Miscellaneous

Thought people might find this of interest:

Apache tribe wants apology for calling bin Laden ‘Geronimo’

May 4, 2011 10:41PM

The leader of Apache warrior Geronimo’s tribe is asking President Obama for an apology for the government’s use of his name as a code name for Osama bin Laden.

In a letter to Obama, Fort Sill Apache Tribal Chairman Jeff Houser said equating Geronimo to a “mass murderer and cowardly terrorist” was painful and offensive to all Native Americans. “Right now Native American children all over this country are facing the reality of having one of their most revered figures being connected to a terrorist and murderer of thousands of innocent Americans,” he wrote.

The U.S. Defense Department said no disrespect was meant to Native Americans.

Geronimo is a legend for fighting to protect his land, his people and their way of life in the 19th century. Jefferson Keel, president of National Congress of American Indians, said 77 American Indians and Alaskan Natives have died defending the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq.
AP

The always interesting, often acerbic Newspaper Rock blog, by Rob Schmidt, has a couple of entries about the controversy.

I gather that the code name "Geronimo" was incorrectly reported to represent Bin Laden; in fact it was the code name for the mission to track and kill him. Confusion resulted from a radio transmission, "Geronimo E KIA," meaning, "Operation Geronimo, enemy (i.e., Bin Laden) killed."

Even so, the choice of "Geronimo" doesn't inspire the warmest of feelings among Indians. Rob Schmidt indulges in some bitter sarcasm, wondering whether the commandos used Apache helicopters when they went to kill "Geronimo." His point is that Indian names have no place in the military, whether as mission names or weapon names. Not until there's an Irishman attack helicopter, at least.

One possibility that I haven't seen mentioned is that the mission may have used "Geronimo" in the sense I remember from childhood, as a cry you make when doing something reckless like jumping down from a high place. A synonym for "cowabunga," in other words. I guess that gives an idea of what a cartoonish mental image I had, as a child, of historic Indians such as Geronimo, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse. So if the operation did get its name from the exclamation, I don't suppose that makes much difference.

Rob said

One possibility that I haven't seen mentioned is that the mission may have used "Geronimo" in the sense I remember from childhood, as a cry you make when doing something reckless like jumping down from a high place. A synonym for "cowabunga," in other words. I guess that gives an idea of what a cartoonish mental image I had, as a child, of historic Indians such as Geronimo, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse. So if the operation did get its name from the exclamation, I don't suppose that makes much difference.

That is the context for its usage that I remember from my childhood as well.

Ur.

Geronimo, Bin Laden, and U.S. Foreign Policy
http://hnn.us/articles/139017.html

When one stops to think of it, America's history from the beginning is one long record of ventures in extraterritoriality.

Margolies writes:

The extraterritorial killing of bin Laden stands firmly in line with the projection of U.S. power against non-state actors beyond borders extant since the late nineteenth century.

I would extend that timeline back at least to the early 19th century. Certainly the 1818 incursion into Spanish Florida, culminating in the execution by Andrew Jackson of two British subjects qualifies as “extraterritoriality.”

Here’s a video comment on the Geronimo incident, by self-described “rez hooligans, social misfits” the 1491s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7vKu7X4aNA

It offers a corrective view of indigenous life in 21st-century America.

Amazing Grace in Cherokee....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvYIjFtPQEk