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A War Anniversary the US Wishes to Forget
Feb. 4 marks the anniversary of a war America won — but doesn’t care to crow about. When the memory only produces shame and regret, you can understand why.
Such is the fate of the Philippine-American War, otherwise known as the Philippine Insurrection, which began on Feb. 4, 1899. It’s a reminder of a time when America’s dreams of imperial greatness got in the way of its democratic values.
Independent film director John Sayles made a movie about it last year called “Amigo.” On a scant $1.5 million budget, Sayles showed a humanistic vision of the war as seen through the eyes of Filipinos in one village and how they deal with the occupation by U.S. soldiers. How does one collaborate without betraying the nationalist rebels, many of whom are family?
But “Amigo” faded fast. So, here’s a little background:
The war started in a Manila suburb, when American soldiers shot at “the goo-goos,” one of the many offensive terms U.S. soldiers used for the Filipinos, and indicative of the racist tone in the war. The nationalists returned fire, and the sequel to the Spanish-American War was under way.
Insurrection doesn’t begin to describe the full-fledged war that lasted three years, with more than 100,000 Americans involved. Depending on the accounts you read, the Filipino civilian death toll ranged from 250,000 to as high as 1 million, counting those who died from disease or starvation.
The war was an American betrayal. Nationalists, under Emilio Aguinaldo, had broken off from Spain and, relying heavily on a promise of U.S. support during the Spanish-American War, started their own independent republic in 1898 — the first in Asia. That promise was broken when the McKinley administration sought the Philippines as a colony and tapped into a new patriotic fervor for American Imperialism.
Some historians believe McKinley instigated the Philippine-American War to gain support in Congress to ratify the Treaty of Paris. That’s where the U.S. dealt with Spain directly, cutting out the new Philippine leadership. Instead of becoming the independent country it had hoped for, the Philippines was ceded by Spain to the United States for $20 million. Aguinaldo went from president to insurrectionist, just like that.
The idea of winning “hearts and minds” and the use of waterboarding had their origins in this war.
We’re still dealing with those legacies today.
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17 Comments so far
Show AllThe "Patrotic fever" for Imperialism and new territories did not start in 1899. They started in 1776 when the peoples living in the 13 colonies decided that the lands were not enough for them and that they would seize territories of the Native Americans to the West , South and North of them.
It continued into the war of 1812 when they decided they would had upper and lower Canada to their Empire along with disputed territories west of the Mississippi.
It carried on into 1848 when they decided to add the Southwest to their growing Empire.
The United States of America never had "democratic values". Its founders were opposed to any real democracy and it was from its Birth an Imperialist power and its population supported that Imperialism.
The war against the Filipinos was the RULE it was not the exception.
And it continues today. US and Fillipino special forces troops are carrying on US-led and financed "operations" throughout the country as part of the "War on Terror." Just yesterday they announced that they had slaughtered "terrorist leaders" (and whoever else happened to be around) with 500 lb. bombs dropped from US aircraft. These are fairly regular occurences. Ah, democracy. It's just wunnerful.
Very good article from one with a solid background for writing same! No on 1776 being year of start of US imperilaism! Please! Let's allow for some real history not some just plain sloppy it's always been this way. No way! Not in the least! Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers for al their faults and their followers didnt have any ideas of empire for themselves in their heads when the rose up in rebellion against the iillegitimate German Hannover Dynasty on the British throne. To be blunt even the British didn't entirely go along. Part of the UK, Scotland never had a voice in the least in the Act of Succession of 1772 putting the German Hannover dynasty on the British throne. Not until 1707 did Scotland merge with England and Wales to become part of what was then the united kingddom with lower case letters as it wasn't a proper name for the nation state. Once that happened the Scottish parliament ceased to be. With no consultation with that parliament, the parliament in London had pulled a fast one on all. But two rebellions by Britons and bloody ones would take place against these German pretenders and phonies on the British throne. One earlier but a little after the 13 colonies rebelled and another later in the 19th Century. The army put down both rebellions. This is a fact check your local library if you can find the Act of Succession and the rise to throne of the Hannover dynasty. They also annexed Ireland to the UK. Something no true British dynasty on the throne had ever done though surely they had gained domination over Ireland, they simply left it at that. They didn't try to make it out to be anything more than a power play. But the German dynasty made it completely official and fully legal with the cross of St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland then being added to the British union flag. Now that's the real deal. The Germans aren't necessarily by genes any worse than Englishmen, Scotsmen, or Welchmen, but their brainwashing over time that they were better than others in their "schools of death' as a Danish educator referred to them put them in a mind set that they were inherently better than others and others were only fit to be their servants. Their society also lacked even the most basic ideas enshrined in but not always honored by Magna Carta by the British.
