OSAMA BIN LADEN DEAD

[Samuel]

Instead of naming your weapons after a minority of martial* Native Americans, you should name your agricultural programs and areas after Native American farmers, and educational programs after their sages and so on.

The military tends to give things militaristic names. I don't see why this is a surprise.

Instead, you have a romanticized version that mostly omits the fact that the Native Americans were victims.

No, our history textbooks are pretty clear that there were people living here and we crushed and killed most of them. Mine covered King Philips War, the Trail of Tears, the Indian Wars and the BIA. You do realize many places in the US are named after natives? About half of our states come from native words.

I'm not sure where you are getting the idea the idea that Americans view natives purely as warriors.

Yes, that's pretty much the way Native Americans are portrayed, if you swap them with "Jew" and the white Settlers with "Germans".

No, a good comparison would be half your states are given yiddish names and your missile and helicopter programs and assult phrase are named the Błyskawica, Związek Walki Zbrojnej and the Bielski respectively. Naming something jew would be like the US having a weapon named Indian.

That seems like a nitpick then, as Chomsky's point still stands.

Isn't he making a point by quoting Obama that Geronimo was, indeed, the codeword for OBL? Or is he misquoting?

It wasn't "Operation Geronimo", it was "Operation Neptune's Spear". "Geronimo" was the codename for Bin Laden, yes.

That seems like a nitpick then, as Chomsky's point still stands.

And Saddam Hussein's code name was Elvis. Obviously he was the king of rock, right
Or code names are randomly assigned. In which case Chomsky's point is bullshit, as usual.

[Captain Seafort]

Or code names are randomly assigned.

US codenames? Random?

Desert Shield - defensive operation in the Arabian desert.
Desert Storm - air war in the desert
Desert Sabre - ground offensive in the desert
Iraqi Freedom - 'nuff said.
Infinite Justice - pompous, but again, nuff said
Neptune's Spear - conducted by the SEALs.

Given the US military's track record, it's a wonder they didn't call it "Operation Abottabad Saudi" or something.

[TheHammer]

The point is that there is basically no portrayal of Native Americans as victims. Their main (and almost sole) portrayal in media and public culture is that of a "proud warrior race". That is a deliberate distortion of the truth, a lie by omission.
Instead of naming your weapons after a minority of martial* Native Americans, you should name your agricultural programs and areas after Native American farmers, and educational programs after their sages and so on. (Not all of them at any rate, but i bet there isn't anything of that with anything close to the prominence of the Apache Helicopter).
And as i said earlier, there are a great many things that could be done in order to raise and maintain public awareness and memory about the genocides committed in americas past. Instead, you have a romanticized version that mostly omits the fact that the Native Americans were victims.

Apparently you've never seen the movies "Dances with Wolves", "Little Big Man", "Last of the Mohicans" among others. Obviously conflict is at the center of a good chunk of those movies, but that is partially because telling stories of farmers doesn't make for a very entertaining story. They do show glimpses of life outside of the warrior culture, and do in many cases portray the victimisation of Native Americans.

You are correct in that outside of documentaries you probably won't find an in depth discussion of some of their great leaders, but I think that's true of many great thinkers and philosophers from all cultures. Unless hollywood can somehow paint a backdrop of war or romance, they don't tend to make that story.

[Serafina]

So your issue is that they are portrayed as one-dimensional and simplistic? Guess what, Americans portray other Americans as one-dimensional and simplistic. Ask a New Yorker what he thinks about Californians. Or Georgians. Or Wyoming-ians? Err, people from Wyoming. Ask a Texan what he thinks of people from Washington. Ask a Californian what he thinks of New Yorkers. Heck, ask someone from Southern California what they think of people from Northern California. You will get simplistic caricatures and stereotypes. If we can't even accurately describe the other modern Americans inhabiting our country, how the hell do you think we're going to be able to accurately describe Native Americans? The best you're realistically going to get is "They used to live here, we drove them out, now they run casinos."

