When the news broke about the bin Laden raid and I heard the code for the mission and enemy was “Geronimo” my initial reaction was shock. You all know my background and core of my work–which includes exposing the liberal and government effort to oppress, suppress and control the power of the individual through such tactics as political correctness and Thought Policing. While the use of political correctness in itself is dangerous liberal trope designed to silence you, it’s important we not dismiss legitimate concerns because of attempts by the left to manipulate our decency for their depraved benefit. The legitimate point here is the assignment of the name of a revered American Indian to the world’s most wanted terrorist was and is unacceptable. I would also argue, in the end, this has nothing to do with multiculturalism or political correctness, and everything to do with simple respect.

As a native Southwesterner myself, I asked TAM Nativevoice, an American of Native American heritage, conservative and Tea Party patriot, to expand for us on why the American Indian community is so concerned with “Geronimo” being assigned to bin Laden. While I am glad the United States expanded westward, I do remain sensitive to the positions and concerns American Indians have about our past and how if affects their community today and agree with their outrage at the use of “Geronimo” for the bin Laden mission. While we may disagree on certain issues when responding to her article in Comments, please do be respectful of this fellow TAM.

A Post by TAM Nativevoice

When Barack Obama came on the scene and started his campaigning for president, I at that time dubbed him as ‘He That Speaks with a Forked Tongue’. Of course using the word forked tongue means a person that says one thing and does another. The plain truth is, it is someone that lies. I tried to warn my cousins not to vote for him that Obama was fox and couldn’t be trusted. I even took it upon myself to send emails to every tribe that I could contact warning them not to trust or vote for Obama but like my family members the majority of American Indians are Democrat. Thank God that the majority of my family from my grandparents on were and are Republicans.

The warning that I gave to all the Red Men about ‘He that Speaks with Forked Tongue’ did not start with the use of Geronimo but begin in 2009 with broken promises, insults, humiliation and threats. With each and every incident the leaders of the nations would write to Obama but he did nothing.

Like the usual hand of friendship that is always given, in 2009, President Obama signed a new law designating Nov. 28 as Native American Heritage Day. The Indian people felt like this was going to be a new beginning for them. Boy were they wrong.

On Dec. 9th, the U.S. Government agreed to pay $3.4 Billion to Settle Native American Suit for mismanaged the revenue in American Indian trust funds. This in itself is whole another story. It concerns oil and gas. My grandmother had oil on her land and got screwed big time. We have yet to see the money.

Than came another Apology to Native Peoples, which was contained in Defense Appropriations Bill of December 16, 2009.

Few days later on Dec. 20th, Ben Nelson went on John King’s show to talk about His federal funding of abortions on Indian Reservations which was only for them and could not be use by any Republican administration. This stirred up another hornet’s nest.

The Indian people said Ben Nelson had no problem with the multi-century history of the feds trying to exterminate Indian populations.

Nelson stated that abortions on Indian reservations was related to the reauthorization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is tied to the health care legislation and about which Nelson was fully aware of its implications. He Knew full well that he had upset the Indian people. Nelson told King, “[I]f you think it’s fun having both sides on an issue mad at you when you’re trying to do something in good faith, just think, it’s like going home and getting bit by the family dog”.

That was just the beginning of the rage that was building up in the Indian people.

At high noon on May 1, 2010 the US Army helicopters of the US Seventh Cavalry air division attempted to land their Blackhawk aircraft upon Lakota Sacred Burial grounds in South Dakota. The Lakota people were very insulted and sent a letter to the president stating:

The Obama administration has shown America and the world that they are no different than any other previous US government in their view that the American Indian on both sides of the US border is nothing more than a prop or a tool to be displayed only when it is useful to promote the “contemporary” 21st century neo-colonialist capitalist agenda. The Obama administration, an office headed by a man of African descent, has shamed itself and all those who have supported his candidacy in arrogantly dismissing the memory of our people interred at Wounded Knee by rubbing the military might of the historically anti-Indigenous 7th Cavalry in our faces by forcibly entering Indian Country in an attempt to land their machines of war on top of the bodies of our ancestral dead.