The Quebec act of 1759 is what sent the American Colonists towards revolution.
The Quebec Act of 1759 allowed the French settlers of Quebec to keep both their language and religion. It also allowed them to keep their territories and businesses in Quebec. This outraged the leaders in the 13 colonies including one benjamin Franklin and his compatriots.
benjamin Franklin wrote that the poeple of Quebec should be forced to become protestants. The Boston merchants were outraged that they would not be allowed to take over the Fur trade from the Merchants in Montreal or be given trading rigths throughout the great lakes.
Most of all they were outraged at the Declaration by the British that expansion westward would be halted and that the Native Tribes would henceforth be seen as Sovereign nations with which Britain would sign trade treaties with and do commerce with much like the French had been doing prior to the battle on the plains of Abraham.
If you will read your own declaration of Independence you will see it clearly written when they declare that the crown was not going to defend Colonists against the savages in the west.
Thomas Jefferson orchestrated the Louisianna Purchase and did not recognize the rights of native tribes to the lands he claimed to have bought from the French.
The British agreed to American demands regarding impressment prioor to the start of the war of 1812 but American leaders saw is as an opprortunity to add Upper and Lower Canada to their Empire and openly wrote about this wherein they would drive the British off the Contitnent. Indded they believed the Colonists in Canada would rise up and join them as soon as troops from the USA showed up. When that did not happen they started burning down towns.
The siezure of the lands of Mexico were orchestrated by Sam Austin and the US Government when Sam Austin rose up against the Mexicans then demanded US defense of American lives. Mexico banned slavery and Austin thought this an enroachment on his rights as an citizen of the United States..
The Governers of territories like Ohio and Indiana all wanted to be absorbed into the New UNited States of America but could not do so with such small populations of white settlers. Under the US Constitution they could not apply for Statehood until they had 60000 white settlers each. As long as the Natives held claim to the lands and were a force, white emigration to those areas slowed to a trickle. Governers like William Henry Harrison and others then orchestrated events by raiding Native Villages so as to provoke them and then called on the USA to defend them.(This is what made Tecumseh such a bitter enemy of the USA)
This was the same tactic they used in Mexico.
This was the same tactic they used prior to 1776 when they would call on the crown to come and defend the colonists against the "savages".
In 1803 Jon Quincy Adams (who supported the Louisianna Purchase ) wrote that the Entire Continent of North America was destined to be ruled by one nation, that being the United States of America speaking one Language. From his writings and those of Jefferson sprung the Concept of Manifest detiny and the Monroe doctine.
The USA wished to be an EMPIRE from the Start.
