t kill of course). Non-living things maybe, like mineral names. But then what language do you use? Maybe numbers instead. Or if we could get robots to do this for us and to run everything. Yea… I think I’m on to something here…
Geronimo? Jesus, and here I thought they would keep making racist jabs at Arabs, but I guess they decided one belittled minority wasn’t enough.
@ 45 “This exclamation is believed to date from August 1940, and is attributed to Private Aubrey Eberhardt, member of the US Army’s parachute test platoon at Fort Benning, Georgia. The parachute had only recently been adopted and this platoon was the first to test it. On the eve of an unprecedented “mass jump”, the platoon decided to calm their nerves by spending the day before taking in a film at the Main Post Theatre and a night at the local beer garden. The film they saw was a Western featuring the Native American chief Geronimo. Its title is uncertain, but it was probably the 1939 film Geronimo with Andy Devine and Lone Ranger star Chief Thundercloud in the title role.
On the way back to barracks, Eberhardt said he expected the jump would be no different from usual. The others taunted him saying that he would be too scared to remember his name. Eberhardt retorted, “All right, dammit! I tell you jokers what I’m gonna do! To prove to you that I’m not scared out of my wits when I jump, I’m gonna yell Geronimo loud as hell when I go out that door tomorrow!” Eberhardt kept his promise and the cry was gradually adopted by the other members of his platoon”
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Geronimo+(exclamati…)
@31: That made me laugh hysterically.
Thing is: the way we see Bin Laden and Al Qaeda is pretty much exactly how Americans a century ago saw Geronimo and the Apaches. We were at “war” with them just like we are now with Al Qaeda, and Bin Laden felt exactly as justified as Geronimo did. Geronimo launched raids against the US and killed innocent Americans. I think it’s an appropriate name. What’s really offensive here is that people think of Geronimo as a hero.
How come someone who kills Americans is a “great hero” if they’re Indian, but evil if they’re Muslim?
It was pretty clear why such an inappropriate codename was chosen: to reiterate the perverted views of those white Americans who feel that white people’s supremacy needs to be illustrated – all the more potent symbolism with an African-American president in-charge. The message from the white boys CIA and American military establishment: Geronimo tried to undermine the establishment of the white dominated United States of America and was proving to be thorn in our side and so we dealt with him and obliterated native Americans brave resistance and now similarly OBL was a terrorist who needed to be obliterated – in killing OBL they could have chosen any codename but it is really disgusting that they chose Geronimo to try to draw a sickening parallel that in some twisted way the lowest common denominator was that Geronimo and OBL both were enemies of the united states of America!
I truly wish they would have chosen a name like Operation freedom fries or liberty or iron justice but instead these guys select the most ridiculous name!