Update [2005-7-8 12:40:34 by BooMan]:UPDATE: A friend in the press has checked this out and it appears to be a hoax to the extent that the US Marine Corps has not issued such an order. These kinds of T-shirts do exist and reflect the macabre sense of humor that troops in combat develop. It seems my military buddy had bum information. I apologize for circulating this.
Larry
Larry C. Johnson, the former CIA officer and State Department counterterrorism officer, has left his old website and joined No Quarter.
He posted the following letter that was sent to him by some friends in the military.
Subject: Inappropriate T-Shirts
Ref: ComMidEastFor Inst 16134//24 K
1. All commanders promulgate upon receipt
2. The following T-shirts are no longer to be worn on or off base by any military or civilian personnel serving in the Middle East:
“Eat Pork Or Die” [both English and Arabic versions]
“Shrine Busters” [Various. Show burning minarets or bomb/artillery shells impacting Islamic shrines. Some with unit logos.]
Calvin cartoon figure urinating on the Koran.
“Napalm, Sticks Like Crazy” [Both English and Arabic versions]
“Goat- it isn’t just for breakfast any more.” [Both English and Arabic versions]
“The road to Paradise begins with me.” [Mostly Arabic versions but some in English. Some show cross-hairs from sniper scope.]
“Guns don’t kill people. I kill people.” [Both Arabic and English versions]
“Pork. The other white meat.’ [Arabic version]
“Infidel” [English, Arabic and other coalition force languages.]
3. The above T-shirts are to be removed from Post Exchanges upon receipt of this directive.
4. The following signs are to be removed upon receipt of this message:
“For Sale. Iraqi Government Rifles. Never Fired, only dropped once.”
“Islamic Religious Services Will Be Held at the Firing Range At 0800 Daily.”
“Do we really need ‘smart bombs’ to drop on these dumb bastards?”
5. All commands are instructed to implement sensitivity training upon receipt.
HEADQUARTERS
1st Battalion, 1st Marines
1st Marine Division (REIN), FMF
FPO San Francisco, California 96602
Update [2005-7-7 13:7:36 by BooMan]: Larry Johnson will be appearing today on Hardball and Donnie Deutsch.
Really pathetic. I’d use the R word here, but I don’t want to get this DELETED
Although, let me be the first to say I want a T shirt with the word “Heretic” on it. Maybe with “Liberate tutame ex infernis” on the back.
And before anyone objects to the Latin I KNOW it should be “Liberate sua ex infernis.” But, more people would get the line from Event Horizon.
from Iraq. I yanked one out the other day fishing around for something else and got a really good laugh. The front has the American Flag on the left hand side. In small print above the flag it says OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM and under the flag it says MISSION COMPLETED. Kind of hilarious now. The back of the shirt says WHO’S YOUR BAGHDADDY? Between KBR and Custer Battles and now Tshirts, the military obviously breeds all sorts of evil entrepreneurial opportunities.
They were selling them at the post exchange??? It took them this long to figure out it might be bad PR to the people who live in this country? Did it keep the troop morale up to wear them? It didn’t do much for mine.
Well, they weren’t printing them up in their Humvees. And they obviously were not for sale on the streets. So, yes, these were being sold to our troops at the post exchanges. Probably some other entrepreneurs here and there.
Freedom on the march.
Thanks George
Thanks Donald
Thanks Dick
title of this post ought to be…
“The Attitude of Our Military Commanders”
They’re just now figuring out these are a bad idea? They are just now figuring out these slogans might not be the best way to win hearts and minds?
They are just now figuring out such things might stop people from greeting our troops with flowers?
Rank and file take their lead from their commanders.
The problem is “The Attitude of Our Military Commanders” and even further The Attitude of our Civilian Defense Leadership.
while it is true that the commanders need to set the right tone, and it is also clear that they have tolerated this shirts being made available, it is still our troops that are wearing these shirts and displaying these signs. For too many, this is their attitude, whether or not it that attitude could have been molded differently or not.
It’s a serious problem, and this order is an absolutely correct one. It is belated, to be sure, but it is correct.
It is correct, belated as you say, but correct. My point is that the attitude of the troops is molded by their commanders. Things such as these, things such as Abu Ghraib, are the responsibility of the commanders and what they allow or tolerate both explicitly and implicitly.