John Quincy Adams was out of step with all other US presidents in thet period but his reactionary father who wanted to get the USA in a war with France. His father's successor put a screeching halt to the war fever with France. US and Canadian policy towards indigenous people was just as I said. Read "Canada's First Natons" with its documentation of same. Both were in sync on official policy until about the last third of the 19th Century. That's when the policy of genocide began. Empire outside the USA really became official in the 1890s. Grover Cleveland, though a consevative Democratic president opposed it. Only in the 1890s did such policies gain the official sancion of the US Government. I stand by what I said and have seen nothing to contradict it. Benjamin Franklin I'd supect never made any such statement at all. He was very much a broad minded and very progressive intellectual. He didn't want the USA to dominate other nations nor did Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson would say the USA should make "peace and justice" it's "polar stars" and "run the race of peace." When people press gang folks into going into the Royal Navy to fight against France a fomrer ally of the USA and violate the soveriegnty of the USA as the USA today violates that of Cuba, consequences should be expected. "Might doesn't make right." The German Hannover dynasty got the UK into that mess as they did with George III's wars with France. That's what they should have been called. The German dynasty on the British throne had at least two bloody British rebellions against it. Both crushed by the German oriented army with a "might makes right" mind set! But as Carlyle once said 'No lie can live forever." The German dynastry had been on the Briish throne since the rip off Act of Succession of 1702 without any consultation with the Soottish parliament before the 1707 Act of Union dissolving that parliament. The parliament in London pulled a fast one on all the British people and especially the Scots and their parliament. The Hannover dynasty would be on the throne for 150 years. A lot of time! A lot of damage! Ireland's oppression officially sanctioned by annexation in the style of an Anschluss by the German dynasty. Bad enough with Irish oppression alone! But to legallze such and put the cross of Ireland's patron saint, Saint Patrick in the British union flag is outrageous. Why did that parlament in London see fit to bring in those from Germany to do that someone who was British should have done?
Also the Louisana Purchase came very early not in the time when William Henry Harrison was moving into US politics. Indigenous rights weren't respected there! True! Nor were they accepted in Canada. Read "Canada's First Nations" by a native Canadian.
Oh please what poppycock. John Quincy Adams was exactly like the rest. Thomas Jefferson wanted Empire. Benjamin Franhlin wanted empire. Madison wanted empire.
Genocide started in the USA l;ong befoire 1890. The trail of tears occurred in 1831 some 60 years bfore your 1890. The tribes in the original 13 colonies were the most part eliminated long before 1831. They were bing massacred as soon as the Puritans landed. The Blankets sent out infested with small pox happened even fbefore there was a United States of America AND the Natives thought the American Colonists so much worse then the British they almiost universally jooined the British in the War of 1812 even though it was the British Empire that sent out those blnakets as "peace offereings"
Goegre Washington was called the "destroyer of towns" by the Natives and burned to the ground 29 of 30 villages belonging to one tribe, his men skinning the people they slaughtered to make boots and belts.
The process of running the Natives out of Ohio and Indiana and the other territories started BEFORE 1812.
You are full of this revisionist history and are UNINFORMED.
The USA was founded on the principle of Genocide and it was not just John Quincy Adams. It was the whole lot of them.
As to Thomas Jefferson halting the slave trade. More Rubbish. He OWNED slaves and in passing the laws that prohinited the further importation of Slaves the value of his slaves went up 10 fold.
The wealth of the Slave Owners of the United States of America increased dramtically when the import of slaves was banned because the price of slaves Increased. Mr Jeffersons 100 dollar fiedl slave was instantly worth 1000$$.
if he was so opposed to the slavery he would have banned slavery. Other countries had banned it.
Just before the start of the Revolution, there was a court case in Britain essentially banning slavery. A slave had been brought to Britain from the West Indies. When he ran away, his master tried to have him captured and brought back, but the court ruled that slavery was contrary to the Common Law and could not be enforced without an act of Parliament, which had never so acted and was highly unlikely to. This greatly disturbed southern slave owners, who were technically subject to the exact same laws and the exact same Parliament. Previously pretty much neutral toward the rebelliousness that had been growing in the northern colonies, many of them subsequently became much more sympathetic to the stirrings in the north.
The state of Britain under the German Hannover dynasty "courtesy" of the rip off Act of Succession of 1702, brought slaves in chains to the 13 colonies to be sold. Then when some colonies enacted legislation to get rid of it, the monarchy rejected this. Thomas Jefferson has this in his draft of the Declaration of Indpendence he submitted to the assembly for the 13 colonies in 1776 but objected to by South Carollina and Georgia. The British empire got slavery started. Then when the 13 colonies rebelled the monarchy came out with some BS that if a slave could make it to England that slave would be free. Yeah, BS! The pile of money these British slave traffickers were making off the slave trade would boggle the mind. They were wrong as hell.