Soo - because you are doing it a lot it's not a bad thing?
Would it be okay if german media described jews solely as greedy businessmen? After all that image is as much a fabrication and as accurate as the "warrior Native Americans"-image.

And there are plenty of depictions of them as victims. Every American history textbook is going to talk about how the settlers drove them out, the Trail of Tears, the setting up of reservations, etc. It's just that we don't go around putting up billboards and TV commercials to say "We Americans are so awful, look at what we did to these poor Native Americans." Simply naming stuff after them is an empty and cheapening gesture. If you've got some grad educational campaign in mind to inform the masses of the terrible things the US did to the natives, then excuse me while I laugh. This is not an issue of willfully omitting native cultures from our collective consciousness, this is an issue of ignorance and apathy.

Sure. Laugh all you want at the notion that a nation should have a historical conscience. How about laughing at Germany, which has invested significant efforts into having such a conscience.
Efforts such as devoting about two-thirds of a school years history classes on the Nazi Regime (NOT on WW II, that's the other third) and the results like the Holocaust. Such as spending weeks of informing the public about it at such schools. Do you have any of that? How do your "history books" compare to that?
Efforts such as ensuring that Jews are NOT portrayed as stereotypes in german media. Does anyone listen to the Native Americans when Hollywood repeats the same whitewashing stereotype about them all over again?

When you have done awful things in the past, there is nothing wrong with reminding you about that.

The military tends to give things militaristic names. I don't see why this is a surprise.

It isn't. You are missing the point, so i'll put it nice and short for you:
Native Americans are mostly portrayed as warriors in order to distract from the genocide on them. Military naming schemes are just one example of this.

I'm not sure where you are getting the idea the idea that Americans view natives purely as warriors.

Because they are, at least in the media. I have no deep insight into US-history books, but i can look at the media you are producing. Almost all instances of Native Americans are warrior cultures of some sort. Contrast that with the portrayal of Jews in Germany prior and during WW II.


Edit: could we move this whole discussion somewhere else, since it is independent from the topic of this thread?

[Thanas]

No, as it is not independent to the issues surrounding the operation.

[SVPD]

Native Americans are mostly portrayed as warriors in order to distract from the genocide on them. Military naming schemes are just one example of this.

No, Serafina, they are not. They may appear to be portrayed that way to people who do not actually live in the U.S., but they are frequently portrayed as victims here, as well as a lot of other things. In fact "they" aren't even all portrayed the same way for while few Americans are truly knowledgeable about the differences between tribes, almost all know that some were more militaristic than others, and the Apache were among the most warlike.

Much like we here in the U.S. really do not see Germany's internal efforts at historical conscience and therefore are not widely aware that Germany does that, you are not aware of what the U.S. does in that regard because you do not live here. Just because the only things you see, from your perspective on the other side of the Atlantic is helicopters with the names of tribes does not mean that is the sole attention they get. Hell, people have pointed out several times that states and cities have tribal or other Native words as names. Is that somehow a trivialization too?

2/3 of a year to the Holocaust is, amusingly, less time than what was spent on the Holocaust when I was in school, and it was also far less than was spent on Native American history, although we never spent 2/3 of a year at one stretch on it. None of it was anything other than an open admission that their treatment by the United States was abominable.

In fact, a large portion of that education was going through the evolution of how American Indians were dealt with, how attitudes and policies changed and evolved over the years, and the problems that resulted from each of those various stages. I don't know what you're talking about with this "does anyone make sure the media doesn't whitewash history?" No, no one does because the media doesn't do that. Everyone knows quite well these days that the cowboys were not the good guys and the indians not the bad guys. TheHammer listed three different movies, at least two of which were very prominent, major box office draws, Dances with Wolves, especially. Those do involve the more militaristic aspects of American Indian culture, but that is because those are movies. More educational media is not always focused on that.

