Fox News - Some folks in North Dakota are worked up about the U.S. military's plans to use their state as a site for war games and call the area "Dakistan" during the games, reports the Bismarck Tribune.
The term, an apparent reference to the stans of central Asia, is described as insensitive and offensive not just to "new citizens" but also to the Native Americans from whose language the word Dakota derives from.
The military wants to use the state for four-season Special Operations training, but editorialists at the paper say perversion of the Sioux word "Dacotah" by the military is insulting to American Indians and to newcomers displaced from war-torn lands.
Here's an excerpt from the Bismarck Tribune article:
While we endorse a plan to use North Dakota's air space as a four-season war-games zone, the military's choice of the name "Dakistan" for the zone is insensitive and offensive.
Maj. Gen. Mike Haugen, commander of the North Dakota National Guard, said the state could become the largest special-operations training center in the world.
That's good news. It comes at a time when concern is rising about the future of the Air Guard at Fargo. Another round of military-base closings could put the Fargo base and possibly one of the state's Air Force bases at risk. But, if the state is used for massive multi-force training exercises, the bases likely would be secure as part of the new structure.
And now comes the name "Dakistan," apparently to connote the idea that a North Dakota training space would help ready the armed forces for warfare in the "-istans" of the Middle East and central Asia.
One problem with such a name is that new citizens from the "-istan" nations live in North Dakota. Just a few days ago, Kurdish refugees from the arc of territory known as Kurdistan conducted a celebration of their culture -- and their new home in the United States -- at a local park.
And the last time we checked the map, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Kurdistan provinces of Iraq were on our side.
Oh come off it. How petty can you get? As though North Dakota weren't dismissed enough by the rest of the nation now we have something as petty as this putting our state in the headlines.
It must have been a really slow news day in Bismarck.