Do also consider the USA had and has a separtion of power system which prevents the president from simply putting something through. The 1807 legislation I referrd to can easily be verified in a library. It passed while Thomas Jefferson was president. No other president did anything to end slavery until Abrahma Lincoln got to the White House.
The US inidgenous policy was just as I said. Look it up. The rhetoric of Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence was terrible on the native people, but actually he greatly admired this chief who was a regular visitor at his father's house and was awed by him. Actions speak a lot louder than words. His actions agaisnt slavery are on record. This anti Jefferson, anti Madison, and anti Franklin non sense is just pure misinformation. None of them was in the least like the Adams gang. Please. The Alien and Sedition Acts and Naturalization Acts of John Adams woiuld be right in there with the" Patriot Act" today. Jefferson and the Democratic Republicans got rid of the Naturalization Act and let the Alien and Seditoon Acts expire. If only this US president had as much courage it would be a miracle.
The points you bring up pn Mexico have to be put in context-- hiistorical. In 1836, the people of Texas, then a province of Mexico rose in rebellion against the despot Santa Anna, inclduing many Texas natives who were Mexicans in the way we think of it today joined by many US settlers in seeking a return to the republic which Mexico had got after gaining independence from Spain in the early 1820s. The flag which flew over the Alamo was the Mexican flag of 1824 symbolizing the 1834 Mexican republic. The War of Texas independence had nothing to do with the US war with Mexico of 1846-1848 which the USA may well have provoked. Even with this, this didn't become part of any pattern until the 1890s with external imperialism. If the point instead is to bring up imperialism directed against the indigenous people, Canada had the same policy. The settlers took the land from the natives. Do read the account of a native Canadian historian on this in "Canada's First Nations." It should be in the library. It's an eye opener. As to French being tolerated as a language by the British, were that so why would Canada still be grappling with that in the time around when Pierre Elliot Trudeua was in Government House and the prime minister. He also had to deal with concerns of giving native Canadians more say in their affairs. That's the real deal. I'll readily concede Canada today has done much better by its indigenous people and blacks. That's not what what the discussion has been about. But history. Do read more. Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, William Barrett Travis, and Sam Houston have nothing to do with the US war with Mexico which James K Polk as president may have manipulated the USA into. That's a completely separate matter. From 1836 to 1846 is a good bit of time. They aren't the same at all.
Also when bringing up slavery, do remember that whites came to the USA as indentured servants and were really nothing but servants. All this a product of the British Empire! The 13 colonies were part of same and under the empire's laws at the time. Add to that what is capitalism but slavery by another name. Then should anyope who's capitalist be counted then as a different kind of slave owner. That's the real deal. Karl Marx would say capitalism is perhaps a worse form of slavery for all.
If so let's applaud the revolution of 1917 and be on with what we're saying here. That's just fine with me.
But let's not throw in statements which are flat out wrong. Real history is important, and we don't just get to put our own interpretation on things which are clearly facts.
Genocide did start in the 13 colonies in Plymouth colony in 1620, but it was part of the empire London ran at the time. Why didn't London take corrective action? Please. This was a cold blooded massacre which the Crown's governor "celebrated." Franklin and others are on record opposing this madness. Even FAIR last issue of Extra has a reference to it. Now do "attack" FAIR and Extra for be US right wing propagandists.
Comments about US indignous tribes being mosty eliminated in the 1820s is BS. Pllease! They moved further west. Yes, some of them died and that was wrong. It was also wrong for settlers in Canada to take these native people's land, but they did it, and the first nations there suffered and many died to give these Euro Canadians the land.
If the British Empire and espcially the Hannover dynasty on that throne was so opposed to slavery, how come it took them until 1835 to abolish it? What was holding them up. Was someone making too much money off it and to close to those in power?
