Trump cites Gen. Pershing, but his story doesn’t add up
PRI’s The World
It didn’t take President Donald Trump long to condemn the terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, two weeks ago. But his follow-up tweet has raised some serious eyebrows among historians, veterans, human rights groups and counterterrorism experts:
“Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!” he tweeted.
So what does he mean?
Mr. Trump is referring to an urban legend that he first used on the campaign trail, and it goes something like this: During the U.S. occupation of the Philippines a little over 100 years ago, there was a violent insurgency by a mainlyMuslim population in the south. A U.S. soldier, identified as Gen. Pershing by Mr. Trump, summarily executed dozens of captives using bullets dipped in pig's blood. Pigs and pork are haram, or forbidden, for Muslims.
Here’s an excerpt from a speech Mr. Trump gave at a rally in South Carolina in February 2016:
“They were having terrorism problems, just like we do. And he caught 50 terrorists who did tremendous damage and killed many people. And he took the 50 terrorists, and he took 50 men and he dipped 50bullets in pigs’ blood — you heard that, right? He took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pigs’ blood. And he had his men load his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said: You go back to your people, and you tell them what happened. And for 25 years, there wasn’t a problem. OK? Twenty-five years, there wasn’ta problem.”
It’s a story that plays well with his base, but unfortunately, none of it is true.
Independent online fact checker Politifact rates the story as “Pants on Fire” for falsehood. Snopes also concludes it’s false.
There’s not a shred of evidence to connect Gen. Pershing to mass summary executions, let alone that this somehow miraculously ended the Moro Rebellion.
That’s not to sugarcoat the U.S. occupation of the Philippines. There were atrocities, including the summary execution of captives; the burning of villages; and systematic use of torture, including waterboarding. This was more of a problem early in the conflict, as the Army had little counterinsurgency experience or training. However, the Army eventually adapted.
There are anecdotes of pigskins and blood being used to intimidate people, but there’s no official documentation to support this, and certainly nothing tied to John “Black Jack”Pershing.
Gen. Pershing was the most famous U.S. soldier of the early 20th century. He first earned distinction in the Indian-American Wars, and later his nickname, “Black Jack,” after commanding the all-African American Buffalo Soldiers unit. He formed and led the U.S. Army in World War I, in France. He also led the cross-border raid searching for Pancho Villa in Mexico in 1916. But earlier in his career, he fought in the Philippines against insurgents fighting for independence after the U.S. seized the archipelago from Spain. These rebels included the Moros, the Muslims in the south of the Philippines.
Gen. Pershing was a tough cookie for sure, and doubtless held many common prejudices. However, he was also a competent officer, focused on achieving positive outcomes. He was, in fact, an early practitioner of a “hearts-and-minds” approach to countering insurgency. Gen. Pershing studied the Quran and drank tea with tribal leaders to emphasize he was there to put down violence, not continue a religious war the Spanish had waged for centuries. He avoided unnecessary fighting and bloodshed, preferring to blockade his enemies and force them to surrender. He also disciplined his men to avoid doing anything to provoke what he called “Muslim fanaticism.” He knew the key to success was getting guides and information from the local community and eroding support for the insurgents at the village level.
While he learned the value of defusing tribal grievances among the Moro, Gen. Pershing was also the commander of aggressive offensives that killed women and children after insurrectionists occupied positions with their families. Still, Gen. Pershing was made an honorary Moro chieftain, said Brian M. Linn, a history professor at Texas A&M University who nearly two decades ago published “Guardians of Empire,” a book on the U.S. military presence in Asia from 1902 to 1940.
Mr. Linn began to encounter the Gen. Pershing pig blood bullet story after 9/ 11, when internet users searched for religiousthemed military operations in the wake of the terror attacks in the United States.
Mr. Linn said that if Gen. Pershing had committed a theatrical massacre, news of the act would have quickly spread.
So where does the president get such a notion?
Simply put, it’s an old and