President Donald Trump said Thursday on Twitter that his administration condemns the day’s terrorist attack in Barcelona, Spain – but then told a widely discredited military tall tale to reinvigorate his tough-on-terror image.
‘Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!’ the president tweeted.
Trump had already issued a more prosaic tweet 45 minutes earlier, writing: ‘The United States condemns the terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, and will do whatever is necessary to help. Be tough & strong, we love you!’
But the reference to Gen. Blackjack Pershing inserted Trump into the day’s most riveting news story in a way his White House could come to regret.
President Donald Trump, pictured Tuesday during a press conference in New York, tweeted his response to Thursday’s Barcelona terror attack by citing a military story that never happened
Trump’s tweet about Gen. Pershing refers to a story he told on the campaign trail about deterring Muslim terrorists by capturing them and executing them with bullets dipped in pig’s blood
Trump had already tweeted a more ordinary message of support, but his White House may come to regret the follow-up
Trump’s anecdote is a fictional story that he told in South Carolina ahead of the state’s Republican presidential primary in February 2016.
The story centers on Pershing’s supposed killing of prisoners during the early 1900s when his army was targeted by an insurgent guerilla campaign of Muslim ‘Juramentados’ who targeted Christians with gruesome sword attacks.
Pershing was governor of the Philippines’ Moro Province at the time.
‘They were having terrorism problems, just like we do,’ Trump said. ‘He caught 50 terrorists that did tremendous damage and killed many people and he took the 50 terrorists and he took 50 men and he dipped 50 bullets in pig’s 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,’ Trump ended, ‘there wasn’t a problem. For 25 years there wasn’t a problem. Okay? Twenty-five years, there wasn’t a problem. So we better start getting tough!’
On Thursday Trump upped Pershing’s effectiveness by 10 years, to 35.
Problematically for him, the bullets-in-pigs-blood episode never happened.
Trump told his unbelievable story during the Republican primary season in the early state of South Carolina
It seems to have had its genesis in a 1927 Chicago Daily Tribune article that described Pershing sprinkling some Muslim prisoners with pig’s blood, which the Juramentados believed would condemn their souls.
After that, however, he let them go.
The Tribune article claimed that ‘those drops of porcine gore proved more powerful than bullets.’
Den. Jack Pershing was a military governor of a Philippines province but certainly never carried out mass executions designed to scare Muslims about the fate of their souls
Even the newspaper’s story, rendered without mention of summary executions, may have been made-up.
Texas A&M University historian Brian McAllister Linn told Politifact last year that it’s ‘a fabrication and has long been discredited. I am amazed it is still making the rounds.’
Christopher Einolf, a DePaul University expert and author, added: ‘I never found any indication that it was true in extensive research on his Moro experiences. This kind of thing would have run completely against his character.’
It’s also not clear that the Moro were particularly observant Muslims, nor is there evidence that they were pacified by any Pershing military tactic – however unconventional.
But in the South Carolina rally 18 months ago, Trump said the story was evidence that ‘we better start getting tough and we better start getting vigilant, and we better start using our heads or we’re not gonna have a country, folks.’
‘By the way,’ he added, ‘this is something you can read in the history books. Not a lot of history books, because they don’t like teaching this.’