Michael Prysner talking at Winter Soldier
When I first joined the army we were told that racism no longer existed in the military. A legacy of inequality and discrimination was suddenly washed away by something called the “Equal Opportunity Program”, we would sit through mandatory classes and every unit has this EO representative to ensure that no elements of racism could resurface and the army seemed firmly dedicated to smashing any hint of racism.
And then September 11th happened and I began to hear new words like “towel head” and “camel jockey” and the most disturbing “sand nigger”, and these words did not initially come from my fellow soldiers but from my superiors, my Platoon Sargent, my company First Sargent, Battalion Commander, all the way up the chain of command, these terms, these viciously racist terms were suddenly acceptable.
I noticed that the most overt racism came from veterans of The First Gulf War, and those were the words they used when they were incinerating civilian convoys, those are the words they used when this government deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure, bombing water supplies knowing that it would kill hundreds of thousands of children. Those are the words the American people used when they allowed this government to sanction Iraq, and this is something that many people forget, and that we can’t forget.
Show of hands…. how many people are really surprised to hear such statements?
Racism within the military has long been an important tool to justify the destruction and occupation of another country. It has long been used to justify the killing and subgegation and torture of another people.
Racism is a vital weapon employed by this government. It is a more important weapon than a rifle, a tank, a bomber, or a battle ship. It is more destructive than an artillery shell, or a bunker buster, or a Tomahawk missile. While those weapons are created and owned by this government they are harmless without people to use them.
[…..]
…. convincing us to kill and die is based on their ability to make us think that we are somehow superior.
– and that tactic continues to this today.
Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Stuck On Stupid, The Pink Flamingo, third world county, Right Voices, The World According to Carl, Miss Beth’s Victory Dance, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Not just the US military either. Back in the 80’s, while I was at university and my brother was going through Basic at Cornwallis, he would phone me regularly and tell me about his latest training
“The towel heads are rioting” and heres what we do, before we get to fix bayonets.
“A towel head” has made a bomb and placed it in an embassy. Here’s what we have to do before we can shoot him.
and so on.
Back then, of course, the “towel heads” in question were Sikhs, not Arabs or other Muslims. But the racism was and is the same.
“I’ll shoot a towel head for you!” my brother would say, thinking he had somehow paid me a compliment.
So this is no surpirse, as was the conduct of the Airborne in Somalia, only a few years after my brother went through this kind of training.
Luckily, I was able to verbally slap some sense into my bro, who before he went was a farm boy with not a racist bone in his body. Now that he is a WO, he doesn’t put up with that kind of shit, but he is, according to what he tells me, still in the minority.
Its the dirtly little secret of all militaries that they use racism as one of the means to create killers (which is, when you get right down to it, what soldiers do) who will perform on command. In the end they end up creating worse.