You, Thanas, and Stas have a good excuse for not really knowing how Native Americans are actually portrayed in popular culture. You all live in other countries and even if you have visited here, I doubt very much that you really spent a lot of time exploring the issue of how American Indians appear in our education and culture. Noam Chomsky, on the other hand, does live here, and has no excuse, especially being supposedly a professional educator. He knows perfectly well that the names of helicopters, cruise missiles, and military operations are not even close to the sole popular awareness of American Indians.

[Lonestar]

That seems like a nitpick then, as Chomsky's point still stands.

I wonder how he feels about the USN naming major combatants after CSA leaders and the Hawaiian King Kamehameha then.

[Flagg]

Wait, I thought Bin Ladens code was "jackpot" and "Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo" was the call for a successful completion of mission?

[Thanas]

Wait, I thought Bin Ladens code was "jackpot" and "Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo" was the call for a successful completion of mission?

Not according to Obama, who said in an interview Geronimo was the codename for bin Laden.

[Flagg]

Well if that's the case then I guess an apology is in order. Seems like a mountain out of a molehill to me, but I do see where they're coming from.

[Hawkwings]

According to other reports though, "Jackpot" was indeed the name of Bin Laden, and "Geronimo" the codeword for success and either the kill or capture of Bin Laden. It wouldn't surprise me if Obama misspoke, considering he was listening for "Geronimo". As usual, it's a complete mess of reporting.

[Lonestar]

Geronimo was the codeword for "We killed him, and it was him", "Jackpot" was his actual identifier and "Pacer" was the internal codename for individual at the compound, regardless as to whether or not it was OBL.

[Hawkwings]

Discussion from an NBC White house correspondent.

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/ ... ot/6ocpy85

Relevant part at 1:30.

[Samuel]

To expand on SVPDs point, students learn about state history and a large part of it is the local native population. At my elementary school I had to do a project on the Mound Builder Culture. I'm not going to claim that America puts a ton of effort into it, but we don't ignore it.

Noam Chomsky, on the other hand, does live here, and has no excuse, especially being supposedly a professional educator.

Noam Chomsky is a much less honest version of Michael Moore. I'm not sure why this comes as a surprise. I'm not sure why anyone would ever take Chomsky seriously.

US codenames? Random?

I guess our operations are so obvious they no longer feel the need for that precaution. That rather seems to defeat the point of having codenames in the first place though.

[DudeGuyMan]

Oh well you know, at the end of the day it just doesn't matter. A few whiny Europeans are going to pretend like "international law" is a real thing and bitch for the millionth time that nobody pays attention to it, a few smartypants are going to quote Chomsky as if anyone but them gives a damn what he says, and ultimately nobody will really care. This all ended exactly as anyone with a functioning brain knew it would ten years ago, and the only surprise was that it took this long.

Edit, also: LOOOOOLROFLOLOLOL!

The US and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil similar to last week's raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, the Guardian has learned.

The deal was struck between the military leader General Pervez Musharraf and President George Bush after Bin Laden escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001, according to serving and retired Pakistani and US officials.

Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion.

[Mr Bean]

Or code names are randomly assigned.

US codenames? Random?

Desert Shield - defensive operation in the Arabian desert.
Desert Storm - air war in the desert
Desert Sabre - ground offensive in the desert
Iraqi Freedom - 'nuff said.
Infinite Justice - pompous, but again, nuff said
Neptune's Spear - conducted by the SEALs.

Given the US military's track record, it's a wonder they didn't call it "Operation Abottabad Saudi" or something.

I'll give you a 1000$ that those were not the real codenames when the operation was being drawn up but were the new unclassified media friendly code names when It was time to tell the American public what we were doing.

[Mr. Coffee]

Pakistan's ISI tries to burn another "CIA Station Chief". Stay classy ISI...

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan—
A private Pakistani television network has divulged what it claims is the name of the CIA's current station chief in Islamabad, the second time in six months that local media have attempted to unmask the agency's top spy in the South Asian nation.

However, the Associated Press on Monday reported without elaboration that the network got the name wrong,

The report by the private ARY network raised the possibility that Pakistan's intelligence community could be trying to broadside the CIA following embarrassment here over the U.S. raid last week that killed Osama bin Laden. The job of the CIA's Islamabad station chief is regarded as vital because of its role at the center of the agency's drone missile campaign against militants in Pakistan's tribal areas along the Afghan border.

