American Indians object to 'Geronimo' as code for bin Laden raid

it is mentioned in the article how native names are common in the military,
there is an actual history to this going back in history.
guerrilla warfare and insurgent tactics were the apache and others specialty.
even the brits complained when the militia used them.
pop off a shot from behind a tree and run away to do it again elsewhere.
while not in uniform of course.
hell, the u.s. army bitches today about the muslim extremists tactics.

reply to post by Suspiria


It's easy for you to make such goofy jokes, being that you're in the UK and all.

As a native american, I just think such comments are asinine. Ditto on naming a stealth operation after "Geronimo", knowing full well what the U.S government did to him.

reply to post by TinfoilTP

We have sports teams, millitary hardware, towns across the country all with Indian names. This is just political correctness being used as a tool by the USA haters that cannot stand that we took out their cult hero Bin Hidin.

Yeah, my high school's football team was always affiliated with Native Americans. There were always caricatures of screaming war ready and wild Native Indians with a tomahawk at the ready. Believe it or not, there is a Native American totem pole displayed in front of the school! It proclaims that this is the home of the (insert name here).

Is it right? I never really thought about it. Let's think about this one moment. If we were all established like we are now and suddenly along came a group of people who had a different way of doing things and believed different things that we do and they began uprooting people physically and deceptively what would we do?

I'm sure we'd resist but they prove to be much too powerful. So we submit and are granted privileges in the system that they have imposed on all the lands. Then we start seeing caricatures of our way of life portrayed in their commerce system as a means of advertising their products to one another.

We start seeing their sports entertainment teams equating themselves with the fierce determination that we displayed when trying to resist them. They use our ancestral names like Catholics and Protestants and Muslims and Irish and Germans it just goes on and on. In every instance these ancestral names being used make no mention of the real significance that they meant to us and how they shaped our world.

We are just used as a way to invoke feelings of savageness and brutality now as we stay confined to the little part of the world that we were granted.

I still don't know. How would you feel?

reply to post by rubbertramp


Who cares?

Some group will always find something to whine about.

Maybe instead of crying about the name of a military operation, they should worry about the alcoholism and suicide rates on reservations.

Originally posted by halfoldman
I've wondered about this quite a bit, especially since I saw the film "Inglorious Basterds (sic)."
In the film they call the Brad Pitt character "The Apache".
They use scalping against the Nazis.
Some say it's a post-modern irony that a people once hunted by the US are now hunting imaginary Nazis.
Some say the mixing of blood makes Native Americans quintessentially American.
More basically, it's just racist.
Of course some films play with racism, but apparently not everybody gets the irony.

edit on 5-5-2011 by halfoldman because: (no reason given)

Just to clarify something.

Brad Pitts character was either half or a quarter Native American, I think it was half though. He also carried a big ass knife and like apaches, he scalped people.

No racism involved.

ENOUGH

There will be no further off-topic, racist comments. The topic is whether the name of the operation was appropriate; please stick to that. There will be no further warnings.

Originally posted by The Sword
reply to post by Suspiria

 

It's easy for you to make such goofy jokes, being that you're in the UK and all.

As a native american, I just think such comments are asinine. Ditto on naming a stealth operation after "Geronimo", knowing full well what the U.S government did to him.

So it's NOT ok to name THIS particular thing Geronimo, but no one actually cares a jot that the shouting of the word is in fact quite a US Paratrooper tradition. OK then...

www.worldwidewords.org...

I personally feel they used the name purely as a reference to the daring of the paratroopers during WW2. If ANYTHING the fact that Native American's are getting all lairy about it is because they are missing the point.

i'll have to check out inglorious bastards.
there is one movie made that i saw as respectfully done.

'wind talkers' with nick cage.
although someone might be able to pick a part they found offensive, i though it good for the soul reason they showed the story of the navajo 'code talkers'.

Originally posted by gallopinghordes
ENOUGH

There will be no further off-topic, racist comments. The topic is whether the name of the operation was appropriate; please stick to that. There will be no further warnings.

sorry, but i must ask if this was directed at me personally?
sometimes i'm not sure if i am being offensive.

reply to post by Becoming

Off course not.
How could I, so sorry.


But I think they did that deliberately to get people to question all kinds of racism, not only the holocaust, and they also have Jewish suicide bombers.

Originally posted by rubbertramp

Originally posted by gallopinghordes
ENOUGH

There will be no further off-topic, racist comments. The topic is whether the name of the operation was appropriate; please stick to that. There will be no further warnings.

sorry, but i must ask if this was directed at me personally?
sometimes i'm not sure if i am being offensive.

Dont worry, it was directed at me.

Originally posted by Suspiria

Originally posted by rubbertramp

Originally posted by gallopinghordes
ENOUGH

There will be no further off-topic, racist comments. The topic is whether the name of the operation was appropriate; please stick to that. There will be no further warnings.

sorry, but i must ask if this was directed at me personally?
sometimes i'm not sure if i am being offensive.

Dont worry, it was directed at me.

cool, cause at times the truth i may speak is offensive to some.

This is a bit of a stretch coming from the Native Americans. Whether they like it or not, the word "geranimo" has taken on other meanings over the years.

Geronimo:

1. (Military) US a shout given by paratroopers as they jump into battle
2. an exclamation expressing exhilaration, esp when jumping from a great height
3. exclamation or cheer, with suicidal tendancies; synonyms: banzai

www.thefreedictionary.com...
www.urbandictionary.com...

Geronimo is a derivative of the Mexican name for Goyaklah, Hieronimo.
How can anyone get upset over it, it's not really his name anyway.
Might be good for some TV time though.

It is appropriate in that it took 6 years I believe of the entire US army running around trying to catch him, kind of like OBL if he actually were still alive.

Just recall doing a film and history course years back, and one topic was Vietnam and film.
We watched and discussed this Rambo film, and the generals are discussing him and his heritage (the aim being that he should go and rescue American soldiers still kept in Vietnam in the 1980s).
Then they say Rambo's half German and half Apache Indian.
In racial semiotics, what is that supposed to symbolize?
Extreme tenacity and obedience?
I never quite understood Reaganism.

Originally posted by Aggie Man
This is a bit of a stretch coming from the Native Americans. Whether they like it or not, the word "geranimo" has taken on other meanings over the years.

Geronimo:

1. (Military) US a shout given by paratroopers as they jump into battle
2. an exclamation expressing exhilaration, esp when jumping from a great height
3. exclamation or cheer, with suicidal tendancies; synonyms: banzai

www.thefreedictionary.com...
www.urbandictionary.com...

edit on 5-5-2011 by Aggie Man because: (no reason given)

yup, and the history is thus.
from wiki;

Geronimo (June 16, 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. Allegedly "Geronimo" was the name given to him during a Mexican incident, but his real name was Goyaałé from the Chiricahua language meaning "one who yawns"; often spelled Goyathlay or Goyahkla[2][3] in English.

in otherwords, it came from the mexicans, and is now used in colonialist english as diferent definitions.
but, to the apache i still think it means a name.

So Jews should rightfully be pissed off when conspiracy theorists use the world "cabal".

i'm not sure what happened here.
i guess i did get offensive.
i guess i'll need to be more careful about what i explain regarding my knowledge about spending years on the different rez's and pueblos, and knowing how many native americans think.

George Wahington would have been a great name,

reply to post by Asktheanimals


This isn't the point.

It's not the name but rather the man behind the name. Some who know his story may see the use of his name as glorifying his fate.