The U.S. military has been dehumanizing its enemies with slurs and caricatures for more than a century to make killing easier.

While president-elect Donald Trump accuses the U.S. military of being too “woke,” a morale patch showcased on a Defense Department website suggests some troops are as bigoted as ever. While the military has covered up evidence of the patch, removing photographs of it amid press outcry, the Pentagon has not disavowed it.

In late October, the website of the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service — the Pentagon’s official photo repository — posted a photograph highlighting the shoulder patch of Lt. Kyle Festa, a pilot assigned to the Navy’s Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 74.

Festa’s patch features crosshairs over likenesses of the Tusken Raiders, the fictional “sand people” who attacked Luke Skywalker in the 1977 movie “Star Wars.” The patch reads: “Houthi Hunting Club. Red Sea 2023-2024.”

  • @[email protected]English
    31•13 days ago

    watching my country’s original nature manifest itself so nakedly in examples like the election and this patch makes me wonder what else is going to come back into fashion and how much of it ever actually went away.

    and knowing that at least half of my country’s voters would just “go with the flow” while the other half cheers on cheeto-mussolini tells me that i don’t want to know the answer to my question.