Many Americans might have shaken their heads in bemusement, or laughed in AMUSEMENT upon hearing Joe Biden’s implied claim that his uncle died in World War Two at the hands of Papua New Guinea cannibals. Indeed, many MRCTV video viewers have seen our humorous play on Biden’s outrageous claim, as we packaged it in the form of a bad 1970s horror flick.
But many people in New Guinea are not laughing. They are outraged by Biden’s latest false, reckless remark, and they are speaking up to defend their grandparents.
Brady Knox reports for The Washington Examiner:
“On Wednesday, Biden told a story of how his uncle, Ambrose Finnegan, was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission around Papua New Guinea in World War II, crashing in an area infested with cannibals. The story contradicted all records about Finnegan’s crash, which found that he actually crashed in the ocean due to engine failure. He also claimed a new search had found pieces of the plane when he visited the country — which he never did.”
Clearly, Amtrak Joe was confused. The history of the Melanesian people in then-French-dominated New Guinea and New Caledonia is easy to conflate with his claim that he was a “trucker,” his claim to have had a family background uncannily similar to that of UK/Welsh Labor politician Neil Kinnock, from whom Biden appears to have utterly lifted a 1980s speech, and other whoppers.
As his lies pile up, reality starts to… warp.
Well, Joe's warping of reality and flip act of disrespect are not taken kindly by the people he has maligned.
“’The Melanesian group of people, who Papua New Guinea is part of, are a very proud people,’ Michael Kabuni, a lecturer in political science at the University of Papua New Guinea, told the Guardian. ‘And they would find this kind of categorization very offensive. Not because someone says, ‘Oh there used to be cannibalism in PNG’ — yes, we know that, that’s a fact. But taking it out of context, and implying that your [uncle] jumps out of the plane and somehow we think it’s a good meal is unacceptable,’ he added. ‘They wouldn’t just eat any white men that fell from the sky.’”
Indeed, the double-cuts of the lie about his uncle’s crash and the lie about the local New Guinea residents are so toweringly audacious, they are sparking an international controversy.
According to CNN’s Daniel Dale:
“The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s page on Finnegan says this about the 1944 incident: ‘For unknown reasons, this plane was forced to ditch in the ocean off the north coast of New Guinea. Both engines failed at low altitude, and the aircraft’s nose hit the water hard. Three men failed to emerge from the sinking wreck and were lost in the crash.’ This official account, which notes that an additional crew member survived the crash, makes no mention of the plane being shot down or of possible cannibalism; while Biden said the crash happened ‘in’ New Guinea, where there was indeed some cannibalism at the time, the official account notes the men went down in the nearby ocean.”
Imagine your nephew concocting a tall-tale about your own death, so that said nephew could score what he perceived as a political advantage on the fly, so he would be able make your last moments unreal, more outrageous, and then consider how you would feel if you knew your fate was not the blame of others, but your nephew would, none the less, blame others -- and in such an outrageous way.
One suspects the result would be a very low assessment of that nephew’s character.
Related: Cannibals Ate My Uncle! : A 'For Real' Biden Mental Picture - YouTube
Adds the Washington Examiner:
“Economics lecturer Maholopa Laveil with the University of Papua New Guinea (U of PNG) said that Biden’s remarks were likely to make already strained relations between the country and the United States worse. Biden caused a diplomatic rift last year when he canceled a visit to the country, interpreted by many as a slight.
‘It paints PNG in a bad light. PNG has already had a lot of negative press around riots and tribal fighting and this doesn’t help, and [the claims are] unsubstantiated,’ Laveil said of Biden’s cannibal remarks. ‘For a U.S. president to say that — particularly after a lot of deals have been struck with PNG and the work they’ve been doing in the Pacific — even off the cuff, I don’t think that should have been said at all.’”
Indeed, I can offer some personal backing of Laveil’s observation, because the first I ever heard about the Melanesian people was when my father, Paul, mentioned that he had “played volleyball against the headhunters” in the region as he and his fellow servicemen in the U.S. Navy island-hopped during World War II.
That struck me as so bizarre a set of words to hear, I had to find out more, and he explained.
In both New Guinea and New Caledonia (named in 1774 by British explorer John Cook, utilizing the Latin title for the Scottish Highlands, where his father grew up) the US naval forces that headed north from Australia to fight the Japanese encountered local tribesmen, and… befriended them. The natives and Americans traded local items for material that the US boys got sent from the mainland, they talked (a form of Pidgin-French-English on the part of the locals), and, as my dad explained, the local tribesmen would come watch as the Navy boys would play volleyball on their breaks. Eventually, the tribesmen approached my dad and others to play with them, and they had a blast. My father said that the local guys were incredible athletic, but that he and the boys usually won because they knew tactics and plays, fakes, etc., and the noted how the locals would laugh and laugh after being tricked by one of the fakes, plays, etc.
I even interviewed my dad about it in 2002, wondering what it would be like if he could return and see one of those local guys again.
My father noted that the tribesmen were headhunters, and, as numerous news outlets acknowledge, many Melanesian tribespeople did engage in cannibalism, mostly in funereal ceremonies, where the deceased was the subject of a pyre and the consumption of his or her flesh was seen as a sign of respect. And, yes, this did lead to medical problems.
But the actual headhunting mainly was inspired by tribal conflict, and, contrary to Biden’s absurd claim, the locals didn’t mess with the Americans. Why?
Because the Americans had firearms. A lot of firearms.
My father fondly remembered and respected the locals. He would be appalled to hear how Biden portrayed those men.
Biden is an old man now. He’s had plenty of time to learn how offensive it is to lie, how immoral it is… Yet, he’s also had a lot of practice doing just that, and getting away with it thanks to conniving collectivists who seem to care little or not at all about harming others if the collectivist goals can be furthered.
I doubt any of those locals my father met are alive today, but if they are, I hope they know that some of us are speaking up for them and against the perfidious man in the White House.
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