Comments on: Honor Them

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:34:26 +0000

You obviously never heard of the Trail of Tears, Wounded Knee, smallpox blankets, the eradication of the bison, or the saying “The only good Injun is a dead Injun.”

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:11:39 +0000

Pete: If we hadn't cleared the Indians out of the West, our nation as we know it today could not exist.

This is what the U.S. looked like in the early 19th century:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Territorial_Acquisitions.png

Custer was sometimes brutal in combat. But he was fighting against Indians who used terror tactics against American settlers--civilians. The Indians attacked farms and wagon trains and killed everyone in them, including women and children--except those they kidnapped and took for themselves. They destroyed railroad tracks. The Indians violated every rule of war, just like HAMAS--or al-Qaeda.

So we rammed them aside, to make the West safe for American settlement.

This was NOT "genocide." The United States government NEVER had a policy of exterminating the Indians as a people. We just wanted them to get the hell out of the way of our settlers and railroads.

By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 25 May 2009 13:16:06 +0000

sinz: Custer was a killer and a war criminal. Honorable Americans fought and died on both sides during the Indian Wars, but it is distasteful for you to indicate this most shameful episode of our country’s history – the genocide against the Native Americans – in reference to this day, the most honorable of our nation’s observances.The lesson of the Indian Wars is this; if you’re depending on the US Government to take care of you, you will end up getting what the American Indians got.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Mon, 25 May 2009 11:15:31 +0000

Let’s also honor the American soldiers who fought in the Indian Wars. Such as the 7th Cavalry under General Custer.