The attitude of our chain of command, all the way to Rumsfeld and the White House, is that Islamic lives are second class lives and Islamic lives are expendable and are to be pissed on. Such attitudes are developed and created by leadership.
True leadership creates a respectful atmosphere even in times of war.
Callous leadership is what we are seeing throughout both our military and non-military approach to the rest of the world.
Do any of these t-shirts surprise you? Me neither. Implicit in Bush’s linking of 9/11 and Iraq is a racist message of intolerance towards people of middle eastern heritage. The old “I can’t tell’m apart. They all look alike to me.”
This sort of thing is a failure of leadership.
with your overall point, but not with your suggestion for a headline. When the correct orders are issued, and the correct tone set, it is not the right time to hammer the leadership. Now, the story I just posted goes back to the leadership…
Ok… I can agree with that. Reward good behavior. Although I don’t agree with placing the blame on the troops themselves and I also think the directive is too narrow in scope. Creative minds will come up with other derogatory t-shirts not covered by this. I hope they are making it clear that there is a particular tone that must be set, a spirit rather then letter of the law, that must be followed in all actions.
you can demonstrate that soldiers were ordered to buy and wear a t-shirt with Calvin pissing on a Koran, I am going to blame the soldier that bought the shirt.
He’s stupid, racist, religiously bigoted, and an asshole.
I agree that the culture of the military has to take some responsibility for the soldier’s attitude, but it’s still an individual person making a free choice to be an idiot.
that wear such things and find such callous and intolerant “humor” to be funny. Not at all. I’m right there with you on that.
I just think our society, even beyond the military, promotes such attitudes and ignorance and that is where the real problem resides and where the real solution must be found.
about a soldier named Anderson who was in the 3rd ACR. He isn’t exactly what anybody would consider a “nice” soldier, and technically isn’t a soldier any longer as he was discharged. He paid a person in Kuwait to write “Baby Killer” across the front of his helmet in Arabic before he went into Iraq in May 2003.
Larry Johnson is one of my heroes. He is not afraid to speak truth to power.
I hope he comments on the bombings today.
I am so disgusted…there are no words.
I read and re-read the post, thinking, this has to be a joke. How inconsiderate and stupid.
Bloody fucken hell-what possessed any base commander to let all those bile inducing shirts to be sold? Between commanders who set the tone and racist fucken assholes who buy garbage like that it certainly isn’t any wonder why Iraqi’s keep saying they want us out of Iraq.
Next time little georgie deigns to give a press conference and spewing his ‘spreading democracy’ crap a bunch of reporters(yeah right) should hold up some of those tshirts and ask him if that’s how we go about winning the hearts and minds?-a few bad apples my ass.
Reading shite like this makes my pacifist heart briefly turn to a rather savage rage at this kind of mindless bigotry and racism and think once again how war in and of itself can become as evil as what it purports to be doing to save people/countries, spread freedom etc.
I’m so fucken sick of racism, prejudice and bigotry and reading this today I guess was like waving a red flag in front of me. Spreading bigotry one bloody tshirt at a time.
Compare that to the sensitivity training the British military got for duty in N. Africa in 1942…
Does the American gov’t do anything right?
Pax
The BBC today has asked Are you a contractor in Iraq?
I noticed some interesting comments…
Anon, Baghdad, Iraq
M, Baghdad, London
etc, etc…
Two things to remember:
First, the military is made up of 19 year olds. For those of you who can remember your attitude when you were 19, I think you can relate to the shirts. Offensive. In bad taste. Should not have been around in the first place, but all too typical of the 19 year old male mind. Take a look at any T-shirt shop that caters to the teenager and you’ll see similar type shirts.
Second, it is most definitely a failure of leadership. These shirts should never have gotten to the PX in the first place. And once they did, the platoon sargeants and 1st louies should have nipped it in the bud.
And there is the issue of command sponsored racism. When I was 23 on an aircraft carrier in the persian gulf, our CO stated we were going to teach those “ragheads” not to mess with us. One of my coworkers, (we’ll call TJ, cause those are his initials) took the leadership position to state that those words were offensive, and he told the CO that. The next day, we had quarters, specifically to apologize for his remarks. I learned a lesson in leadership that day. Not from a Commander in charge of 180 men, but from a second class petty officer who knew what was right and had the courage to speak out. If you read this board at all TJ, thanks!