Page 12
November 15, 2017
New Prices
Effective
April 1, 2017
O PINION
Martin Honoring the Diversity of Troops on the Battlefield
What history
Cleaning shows us
Service about race
C hristoPher K elly
History
teaches
us that all races have
fought in wars and that
all have won and lost wars at var-
ious times. The lie of white (or
European) supremacy was thor-
oughly discredited at the battles
of Little Big Horn (1876), Adwa
(1896), Tsushima Strait (1905),
Pearl Harbor (1941) and, finally,
on 9/11 (2001).
At Little Big Horn in eastern
Montana Custer’s 7th Cavalry
was destroyed by a Sioux Army
led by Crazy Horse that outnum-
bered his by about three to one.
Custer, who had graduated at the
bottom of his class from West
Point, had declined to bring a
gatling gun as it would only slow
him down.
In 1896 the forces of Ethio-
pian Emperor Menelik II deci-
sively defeated Italian Colonial
forces at the Battle of Adwa.
Ethiopian independence was
preserved. Adwa inspired many
subsequent African anti-colonial
struggles but it also inspired a
thirst for vengeance with Mus-
solini who brutally invaded
Ethiopia in 1936 and erected a
by
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statue of himself on the Adwa
battlefield.
At Tsushima Strait in
1905, a Japanese fleet
annihilated a Russian
fleet that had sailed half-
way around the world
from Europe to Asia in
order to confront the
Japanese. Two thirds of
the Russian ships were sunk. A
peace, brokered by Teddy Roos-
evelt, ended the Russo-Japanese
war shortly afterwards. TR be-
came the first American President
to win a Nobel Peace prize.
At Pearl Harbor in December
1941 the Imperial Japanese navy
achieved strategic surprise catch-
ing the US fleet while it was an-
chored at Battleship Row in Ha-
waii. Over 2,400 Americans were
killed that day.
On 9/11 nineteen al-Qaeda
terrorists from the Middle East
managed to hijack four do-
mestic U.S. airliners and crash
them into the twin towers and
the Pentagon. All four commer-
cial planes were fueled for cross
country flights making them
hugely dangerous missiles. The
hijackers used knives and box
cutters to terrorize the crew and
capture the cockpits within a
narrow time window that morn-
ing. Commercial airline cockpits
were, at the time, lightly secured
and airline crews were trained
to accede to hijacker demands
in hopes of getting the planes
safely back to an airport. Near-
ly three thousand were killed on
that day of horror.
Today the United States has,
without question, the strongest
military in the world. Ethnic di-
versity has been a key ingredient
for American military success
from the very founding of our na-
tion. Crispus Attucks, of African
and Wampanoag heritage, has
been hailed as the first casualty of
the American Revolution when
he was killed by British troops in
the Boston Massacre on March 5,
1770.
Nearly five percent of the
Continental Army were African
American. Hundreds of thou-
sands of African Americans
would serve in the Union Army
during the Civil War. More would
serve as Buffalo soldiers in the In-
dian Wars on the western frontier.
Even in the segregated Army of
World War II African Americans
distinguished themselves in units
such as the Tuskegee airmen and
the 555th Parachute Infantry Bat-
talion (“Triple Nickels”).
Over and over again minorities
that have faced discrimination
and persecution in the United
States have proven themselves on
the battlefield by fighting valiant-
ly for a country that sometimes
mistreats them.
In the 19th century Irish immi-
grants to the U.S. faced a strong
nativist backlash epitomized by
“No Irishmen need apply” and
the Know Nothing movement.
They responded by forming the
Irish Brigade (“Fighting 69th”),
led by General Thomas Meagher,
that won battle honors at Antie-
tam and Gettysburg.
Faced with actual imprison-
ment after Pearl Harbor, around
14,000
Japanese-Americans
would form the 442nd Infantry
Regiment which earned near-
ly 9,500 purple hearts fighting
mainly in the Italian campaign.
