Foreign Affairs, September 11, 2017
This essay, adapted from an article published in Foreign Affairs, explores the origins of the legend used by Donald Trump to justify torture and war crimes against terrorists: that Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing had Muslim prisoners in the Philippines shot with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood. While the story is patently false, Pershing’s knowledge was well aware that his men attempted to terrorize Philippine Muslims with pigskin burials. It’s also important to explore what widespread American beliefs about Muslims the story traded in: approached in this way, the Pershing legend emerges not just as Trumpian fabrication, but as an archetypal parable of the “war on terror.”