Last December, Pakistani journalist Karim Khan filed a police complaint alleging that his brother and son were killed when a missile fired from a CIA drone hit their home in North Waziristan in December 2009. The complaint included the name of someone Khan claimed was the CIA's station chief in Pakistan, after which the agent was called back to the United States.

It was not known Monday whether the agency's current CIA station chief would remain in Pakistan.

Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence historically has nurtured strong ties with certain Pakistani reporters, who have published information designed to bolster the agency's interests.

Both a senior Pakistani intelligence official and U.S. Embassy officials declined to comment on the matter. ARY's news director, Mazhar Abbas, said he did not ask his reporter what his source was "because I have confidence in him." He defended his decision to run what the channel thought was the right name.

"It was a juicy story, and all stories coming out about the CIA-ISI relationship are relevant," Abbas said.

And they wonder why we didn't bother to give them notice we were about to schwack Osama. Seriously, can we just write these cocks off already and stop giving them foreign aid money to be a pack of douchebags?

[Edward Yee]

Geronimo was the codeword for "We killed him, and it was him", "Jackpot" was his actual identifier and "Pacer" was the internal codename for individual at the compound, regardless as to whether or not it was OBL.

The "pacer" part is kinda relevant, as according to the USG version of events there was never 100% certainty of UBL's presence, only that the observers saw a tall guy who'd walk around a lot behind a partition/barrier (to prevent identification) -- hence the "pacer" -- and the evidence of it being UBL was all circumstantial.

Depending on when exactly the alleged deal was struck, I'm really not surprised, nor that it remained -- but again, it's still telling if the USG really didn't give the Pakistani government/military/intelligence services any heads-up at all about this particular operation, much less that it was UBL -- then again, another version is "the US told about a helicopter raid, but not that the target was UBL until the body and the SEALs were back in Afghanistan."

[Thanas]

Noam Chomsky is a much less honest version of Michael Moore. I'm not sure why this comes as a surprise. I'm not sure why anyone would ever take Chomsky seriously.

Really now? Your evidence, please.

Oh well you know, at the end of the day it just doesn't matter. A few whiny Europeans are going to pretend like "international law" is a real thing and bitch for the millionth time that nobody pays attention to it, a few smartypants are going to quote Chomsky as if anyone but them gives a damn what he says, and ultimately nobody will really care.

A) International law is a real thing, but a troglodyte like you probably has no idea of that.
B) Your comment is as idiotic as it is intellectually dishonest.
c) If you are going to continue trolling like the small-minded idiot you are, you will quickly find that it neither garners you sympathy nor positive attention.

[Master of Ossus]

Metahive, your entire argument is prefaced on the assumption that the US did not utilize Interpol or other legal resources to arrest bin Laden.

Wrong. I advise you to read my posts before replying since I never accused the US of not trying this but actually I asked if they tried it. I also don't know why you still keep the Interpol tangent up since I explicitely conceded everything but a few points pertaining to the status of international laws and customs in my last reply to Simon.

Give me the courtesy of reading my posts in total before replying so I don't have to waste my time and repeat myself.

Yeah, I'm SOOOO sorry that I didn't take your statement that you weren't going to talk about it anymore for the sake of "conciseness" as a concession on the merits, particularly given that by your own admission you "actually [...] asked" for information and didn't get it before you conceded.

This is tied to your failure to read my posts in total and carefully above, but would you please let things stay in context? I said this as answer for why the hunt for Bin Laden took as long as it did.

Which changes things how? You're outraged that the hunt for bin Laden took a long time because... according to you, the Bush Administration respected Pakistani territory. But the original debate was about your assertion that encroaching upon Pakistani territory violated international law, and now upon your claim that it's "extreme" to violate the territory of another state. But if it's so extreme to violate the territory of another state, why do you blame the Bush Administration for not... violating the territory of another state?

