Bummer: Black Jack Pershing Vs Muslims - Its an Urban Legend
Posted By: JanL
Date: Tuesday, 18 July 2006, 3:46 a.m.
From:
WWW.AfricanCrisis.Org [I could kick myself. I really should check some of these stories I get properly. Just after I posted it, I wondered if I shouldn't check up on it and I discover that there is a lot of references to this as an urban legend.
In Snopes.com however, they do record an instance where an Israeli officer suggested such a course of action - burying Muslims with pig skins.
]The relevant paragraph from Snopes is:-
Nevertheless, the idea of subduing militant Muslims by threatening to bury them with pigs has held currency for many years. Just a few weeks before the September 11 terrorist attacks on America, Deputy Israeli police minister Gideon Esra suggested in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot that Palestinian suicide bombers be buried in pig skin or blood.
In the
1939 film The Real Glory, Gary Cooper portrays Dr. Bill Canavan, an American Army doctor in 1906 Manila who "tries to protect the native population from ruthless invaders" (i.e., "Muslim fanatics"). At one point in the film, the Dr. Canavan character drapes a captured Muslim in a pigskin and proclaims that henceforth that all slain Muslim rebels will be buried in pig skins, thereby discouraging their "savagery" by threatening to prevent their entry into paradise. And, of course, the above-cited anecdote about General Pershing's handling of terrorists in the Philippines has been circulating widely ever since September and has been making the rounds even at the top levels of government in the USA:
[Drogin, 2001]
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-Fla.) cited as an example a dinner he attended last week with people who work on intelligence issues and have connections to the intelligence community. The dinner conversation ranged in part on how U.S. military commander "Black Jack" Pershing used Islam's prohibition on pork to help crush an insurgency on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao after the Spanish-American War at the turn of the last century.
In one instance, Graham explained in an interview, U.S. soldiers captured 12 Muslims. They killed six of them with "bullets dipped into the fat of pigs."
After that, Graham said, the U.S. soldiers wrapped the Muslim rebels in funeral shrouds made of pigskin and "buried them face down so they could not see Mecca. Then they poured the entrails of the pigs over them. The other six were forced to watch. And that was the end of the insurrection on Mindanao," Graham noted.
Another post on the same subject is this:
General 'Black Jack' Pershing vs. Muslim Terrorists
Netlore Archive: Did U.S. General 'Black Jack' Pershing rid the Philippines of Islamic extremism in 1911 by executing a group of Muslim terrorists and burying them in a grave filled with pig's blood and entrails?
Description: Email rumor
Circulating since: Sep 2001
Status: False
Analysis: See below
Variant #1:
Email example contributed by T. Braquet, 21 Sep 2001:
HOW TO STOP ISLAMIC TERRORISTS...... it worked once in our History...
Once in U.S. history an episode of Islamic terrorism was very quickly stopped. It happened in the Philippines about 1911, when Gen. John J. Pershing was in command of the garrison. There had been numerous Islamic terrorist attacks, so "Black Jack" told his boys to catch the perps and teach them a lesson.
Forced to dig their own graves, the terrorists were all tied to posts, execution style. The U.S. soldiers then brought in pigs and slaughtered them, rubbing their bullets in the blood and fat. Thus, the terrorists were terrorized; they saw that they would be contaminated with hogs' blood. This would mean that they could not enter Heaven, even if they died as terrorist martyrs.
All but one was shot, their bodies dumped into the grave, and the hog guts dumped atop the bodies. The lone survivor was allowed to escape back to the terrorist camp and tell his brethren what happened to the others. This brought a stop to terrorism in the Philippines for the next 50 years.
Pointing a gun into the face of Islamic terrorists won't make them flinch.
They welcome the chance to die for Allah. Like Gen. Pershing, we must show them that they won't get to Muslim heaven (which they believe has an endless supply of virgins) but instead will die with the hated pigs of the devil.
Variant #2:
Email example contributed by K. Hanson, 3 Dec 2002:
A True story about General "Black Jack" Pershing.
Born September 13th, 1860 near Laclede, Mississippi
Died July 15th, 1948 in Washington, D.C.
1891 Professor of Military Science and Tactics University of Nebraska
1898 Serves in the Spanish-American War
1901 Awarded rank of Captain
1906 Promoted to rank of Brigadier General
1909 Military Governor of Moro Province, Philippines
1916 Made Major General
1919 Promoted to General of the Armies
1921 Appointed Chief of Staff
1924 Retires from active duty
Education: 4 Years-West Point
One important thing to remember is that Muslims detest pork because they believe pigs are filthy animals. Some of them simply refuse to eat it, while others won't even touch pigs at all, nor any of their by-products. To them, eating or touching a pig, its meat, its blood, etc., is to be instantly barred from paradise and doomed to hell.
Just before World War I, there were a number of terrorist attacks against the United States and it's interests by, you guessed it, Muslim extremists.
So General Pershing captured 50 of the terrorists and had them tied to posts execution style. He then had his men bring in two pigs and slaughter them in front of the, now horrified, terrorists.
The soldiers then soaked their bullets in pigs blood, and proceeded to execute 49 of the terrorists by firing squad.
The soldiers then dug a big hole, dumped in the terrorist's bodies and covered them in pig blood, entrails, etc.
They let the 50th man go. And for about the next 42 years, there was not a single attack by a muslim fanatic anywhere in the world.
Comments: I consulted Dr. Frank E. Vandiver, professor of history at Texas A&M University and author of "Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing," to find out if there's any truth to the above, and he responded via email that in his opinion the story is apocryphal. "I never found any indication that it was true in extensive research on his Moro experiences," he wrote. "This kind of thing would have run completely against his character."
Similarly, I been unable to find any evidence corroborating the claim that Muslims believe that "eating or touching a pig, its meat, its blood, etc., is to be instantly barred from paradise and doomed to hell." It is true that Islamic dietary restrictions, like those of Judaism, forbid the eating or handling of pork because pigs are considered unclean. But according to Raeed Tayeh of the American Muslim Association in North America, the notion that a Muslim would be denied entrance to heaven for touching a pig is "ridiculous." A statement from the Anti-Defamation League characterized the claim as an "offensive caricature of Muslim beliefs."
How General Pershing dealt with Islamic Terrorists
"THE WISDOM OF KNOWING YOUR ENEMY"
"In the years preceding World War I, General Pershing was commander of the American forces in the Philippines. The small Moslem community on the island nation began to wreak havoc against the Philippine government and American forces. The American troops captured a large group of these terrorists. During the interrogation by the Military Court, the fanatics were heard to repeatedly shout, 'Allah Achbar! Allah Achbar! Jihad! The Philippines are the lands of Islam!'
"Pershing ordered the Amalekites executed one by one in the presence of the whole group. (The author is referring to the prophecy in the Bible that the Amalekites would be a very vicious and war‑like people down through history.) Moslems will not eat pork believing that no one could enter Paradise if there is even the smallest amount of swine flesh in their bodies. Knowing this, the General first ordered the firing squad to shoot large hogs. After they skinned the swine, the executioners rolled their bullets in pork fat and passed fat through the barrels of their rifles while the condemned watched. As each condemned terrorist was executed, his corpse was wrapped in hog's skin and buried on the spot. The entrails of the swine were dumped over the corpse before the grave was covered. Three of the convicted Amalekites were released to take the news back to their Islamic Communities. That ended the Islamic Jihad in the Philippines.