You are unfiromed and continiue to advance nonsense as history. The tribes did not just MOVE They were slaughtered and forced out at gunpoint.
Just because some Jews left Germany and moved elsewhere does not mean Genocide did not occur. Just because some Areminans left and moved elsewhere does not mean Genocide tdid not occur. They moved because they were fleeing Genocide.
The Pequots as example were hunted down and slaughtered or sold into slavery. Get off this founding fathers crap. They were racists slave owners and butchers. Get off this crap that somehow the First Nations people decided they would just pack up and move. They were forced out under a policy oif Ethnic Cleansing which Thomas Jefferson implemented when he indicated he would clear the territories eat of the Mississppi of all the native tribes .
>>Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, William Barrett Travis, and Sam Houston have nothing to do with the US war with Mexico which James K Polk as president may have manipulated the USA into.
Motr of this nonsense hero worship. The Americans were invited in by The Government of Mexico to colonize that area IF THERY OBEYED Mexican laws. They then refused to do so > Claming they had nothing to do with the war on mexico is poppycock. If they fought the Government forces they had something to do with it.
>>Comments about US indignous tribes being mosty eliminated in the 1820s is BS
I never said that sio stop lying> I said the policy of Gemnocide and ethnic cleansing and thefyt of their lands started before 1890 and has always been part of the history of the United States of America,
They were always seeking more land and the resources of ohthers. It is a fact. If it was not true they would not have grown beyong the 13 colonies. Those natives did not come to the newly founded United States of America and ask to join them. Their lands were invaded and seized.
Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams and Benjamin Franklin and others all claimed it was the destiny of the Anglo Saxon race to occupie all of North America and to take it as their own. They all felt that they were superior peoples who would bring Civilization to the savages and the savages that refused would be crushed.
When Tecumseh refused to recognize the RIGHT of the United States of America to claim ownership over Native Lands , Wlliam Henry Harrision and others began attacking Native Villages. This is why Tecumseh who was born well South of the 49th parallel took his warriors North to the British to join their side in the war of 1812. The Americans were butchering his people.
I have "Discover the Hill" about Parliament Hill which I got while on a trip to Ottowa. Actuallly I'm quite well infomred enough so to know nothing about Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Sam Houston, or William Barrett Travis in 1836 has anything to do with the US war with Mexico in 1846-1848. Look at the history of that period and locale, then absorb what actually happened. We can all jump conclusions without evidence, but that doesn't advance a progressive agenda which I'd assume you'd like. Now having said that. Do some research. Don't take my word for it. The library shouild have the information with the specifics of the two dates and two separate events-- the rebelllion by the then Mexican province of Texas against Santa Anna to restore the republic of 1824 whose flag flew over the Alamo in 1836 when the battle occured. No it wasn't about slavery. Give all a break. Santa Anna couldn't care less about blacks being slaves. He just wanted all to be his slaves regardless of color, race, or anything eles as well so he could be the despot he always wanted to be. Do check on the fact that Texas natives not just US cifizens joined the fight against this despot and were rather succesful in what today would be called a war of national liberation and likely get branded as a "Communist plot" against the US power elites aligned with such reactionary despots in Latin America. Do check on US power elites alignment with same. Martin Luther King Jr explains it in a bit of detail in his called Trumpet of Conscience which I have here at home. Again don't take my word. Check Dr King's word on this alignment.
As to who was responsible for the war with Mexico in 1846, I tend to suspect it was James K Polk, and this was something which Abraham Lincoln called him on the carpet about in the congress while Lincoln was a congressman in the period demanding to know the exact "spot" the war had begun in a manner like that Wayne Morse on Lyndon B Johnson in the Gulf of Tonkin fight in 1964. Maybe you could take a look at Norman Solomon's "War Made Easy," very solid documentary on that and other US military interventions. Some US polticians actually were decent.