It's also funny that you talk about shizophrenic attitudes when I long and drawn-out explained that I am OK with Bin Laden's death but just want people to acknowledge that this operation represented an extreme measure not to be replicated lightly. Really, spending at least five minutes to read what I actually wrote before replying can't be that much of an effort, right?

What the fuck does this even mean? "An extreme measure not to be replicated lightly?" Next time we have a terrorist who's been wanted for over a decade who's responsible for planning the deaths of thousands of people who's been intentionally shielded from prosecution and capture by numerous governments and by a huge network of his own army of thugs and donkey fuckers, who's been singled out by numerous UNSC resolutions authorizing the use of force against him and declaring him to be a terrorist, sending in a special operations team to surgically kill him and a handful of people who are actively guarding him from a guarded compound in which dozens of people live is NOT AN EXTREME MEASURE. It's a carefully measured response to a difficult situation.

Metahive was looking for some justification for declaring bin Laden to be a terrorist (or, rather, asking who had the authority to do so), and a binding UNSC resolution strikes me as being sufficient authority for that sort of a judgment.

Did you notice that Simon declared international affairs to be anarchic and lawless?

I would argue that it was no more extra-legal than anything else people do under conditions of anarchy, because anarchy reigns in international affairs. And it's ridiculous of you to condemn the non-legality of actions taken in a lawless environment, where crimes are not punished at all unless they are punished by nations taking matters into their own hands.


I ask you, are you in agreement with Simon here?

What does it matter? To whatever extent that international law exists, the attack on bin Laden fell within it. The UNSC had already declared him a terrorist and singled him out for application of military force against him. To whatever extent that you acknowledge that international law was not designed to handle people like Osama bin Laden (which it obviously was not), this is a non-starter.

[Bakustra]

Some things which have not really been addressed:

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.

I like the part where he explains how 9/11 attacks = Invasion of Iraq. And the "dumping the body into the Atlantic" was a sign of respect and humanity, and far better than most of the alternatives, but whatever, make it sound like another tally mark for "America so evil hurf durf".

You're right. Osama bin Laden, killing three thousand people, is in the bush leagues compared to the million+ people that have died in Iraq so far. Now, while the US did not mean to kill all those people, perhaps unintentional killing of a million is at the very least morally similar to intentionally killing less than a percent of that number? Now, the point is that the US is in a situation where we can kill Osama bin Laden with impunity and with the expectation that the norm is indifference or applause, because he committed a horrific crime. But people killing George W. Bush would be terrorists and would be hunted down, though Bush has ordered a number of horrific crimes and stands complicit in others. That is what imperialism is: the US can do whatever it wants, and nobody can do anything back without falling somewhere below bacteria. This is not to say that killing George W. Bush would be right or desirable, but rather to point out the discrepancy. Now, bin Laden and Bush are not exact equals, but analogies need not be perfect.

The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders.

More likely this name was assigned because, oh I dunno, Geronimo was kind of hard to find? But sure, imperialism is the sole driving motivator for everything that Americans do in life. Whoop, I gotta go make a sandwich. How can I make a sandwich the imperialist way?

That's not what he's saying. What he's saying is that it is either a glorifying of bin Laden or a demonization of Geronimo to put the two in proximity and invite comparisons. The imperialism comes in with your statement, and others like it, with your inability to recognize why this juxtaposition carries the connotation of similarity, even while inviting other similarities between the two! Imperialism is not a motivator, but rather a mindset that leaves you incapable of recognizing why this might be offensive.

It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

What a supremely loaded statement. Not only is the comparison again wrong but this is simply flamebaiting. These names probably were chosen because they were very American, very martial, and in recognition of the fighting ability of the Apaches. In other words, respect. Not mustache-twirling evil imperialism hurf durf.

In summary, he's trolling.

As for the "recognition of native Americans" tangent, I can say that growing up in the Northwest there is certainly far more recognition and education about the way that the natives in our area lived and worked and changed as settlers came in. In fact conflict and war is hardly touched on at all.

