Every time that President Trump mentions the use of pigs to deter Islamic terror in the Philippines, the media rushes out its alternative facts and its fake news.
The facts are well established despite the fake news fact checks from Politfact and Snopes. They're well established because they were well documented at the time as I wrote last year.
And documenters included the New York Times.
It was a less sensitive age and even the New York Times blithely observed that, “The Moros, though they still admire these frenzied exits from the world, have practically ceased to utilize them, since when a pig and a man occupy a single grave the future of the one and the other are in their opinions about equal."
The New York Times conceded that the story "shocked a large number of sensitive people," but concluded that, "while regretting the necessity of adopting a plan so repugnant to humane ideas, we also note that the Moros can stop its application as soon as they choose, and therefore we feel no impulse either to condemn its invention or to advise its abandonment. The scheme involves the waste of a certain amount of pork, but pork in hot climates is an unwholesome diet, anyhow, and the less of it our soldiers and other ‘infidels’ in the Philippines have to eat the better for them."
Col. Wallace of the Fifteenth Cavalry, just returned to Washington from the Philippines, cheerfully accepts all responsibility for devising the grisly expedient of burying a pig with such Moros as are killed while acting the rle of "Juramentado," and he justifies it as of approved efficiency in discouraging the fanatical Mohammedans of Jolo from seeking the rewards of martyrdom in this particular way. For the pig. according to their notions, robs the " Juramentado " of all the blissful privileges hereafter that death encountered while slaughtering the infidel would otherwise assure.
As a result the Moros, though they still admire these frenzied exits from the World, have practically ceased to utilize them, since when a pig and a man occupy a single grave the future chances of the one and the other are In their opinion about equal. Such we supposed to be the explanation of the story which so shocked a large number of sensitive people, and while regretting the necessity of adopting a. plan so repugnant to humane Ideas, we also note that the Moros can stop Its application as soon as they choose, and therefore we feel no Impulse either to condemn Its Invention or to advise its abandonment.
The scheme involves the waste of a certain amount of pork, but pork in hot Climates Is unwholesome diet anyhow, and the leas of it our soldiers and other " Infidels " in the Philippines have to eat the better for them.
These days the New York Times, under the guidance of its fact checkers who check to see that all facts are politically correct myths, ignores its own archives and insists that it never happened.
Here's Linda Qui of the post-fact New York Times of 2017. "Study Pershing, Trump Said. But the Story Doesn’t Add Up."
Qui lazily recycles the same stuff from the discredited Politfact fact check
“This is a repeated myth that has no basis in truth,” said James R. Arnold, the author of “Moro War: How America Battled a Muslim Insurgency in the Philippine Jungle, 1902-1913.”
The basis being articles in the New York Times, the Scientific American, the claims of multiple military officers and General Pershing.
General Pershing wrote in his autobiography that, "These Juramentado attacks were materially reduced in number by a practice that the Mohamedans held in abhorrence. The bodies were publicly buried in the same grave with a dead pig. It was not pleasant to have to take such measures, but the prospect of going to hell instead of heaven sometimes deterred the would-be assassins."
The facts are the facts. Once upon a time the New York Times would at least acknowledge their existence.
(Note: Picture has not been documented and is used for illustration purposes only.)