Then on August 18, 2010, Mayor Bloomberg infuriated the New York Indian Tribe by urging Gov. Paterson to handle a dispute over cigarette taxes by delivering some Dodge City-style justice.

Bloomberg on his weekly radio show said “I’ve said this to David Paterson, I said, ‘You know, get yourself a cowboy hat and a shotgun’.”

On March 24, 2011, Department of Defense in a brief compared the Seminole ancestors to the terrorist group al-Qaeda. “Not only was the Seminole belligerency unlawful, but, much like modern-day al Qaeda, the very way in which the Seminoles waged war against U.S. targets itself violate the customs and usages of war,” the brief stated.

So the Indian people have been upset for awhile and using Geronimo’s name just broke the arrow. Chairman Jeff Houser of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe published an article in the Indian Country Today :

We are grateful that the United States was successful in its mission against bin Laden, but associating Geronimo’s name with an international terrorist only perpetuates old stereotypes about Apaches,” Houser wrote. The Fort Sill Apache Tribe is the successor to Geronimo’s Chiricahua Apache Tribe. “In the 1800′s Geronimo and the Chiricahua Apache people were portrayed as savages. This portrayal was used as justification for the forced removal from their homelands and their subsequent imprisonment. Linking Geronimo’s name to an infamous terrorist only reinforces this false and defamatory stereotype.

The Fort Sill Apache Tribe is successor in interest to the Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apache people that lived in Southern New Mexico and Arizona until 1886, when they were forcibly removed and held as Prisoners of War of the United States for 28 years. The Tribe’s members are descendants of those people who upon their release in 1914 remained in Oklahoma and maintained their status as independent Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apaches until the tribe was restored years later as the Fort Sill Apache Tribe. The tribe has long expressed its desire to return to its homelands.

Note: Last August a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by descendants of Apache warrior Geronimo that said his remains were stolen in 1918 by members of Skull and Bones, a student secret society at Yale University. The lawsuit was filed in 2009 in Washington, D.C., by 20 descendants who wanted to rebury Geronimo near his New Mexico birthplace. It contended that Skull and Bones members took remains from a burial plot at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where Geronimo died in 1909 while being held by the U.S. Army as a prisoner of war at Fort Sill.

To sum it up, Steven Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape), co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute and a columnist for Indian Country Today Media Network, wrote, “In other words, the code name was based on an extension of the metaphor “Indians Are Enemies” to “Geronimo was a Terrorist,” thus perpetuating the U.S. tradition of treating Indian nations and peoples as enemies.”

Geronimo was fighting against the invasion of his country and the oppression of his people. He did not invade the United States. Rather, Spain, Mexico, and then the United States invaded the Apache Territory and the territories of hundreds of other Indigenous nations. Horrific atrocities were committed against the Apache, and men such as Geronimo, whose family was massacred by Mexicans, did not hesitate to retaliate. Geronimo died a “prisoner of war” in 1909.

Hope this helps a lot of you better understand why the Indian people are upset. As for me, must of my frustration over the use of Geronimo is not that the military used it but that ‘He That Speaks with a Forked Tongue’ never cared about the Red Man. Like Tammy says everything is about him and he doesn’t care about anyone or anything. I can only hope and pray that the Indian people will wake up and see that the Democrats are the ones keeping them down.

Additional Linkage:

American Indian Tea Party Nation: Code Name Geronimo- our new video the one who yawns

Geronimo’s Great-grandson Reacts to bin Laden mission codename

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12 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. flaggman says:

    I agree with your conclusion: that Obama and his posse couldn’t care less about actual Indians; they only care about using them as another stick to beat the American people with when convenient. I don’t believe they used “Geronimo” to be malicious to the Indian people; however, that’s even a greater indictment of who these people are and their ignorant nihilism. They probably just thought it was a cool name and that people would think it was really hip that they used it – because, after all, they are the ones that released it to the press. On a side note, these media idiots trying to pretend “this guaranteess Obama’s reelection” have no idea what’s about to hit them!

  2. Crueladev says:

    Thanks Native…
    I too could claim Native American..but I would just rather make the choice of “American”…History however, should never be a thing of the past..but rather a thing that should be cherished! Lest we forget…is when we lose! Keep teaching!