Some reference again I ask to what held up the British monarchy or the German Hannover dynasty of the time not ending slavery back in 1750 or even earlier if they were really such Simon Pure types? Were they maybe influenced by some in the UK making a pile of money off the slave trade of these poor blacks from Africa? Did some of these very wealthy types do like our one per cent toda?. People of their sort especially among European folks have often been known to be ethically challenged and psychopaths but then that's what may have made them so buddy buddy with this German imposter on the British throne even though the British people rose up twice against this dynasty in bloody rebellions put down by the army just vollowing orders.
Also how about looking into that rip off 1702 Act of Succession? Especially a rip off for the Scots and their parliament dissolved when the Act of Union of 1707 went through making Scotland part of the new united kingdom of Great Britain whether they liked or not. Now let's look at that. The Scots and their parliament got absolutely no say in this German dynasty being on their throne over them. A dynasty with George I and George II not speaking a word of English! Does that sound like phony megalomaniac Germans brainwashed into thinking they were better and all others only fit to be their servants?
Also do comment on the same dynasty's annexation or full legalization of the rape of Ireland bringing by force officially into the UK and putting the cross of St Patrick, patron saint of Ireland in the British union flag upon doing so to really rub salt into the wound of the already too oppressed Irish people with this in the "butcher's rapper" as one Irish nationalist referred to it. How about that for "enlightened" and "sane?" George III was a mad dog of all mad dogs of his time. Nothing was any lower at the time except maybe those trying to bring back the Spanish Inquisiton, but George III aligned with them in his fight with France in his wars of aggression and on democracy in France. He could easily have been a German not British version of W in the old days. To say he was nuts is just too kind. No he didn't give a damn about blacks or indigenous people in this hemisphere. He was perfectly willing to use them against those whom he would hold under his thumb. What does that prove other than that those in London who said he was nuts were right. Look it up. The fruit cake defined the term. He was just trying to be a British version of Frederick the Great, but he wasn't any more British than Bismarck was.
Anglo Saxons like the rest of the British aren't a race. They are black just like all modern humans, but some of them refuse to embrace their humanity granted to them by the black God in Heaven. May that God have mercy on their pagan souls. But the main brother man won't put up wiith such forever. He did eventually bring fruitcake George III low at Yorktown with the Yankee/French alliance and the help of a great soul brother man spy for this alliance. The truth just had to come out. It's black history month. We must not forget we all came from that great cradle of civlization and rule by the people for all in sub Saharan Africa. When people forget where they came from as some Anglo Saxons have at times God has a way of letting us know. He let those in the USA know when that bloody civil war came about. He let those in the European monarchies know for a while when the French republic won one victory after another over them in Geroge III's wars. But Satan in human or George III prevailed temporarily to bring in a new age of darkness. He will go down in history as a slimy creature who give Neanderthals a bad name. But not only the Irish people would rebel against this dynasty. No not by a long sight! The British people rose up only to be cut down twice by their own army with one case of a bloody beheading of a true Briton leading this people's uprising. But the British people like all people couldn't be held down forever by these swine. Nor could the Irish. The Hannover German Trojan Horse dynasty was a disgrace to all. Bless every rebellion by the Irish and British people to force out these slime.
Let me just give up on this debate over some key people prominent in US politics and public affairs in the 18th and 19th Century and just ask that those who see all these as abolutely evil simply consult the last issue of Extra, a magazine put out by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) in "The Colonial Roots of Media's Racial Narratives" an aritlce on some of what we've been talking about. Do check what the article says not only about Benjamin Franklin but Pennsylvania Govrnor John Penn. It seems to contradict some of your view a bit, but give it a read anyway-- thanks. Oh this issue is the Frebruary 2012 one.
I'll content myself to looking at other sources to see if I find anything which supports some statements about how terrible these US civil and political types were. If you find anything in Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States" or other solid sources let me know.
I assure you I have done more research on this topic then you have and refuse to do the selective reading of history you seem to have taken. I am not limited by what I am TOLD is history as happens in US schools.