Why is it wrong? The point is not that the US deliberately chose said names, but since you broke apart one of his thoughts, this is less obvious. Again, the point is that the imperial mindset allows you to ignore the grotesque aspects of "honoring" our victims by naming our instruments of war after them. It is exactly like if an alt-hist Nazi Germany named fighting vehicles after Warsaw Ghetto Uprising or other partisans in honor of their bravery- there is something implicitly disturbing about honoring the victims of monstrous crimes you committed by naming weapons of war after them.

Before you get chuffed, surely your thorough education on Native Americans has made it known to you that in the years after the Mescalero surrendered, they were starved on reservations, and so were many other Native American groups? Or perhaps you might note that Hitler himself drew upon the US "Indian Wars" as inspiration? Such parallels are fiery and likely to draw outrage- but that does not make them any less accurate.

That seems like a nitpick then, as Chomsky's point still stands.

I wonder how he feels about the USN naming major combatants after CSA leaders and the Hawaiian King Kamehameha then.

On a similar note, that's not really equivalent because the US did not perform horrific actions against the CSA on the same scale, nor did they directly interfere with Kamehameha I's reign similarly. But I think that there would be something a little odd, to say the least, about naming, say, a Marine support ship after Queen Liliuokalani, wouldn't you?

[Master of Ossus]

The point is that there is basically no portrayal of Native Americans as victims. Their main (and almost sole) portrayal in media and public culture is that of a "proud warrior race". That is a deliberate distortion of the truth, a lie by omission.

I don't think that's true, and it certainly omits a great amount of other media and public culture which disagrees with it.

Instead of naming your weapons after a minority of martial* Native Americans, you should name your agricultural programs and areas after Native American farmers, and educational programs after their sages and so on. (Not all of them at any rate, but i bet there isn't anything of that with anything close to the prominence of the Apache Helicopter).

First of all, a spectacular variety of foods, plants, and animals do have their names taken directly from American Indian terms for those same things. The trend of adapting native names is also not a historical artifact, either, but has been continually practiced (you know when the term "avocado" was developed, for example?). We also borrow such "obscure" things as the word for kayaks, hammocks, and igloos.

As for your claim that places are not named after Native Americans... that's just total ignorance of the United States.

And as i said earlier, there are a great many things that could be done in order to raise and maintain public awareness and memory about the genocides committed in americas past. Instead, you have a romanticized version that mostly omits the fact that the Native Americans were victims.

I disagree. I don't think that's true at all, and it's certainly not true of modern American history textbooks.

That's like having lot's of stories about Jews during Imperial Germany and the Weimar Republic, where they fight Germans in various ways (politically, economically, criminally) but having next-to-no stories about the events once the Holocaust started (other than a few documentaries). No matter how much you would portray the Jews as good guys, focus on their positive sides etc., you would still distort history. Even portraying the start of their persecution would not change that if you do not portray the mass-genocide and almost never mention it.
Yes, that's pretty much the way Native Americans are portrayed, if you swap them with "Jew" and the white Settlers with "Germans".

That's not true at all. That's not remotely how they're treated by American history textbooks, which typically begin with at least a chapter describing America before Europeans arrived, and continue to describe the Native experience with introduced European diseases, early interactions with Europeans (depending on scope, this sometimes extends to the Spanish conquistadors), other early interactions, moving onto things like King Phillip's War, the Five Nations, later conflicts with Indians, the Trail of Tears, the Seminoles, the Lewis and Clarke Expedition, continuing in an essentially unbroken line all the way up to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and modern controversies, such as tribal religious practices and their conflict with archaeology (e.g., Kennewick Man) and development projects. In my estimation, they're given substantial treatment in every American History course from the grade school level (in which native lifestyles are often discussed) all the way up to high school, in which their role in American History, contributions to American society, culture, and current situation are frequent topics of discussion.

[Samuel]

Really now? Your evidence, please.

The article posted? The only legitimate point is the US has also sponsered terrorism in the past and present... and that is it. Just take a look.