  3. dr4ensic says:

    I agree with FLAGGMAN. It’s all about posturing, appearances and sounding macho. They are too stupid to think 3 steps ahead and how common sense, decent Americans will receive their claptrap ideas. It truly is like watching a session of the SNL comedy writers brainstorming ideas for next week’s show. Although it was the height of disrespect, “Geronimo” was chosen because Obama’s suggestion of “WEE WEE’d UP” got s-it canned.

  4. LJZumpano says:

    Thank you NativeVoice for providing information and some nuance on a topic most of us know little about. And thanks to Tammy for encouraging TAMs to share what they know with the rest of us. I think that is what I like most about being a TAM. I was drawn in because my experience on issues that were important to me made me aware that the information being given to the general public often hid vital facts that if known would change the way folks thought about an issue. When you know a great deal about a particular issue, you develop a sense that alerts you to the errors and outright lies being told. We can’t know everything, and it a great help to be able to hear from the “experts” among us to get the rest of the story. I hope other TAMs will feel comfortable about sharing their expertise and that unruly as we may be, we have the good sense to listen to all the voices.

  5. Palin2012 says:

    Thank you NativeVoice for this insightful post. Knowledge is power and I hope many people read this, another example of what we are fighting. 2012 can’t get here fast enough and we will continue to learn, inform, take back our country and make it better for all Americans.

  6. imacat says:

    NativeVoice, thank you for your insight and perspective in explaining this issue. I appreciate all of the info that you share on Twitter as well. Keep fighting the good fight! We are truly in this together!

  7. Shifra says:

    Thank you so much for your post, Nativevoice. ‘He That Speaks with a Forked Tongue’ — priceless! 🙂

  8. LucyLadley says:

    NativeVoice your article was powerful & needs to be read by many. I shared on my facebook & retweet also. Many Thanks!!!!

  9. ChrisL says:

    For generations, American boys have grown up shouting with glee, GERONIMO!!, as they plunged headlong into some feat of daring, like a high dive, jumping from a tree house, or rope swinging across a ravine or creek no sane adult would attempt to hurl themselves over. And they had no idea why, other than they heard someone else shout it once, it sounds good, and it seemed like a cool thing to shout. It wasn’t out of malice. It wasn’t out of disrespect to native Americans. In the context it was used it had no significance and no meaning what-so-ever. I doubt most boys made the connection to a historical figure. I know I didn’t.

    Way too much is being made of this. In the spirit and context it was used, it’s utterly meaningless.

    • SoCalGal says:

      I totally agree. I was saying the same thing to myself the other day and to no one in particular that as kids, we would shout “GERONIMO” when we thought we were doing something really daring and scary. It was a rebel yell that was fun to scream out and act or pretend we did a really brave thing. There was never any disrespect intended, in fact, it was the other way around. We wouldn’t have shouted GERONIMO if it wasn’t meant with all due respect. Since I was a tomboy and played with all the boys in the neighborhood, I was doing the same as they were, acting rough and tough and shouting out a brave American Indians name.
      This is a really ridiculous argument. When I first heard this I just rolled my eyes and thought how stupid. Let’s not sweat the small stuff. What Native Americans need is to stop listening and voting for liberals who’ve done absolutely nothing to better their way of life. Too much government intervention has left them weak and vulnerable to many things, including bad food, lousy standard of living, bad health, and horrible education. Geronimo wouldn’t be very proud of his people today.

  10. Cernunnos81 says:

    Very well put Native. Having lived in WA State for a time and having visited the area of Adair, OK (with my college roomate) and spoken with some of the folks on and near the Reservation there, I kind of have a soft spot for the treatment of the Native Americans.

    Too often the fact that the government has broken nearly every treaty ever signed with the Native peoples of this country is overlooked. I have to say that on the one hand using Geronimo’s name in conjunction with ObL is jarring and even a bit grating, but on the other I see it as a mark of the bravado of the men that went in and got him. Just my opinion and view.

  11. Tinker says:

    I still don’t think they were literally referring to Osama as Geronimo.

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