Your rants on George the III are exactly that. They have absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with the topic as to the policies of the United States of America when it sought its empire and began driving the First Nations peoples off those lands.
Your bringing in Ireland has nothing to do with this. I have not once denied that the British Empire was not an Empire and sought the lands of others.
I stated clearly that the United States of America followed the pricniples of Empire from the day of its founding. They were not friends of the Natives. Madison was not their friend. Jefferson was not their friend. Washington was not their friend. Jackson was not their friend. (Read on the Seminole wars and how Floida was annexxed into the Union> Read on the sneak attack William Henry Harrison launched on Tecumsehs tribe in the midst of negotitations. Read how Kentucky was stripped away from the tribes that lived there with people like Davey Crocket).
If you think by pointing out King George was mad, the United States of America is somehow absolved of its criems of genocide and slavery, it only makes YOU mad.
There is a reason the Bulk of the Indian tribes were on the side of the French in the French and Indian war. While some were with the British, the majoirty fought with the french. It was because the French were not as rapacious when it came to seeking MORE land as were the British.
There is a reason the majority of the Native tribes then joined the British in 1812 and it was for reasons very much the same.
Your rants on why The British Empire did not end slavery in 1750 are eaxactly that. They have NOTHING to do with the fact that the United States of America supported slavery on the day they founded as a nation, including Thomas Jefferson and kept slavery until nearly 100 years.
All of this speaks to the article where in war against the Filipinos mentioned. The author was not talking about what the British Empire did in Africa or what they did in India, he was talking about the United States of America did to the Filipinos.
I corrected his suggestion that this was something NEW. The seizure of anothers lands and the killing of those that lived there was the principles on which the United States of America was founded upon.
I would point out, just by example of Comparison. When George Washington destroyed those 29 towns out of 30, he burned all the corn crops and buildings and stores of food. The people that did not flee the Villages were shot down as hostiles.
They made war on the Natives by attacking the settlements and destroying the food supply.
The Filipinos used much the same tactics the Nativee Americans did when figting the US Military. They did not have the manpower or weaponry to stand up to them in setpiece battles so used hit and run tactics on US patrols and convoys.
The USA then resorted to the same tactics they had used 100+ years before. They started attacking the Villages, kiling the leader sof those Villages and burning and destroying the rice crops to starve the people out.
Although it's not exactly a cheerer-upper, I recommend reading "Comments on the Moro Massacre" by Mark Twain (March 12, 1906)*
As GwNorth's 3:18pm comment suggests, U.S. military atrocities in the Philippines were not novel; they were a continuation of a ignoble and abominable tradition of U.S. military strategy and tactics dating back to the founding of the nation.
The atrocities at My Lai, Haditha, and Fallujah-- trivialized and dismissed as exceptional, if unfortunate, flukes if not outright condoned as just and necessary-- are just the latest in a long string of Amerikan military barbarism.
Also see my Oct 19 2011 - 1:15pm comment @ http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/19-3 citing the Moro Massacre in response to a article about a U.S. drone strike killing Anwar al-Awlaki's teenage relatives.
_______________
* http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/cr/moro.htm
moro of the samo.
I remember a couple of things, from my youth, that registered very clearly and were early experiences in accepting the real America vs my mythological indoctrination.
1. My cousin returning from the occupation of S. Korea after that war. Told stories, while laughing hard, of soldiers driving along the sea wall and pushing old Koreans (fishing) into the ocean off a sea wall.
2. Entering the military during my early 20s (Vietnam) and listening to a major tell "hilarious" stories of torturing Viet Cong/North Vietnamese soldiers by shooting them in the legs several times to get them to talk, of throwing captured enemy soldiers out of helicopters to get other to talk and other such stories while laughing.
When one reads historical stories of our Westward expansion, such accounts are everywhere. As I've aged and heard or read much of our real history, I've come to see us as simply one more brutal, bloody empire and we were that from the get go. By the way, if I understand correctly, Lincoln cared less about freeing the slaves and only did so as part of the effort to win the war.