The most decorated unit in the
U.S. Army in World War II had
a simple motto: “Go For Broke”.
Native Americans have been
fighting alongside and in the U.S.
Armed Forces since the Oneida
and Tuscarora joined the Patriot
cause during the American Rev-
olution. Today a disproportion-
ate number of Native Americans
serve in the U.S. Armed Forces.
President George W. Bush
recently said that “bigotry and
white supremacy, in any form, is
blasphemy against the American
creed”. Bigotry and white su-
premacy, aside from being terri-
ble policy, are also symptoms of
historical ignorance.
Christopher Kelly is an Amer-
ican history writer based in Seat-
tle and London.
Drilling for Oil near Native Communities like Mine
Tax cuts threaten
sacred places
b ernadette d emientieff
Right now in Washington,
D.C., Congress is making
decisions that will affect my
future and that of my people
— the Gwich’in Nation of
Alaska and Canada.
A critical part of our ancestral
homelands, the coastal plain of
the Arctic National Wildlife Ref-
uge — one of the world’s last un-
touched places — could be lost
to the thirst for oil.
Some in Congress want to
open the area to drilling and use
the revenue to offset tax cuts for
the wealthy. Meanwhile, Presi-
dent Trump is quietly permitting
companies to take the first steps
towards drilling here.
The Arctic Refuge, home to
wildlife and vast lands essen-
tial to my people’s survival, has
been reduced to a line item.
I’m disturbed that the push to
drill has been allowed to over-
by
shadow our human rights. The
Gwich’in people have relied on
the lands of the
refuge for thou-
sands of years.
These lands pro-
vide everything
we need to live
and thrive — our
food, our cloth-
ing, our tools, everything.
My people have always sub-
sisted on the Porcupine Caribou
Herd, whose calving grounds are
in the coastal plain. This is why
we call the coastal plain “the sa-
cred place where life begins.”
This place is vital for the sur-
vival of my people. We are cari-
bou people. Our elders say that
what befalls the caribou befalls
the Gwich’in. If they go, we go.
Part of us will die with them, and
the other half can’t survive with-
out them.
Our identities as indigenous
people are at stake, and decision
makers at the highest levels must
take that into account. My peo-
ple, history, culture, and our fu-
ture must factor into the decision
making in Washington.
I’m also disturbed to hear pol-
iticians talking about “direction-
al drilling” to justify opening
this area as part of the budget.
That is, they’re planning on plac-
ing drills just outside the bound-
aries of the refuge and drilling
sideways to reach oil under this
special place.
Directional drilling is billed
as safe and clean technology. It’s
not. There is no safe drilling.
Such drilling would allow
massive oil infrastructure to
squeeze the borders of the ref-
uge, while drills could be sunk
into the coastal plain, the heart
of the refuge, in the name of
exploration. That would disturb
the caribou calving grounds and
hinder the migration patterns of
already declining herds.
And what hurts the caribou ul-
timately hurts my people.
The Gwich’in Nation has
been fighting this fight since
it first came up 40 years ago.
That’s why every two years, the
Gwich’in come together to reaf-
firm our commitment to protect
the coastal plain of the refuge
from drilling.
Last year, people came from
the 15 villages that make up the
Gwich’in Nation. We danced.
We sang. We were well provided
for, and I felt that our ancestors
were sitting there with us. Now
tribes across Alaska are coming
together again against drilling.
We have a moral responsibility
to protect this land for our chil-
dren and grandchildren. This isn’t
a game. Real lives are at stake —
our lives — along with special
places that are too sacred to drill.
Congress must take drilling in
the Arctic National Wildlife Ref-
uge off the table. It’s up to all of
us to protect this sacred place for
generations to come.
Bernadette Demientieff is
the executive director for the
Gwich’in Steering Committee.
She represents the Gwich’in na-
tion from both sides of the bor-
der in the U.S. and Canada. Dis-
tributed by OtherWords.org.