There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition—except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them.

The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.

The first two quotes are so blatantly misleading they bear no relation to reality. The third is stupid in its own way- assassinating leaders of countries you are at war with is legal!

Competance must be proven. Chomsky has not shown that.

[Samuel]

That is what imperialism is: the US can do whatever it wants, and nobody can do anything back without falling somewhere below bacteria. This is not to say that killing George W. Bush would be right or desirable, but rather to point out the discrepancy. Now, bin Laden and Bush are not exact equals, but analogies need not be perfect.

No, that is what power is. Imperialism is about control.

Imperialism is not a motivator, but rather a mindset that leaves you incapable of recognizing why this might be offensive.

Political, economic or social control constitute a "minset"?

Again, the point is that the imperial mindset allows you to ignore the grotesque aspects of "honoring" our victims by naming our instruments of war after them. It is exactly like if an alt-hist Nazi Germany named fighting vehicles after Warsaw Ghetto Uprising or other partisans in honor of their bravery- there is something implicitly disturbing about honoring the victims of monstrous crimes you committed by naming weapons of war after them.

Why is it disturbing? How is this imperialistic?

Before you get chuffed, surely your thorough education on Native Americans has made it known to you that in the years after the Mescalero surrendered, they were starved on reservations, and so were many other Native American groups?

I didn't know that case, but I did know we broke every agreement and managed to screw over/massacre alot of natives. Wounded Knee is a more famous example.

Or perhaps you might note that Hitler himself drew upon the US "Indian Wars" as inspiration?

Reading the quote, it appears he was refering to his eventually plan for colonization of Eastern Europe where German settlers would become farmers and fight it out with the savage Slavic hordes. I should note the US extermination was a failure (there are still indians) and it took over 400 years. Hitler, not being an idiot, drew more inspiration from the more recent and effective Armenian Genocide.

But I guess if Hitler was interested in something that automatically makes it worse... somehow.

On a similar note, that's not really equivalent because the US did not perform horrific actions against the CSA on the same scale, nor did they directly interfere with Kamehameha I's reign similarly.

So the fact that we name things after our enemies is not relevent... to the fact we name things after our enemies?

[Bakustra]

Overall, the problem with education about Native Americans, from a real, live, American whose memories of high school history are relatively fresh is that it is ultimately from a white, majoritarian perspective either way. The alternatively brutal and docile savages of previous generations were a concoction built on a fundamental desire to justify occupancy and theft of land from the Native Americans. The current round is somewhat better, but overall the focus has shifted to Natives as victims. This is still not positive, because it is still a perspective that, apart from lending itself to self-justifications, also otherizes Native Americans by robbing them of a voice. Consider the Holocaust. Schoolchildren are given Anne Frank when younger and Night when older. Both are written from the perspective of victims- but the result is to produce a sense of the persecuted Jews as people who lived and suffered, not as mere victims on history's stage.

By comparison, there are no such Native American accounts in evidence within history education today. Native perspectives in literature are rare within the high school context, and mostly written by modern-day individuals about modern-day problems. Historic perspectives are rare and generally fragmentary. Those that do exist are not really novel-length and are usually not incorporated into education anyhow. However, they could be incorporated and works of historical fiction brought into play as well, much as there are similar works about the Holocaust. But anyways, a large part of what makes the Holocaust stick in the public view is that it is remembered both on the academic level and on the visceral level of Elie Wiesel and his father being marched through the snow barefoot by the SS to get away from the advancing Soviets. But the viscerality, even for positive events, is not present for Native American history, and it ought to be, I think.

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.

The first two quotes are so blatantly misleading they bear no relation to reality. The third is stupid in its own way- assassinating leaders of countries you are at war with is legal!

Competance must be proven. Chomsky has not shown that.

Samuel, you are misreading what the third sentence is saying, thus rendering this entire attempt to declare Noam Chomsky (and Michael Moore) dishonest quite, quite ironic. A hint: the critical word is "reacting".