04/02/2012
Soldier Called Well-adjusted Before Killings.
That’s not a recent headline, it’s from the Associated Press, via the Miami News, June 8, 1981. The killer was Spec 4 Archie Bell III of Long Branch, N. J. He killed four fellow American soldiers on the Ingman Rifle Range in Korea.
Spec 4 Bell was a Black Muslim — the other soldiers were white.
Unless you were actually in the Army during that period, you’ve probably never heard of Spec 4 Bell.
I’ll return to him at the end of this column.
The American military frequently claims to have solved the problem of racial integration — making disparate demographic elements fight side by side at the squad level, as in the 1960s comic book series Nick Fury and The Howling Commandos.
This has always been something of a myth. Steve Sailer pointed out in 2003 [Race Relations: The Myth Of The Military Model] that the only way it can work is because the military is allowed to use IQ tests to sort people.
Here’s a brief history. It suggests that the military hasn’t totally conquered this problem — but it’s very good at hiding it:
The Townsville Groundmen 1942
That’s my own name for an incident in Australia in 1942 in which black troops mutinied against their white officers with machine guns. As I wrote when we found out about it: “Compare the decades of cover-up of this incident, and the massive publicity over the Tuskegee Airmen. “ [Secret documents lift lid on WWII mutiny by US troops in north Queensland,by Josh Bavas, Australian Broadcasting Company, Updated February 10, 2012]
Vietnam Era Black Mutinies, Including Fragging
There were many incidents like this, but no one really knows how many. The guilty parties tried not to get caught, and the Army tried not to publicize it. Two quotes:
Wyatt Matthews, 1979
Wyatt Matthews was a black American soldier in Grafenwoehr, Germany who raped and killed the white wife of an Army career warrant officer helicopter pilot in February of 1979. There was never much publicity about it — the only reason I know about it is one story published in the pre-purge National Review:
Hasan Akbar, 2003
A fragging case from the more recent war: Sergeant Hasan Akbar was a black Muslim soldier (born Mark Fidel Kools in 1971) deployed in the current war against Muslims, who made a Vietnam-style fragging attack on his fellow soldiers in Kuwait.[Soldier charged with murder in grenade attack |Two killed, 14 others wounded in 101st Airborne camp Saturday, April 5, 2003].
It seems not to have occurred to his superiors that deploying a soldier known to be “bitterly anti-American and staunchly pro-Muslim” was a Bad Idea. See Not One More American, Soldier Or Civilian, Must Be Sacrificed At The Altar Of Multiculturalism, Diversity, Open Borders… By Michelle Malkin, March 25, 2003.
In terms of the Multiculturalism=Disloyalty equation, Akbar gets extra points for having parents who named him after Fidel Castro in 1971. For all we know, he may be a second-generation fragger.
The Winchester Atrocity, 2008
In the Winchester Atrocity, four black enlisted Marines killed a white sergeant and his black wife, who they raped. [The Winchester Atrocity: Down The MSM Memory Hole While Cops Claim It’s Not A "Racial Crime"]
Major Nidal Hasan and the Fort Hood Massacre, 2009
Michelle Malkin wrote in 2003, re Hasan Akbar above, “Not one more American, soldier or civilian, must be sacrificed at the altar of multiculturalism, diversity, open borders, and tolerance of the murderous "attitude" of Jihad”. But no one listened. And because they didn’t listen, in 2009 she was writing about Nidal Malik Hasan:
Fort Hood jihadist Maj. Nidal Hasan made his means, motives and inspiration all too clear for those willing to see and hear. In his 2007 slide presentation to fellow Army doctors on "The KoranicWorld View As It Relates to Muslims in the Military," Hasan spelled it out: "We love death more then (sic) you love life!"
[Blind Diversity Equals Death, November 10, 2009]
And if those aren’t enough, check these out:
Of course, these are the multicultural incidents that haven’t been covered up, completely.
The case of Spec 4 Archie Bell III actually was covered up.
Remember 1981? There was no internet then, so you got all the news the Associated Press wanted to give you.
And what they didn’t want to give you was any story that says “Black Guy Shoots White Guy” because race isn’t “relevant.”
Today, if you Google the exact phrase "Spec 4 Archie Bell” you get seven results. (Soon to be eight, of course.)
