By Jeff Black, msnbc.com
Days after the Marines apologized for a flag resembling the Nazi ?SS? symbol, new questions are being raised about an Army base in Afghanistan reportedly called ?Combat Outpost Aryan.?
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which first raised the controversy over the ?SS? photograph, is now demanding that the outpost be renamed and the circumstances surrounding the naming of the base be investigated.
MRFF founder Mike Weinstein told msnbc.com that he was?contacted by numerous?U.S. and Afghan?soldiers who were?upset about the name of the base and wanted it changed.?He?said?he felt compelled to go forward with a complaint.
Panetta orders new look into Marines' flag bearing Nazi SS logo
The word ?Aryan? is associated with Nazis and white supremacists. ?A once-prominent white supremacist group called itself ?Aryan Nations,? and the Nazis used the term to refer to a planned master race.
An attorney for the New Mexico-based?foundation on Monday sent a letter to Defense Secretary?Leon Panetta calling the implications of the name ?clearly outrageous.?
?Today?s stunning information concerning the base near Kandahar being named ?Aryan? is simply too much to be coincidental,? the attorney, Randal Mathis, said in the letter. ?Viewing either as trivially inadvertent would be preposterous. The horrendous religious and ethnic connotations are beyond dispute.??
The Department of Defense, however, has said it's all a misunderstanding. A military spokesman told the Army Times that the base name was due to a misunderstanding and a misspelling. The spokesman said?the name was actually "Combat Outpost Arian," named for a historical Persian tribe from western Afghanistan. Commander William Speaks told the Huffington Post?that the word "Arian" is frequently used by Afghans, and pointed to the name Ariana Airlines.
Marines posed with flag resembling Nazi SS logo in Afghanistan
Weinstein?called the military's explanation completely bogus. "At first they said it didn't exist, and now they are saying it does exist but that it is a different name."
The foundation's research director, Chris Rodda, told msnbc.com that several independent sources, including photographs, Facebook posts?and other references, have confirmed the base was spelled "Aryan." She said to claim that?the base was named by Afghans?is "preposterous."?All other?combat bases, she pointed out,?carry clearly American names such as "Terminator" and "Michigan."
In addition, the Army Times reports that the name ?COP Aryan? appears in a June 2011 news release on the website of the 170th Infantry Brigade Combat Team.
"This is all part of the military's culture of intolerance," Rodda told msnbc.com. "We see it in regard to gender and race as well as religion." She?claimed Nazi symbolism was common in the military.
Emails sent?to the Department of Defense and the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan were not immediately returned.
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Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/13/10400037-afghanistan-combat-outpost-aryan-draws-protest
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