Apparently some Nato troops in Afghanistan have taken to the 'Infidel' label. Recently a German soldier was spotted there sporting this nifty 'Pork Eating Crusader' patch, with a helpful translation into Arabic just in case the image wasn't clear enough.
It's great when the public takes an interest in the past, right? Love the chainmail duds.
According to Military Times:
It started as a humorous tactic for poking fun at intolerant Islamists ignorant of American ideals.
Clayton Montgomery, owner of a well-known online vendor called Mil-Spec Monkey and designer of some infidel patches, said his most popular item has been his “Pork-Eating Crusader” patch, which includes a translation into Arabic.
“Everybody sort of hates occupying forces anyway, so it’s kind of embracing that,” he told Military.com “If you are going to hate us anyway, we might as well pretend to be the great white devil.”
Continued Montgomery: “Originally, when we made the patch, we thought it would be this small thing, the equivalent of an ‘I’m with stupid’ T-shirt. We didn’t think we would sell many, but the demand was there,” Montgomery said, describing how his company has sold about 10,000 of the patches.
Of course, this is a stupid thing to allow your troops to wear. Muslims still think of the crusades as a war of extermination. On the other hand I get why the troops love it: it's a tiny island of honesty in a war full of lies. NATO likes to pretend all these heavily armed Europeans to be buddies with the Afghans, just helping out you know? No foreign occupying army here! I imagine the troops on the ground have something of a different experience.
Not sure how I feel about this ...
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