If you go to the Defense Technical Information Center, you can see an unclassified report called An Incident in Korea: A of U.S. Army Public Affairs Activities in Response to the Ingman Range Murders in 1981, By Richard F. Machamer, Jr. [PDF]
This describes the Public Affairs response:
"While conducting a live-fire qualification course with M-16 rifles at Ingman Range, Camp Casey, South Korea, five U. S. soldiers were gunned down. Four were killed and one was seriously wounded. The individual initially arrested for the shootings was a black soldier from New Jersey who was apprehended at the range after becoming hysterical and claiming to have started a revolution. Two days later, another soldier was arrested who was also black. The victims of the shootings were white. The Ingman Range shootings presented many challenges to the 2nd Infantry Division Public Affairs Office. The newsworthiness of this incident dictated reporting the circumstances to the American public via the news media while appropriately providing information to the internal public of the Division in a manner that would diffuse [sic, the term defuse is used elsewhere] ethnic and racial tension rather than aggravate it."
Army Public Relations is not allowed, by law, to do cover-ups, nor is the military’s justice system. However, Army PR could be economical with the truth.
Bell was a Black Muslim, as was his co-conspirator Harrington, and as soon as he’d finished shooting, he started shouting in Arabic and English: "Alshalum me laycum (phonetic) … They are the devils. I did it … I've found out about the revolution … Study Islam, then you'll understand. I took the first step. The rest is up to you. I’m not crazy, believe me".
The CID and PR people didn’t want to just take his word for it, though. The Case Study continues
The response made to the media inquiries on racial motivation by the public affairs organizations was that an investigation is being conducted to determine the motivation for the killings.
This response was key for two reasons. First, it prevented speculation by journalists. Second, the response was factual. The commanders were investigating possible racial hostilities within their units. The Criminal Investigation Division was attempting to determine the motives of Bell and Harrington.
Of course, this official response wouldn’t really prevent speculation by journalists if they really cared. This is also true of civilian atrocities like the Pearcy Massacre and similar massacres covered on VDARE.com by Nicholas Stix and others. The journalists don’t want to know. As the Case Study continues:
There were no follow-up stories in the news media pertaining to the motivation for the killings; therefore, it is unknown whether the results of the racial investigation were made available to the news media. It is also unknown if the news media inquired as to the results of the investigation.
Had there been follow-up news inquiries, a factual response on the results of the investigations could have been given.
An examination of major newspaper coverage revealed the following:
1. Considering the sensational elements of the entire Ingman Range shooting episode; for example, mass murder, possible racial hatred as motivation; the accused determined to be insane; and hypnotically refreshed testimony which conflicted with original testimony, there appears to be very limited coverage in the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun. There was no coverage of the trial except for Harrington’s conviction and sentence.
2. There was no coverage of this incident in U.S. News and World Report and Time magazines.
These indicators lead to another interesting question: Why was the coverage limited? The answer to this question is beyond the scope of this study as research would have to include the inner workings of the news organizations; for example, their "gate keeping" procedures in 1981.[Emphasis added]
However, the research conducted for this study can identify public affairs actions which may have contributed to limited coverage.
Well, yes, it can identify ways in which the Army PR staff, without quite lying or suppressing facts, managed not to inform the public.
In particular, the guy who said "We made a concentrated effort at being other than aggressive in informing them [the media] on the Harrington trial" deserves some kind of prize for weasel words.
But I’m afraid the Army can’t claim all the credit for burying this story. As a Marine Company Commander in Vietnam once said, the Army claimed credit for breaking the Siege of Khe Sanh with artillery, the Marines claimed credit for breaking the Siege of Khe Sanh with aggressive patrolling, but in reality “the NVA broke the siege by leaving.”
In the same way, the Army may attempt to cover up incidents like this — but really what happens is the Main Stream Media covers it up by ignoring it: by systematically hiding the racial identities of the participants, and by hiding the racial motives of crimes committed by minorities. In their weaselly efforts to prevent “speculation by journalists” the Army Public Relations personnel were pushing an open door.
None of it bodes well for the Armed Forces’ chances of winning wars — or America’s chance of winning a peace.
James Fulford is a writer and editor for VDARE.com.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.