Still more on The Good Old Days
from "Apocalypse Now & Then," by Theodore S. Gonzalves, August 2004.
...What was claimed at first to be a war of liberation (the Philippines from Spain), soon dissolved seamlessly into a campaign of colonization. More than 4,000 Americans died with another 2,800 wounded. Conservative estimates put the Filipino casualty rate at more than 20,000 soldiers and 500,000 civilians killed. Writing in 1973, Luzviminda Francisco provided an historical account of that long-forgotten war, making the point in her essay's title it was "The First Vietnam."
As the Philippine-American war moved from the strategic port capitol of Manila to the outlying areas of the archipelago, the fighting intensified. American soldiers used psychological warfare techniques to break the resolve of Filipino fighters. Some commanders accelerated the tempo of combat, frustrated with advances made by the over-matched native soldiers. U.S. General Jake Smith's infamous orders to turn the island of Samar into a "howling wilderness," to "take no prisoners," and to kill anyone over the age of ten years old earned him the moniker of "Howlin' Jake" as well as a discharge (but only after the public embarrassment of a federal inquiry). Torture became the preferred method for learning the whereabouts of "insurgents" and "insurrectos." One soldier writing home boasted that he had personally administered one form of torture - the "water cure" - to 160 Filipinos, all of whom, save for 26, died.
The water cure consisted of tossing handfuls of salt added to a stream of water that poured down the throats of the tortured while on their backs. After the bodies bloated to the point of bursting, those administering the "Òcure" followed by a stomping on the victims" stomachs to expel the water.
Soldiers in the field like Lieutenant Samuel Powell Lyon didn't seem to have a problem with the use of torture. In a 1901 letter, Lyon wrote, "The problem of the 'water cure' is in knowing how to apply it." His commander-in-chief agreed. President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the practice as "an old Filipino method of mild torture."
Others preferred not use the "T" word. Methodist missionary Reverend Homer Stuntz believed that since the victim had the power to stop the process or prevent it altogether, the water cure could not be labeled as such. His reasoning continued: "The treatment is never given wantonly; or, if so, it was without sanction," only "given to spies." In a New York Times piece dated May 3, 1902, General Wheaton Young simply denied the United States Army had ever used the water cure in the Philippines.
Congressional inquiries produced three volumes of testimony and analysis that disagreed with the general. The panel believed that because it was deemed "mild" from so many quarters, the use of the water cure was widespread, not isolated. In other words, torture was not an aberration.
When government officials, then as now, consign certain military acts to the realm of the accidental, they obscure the rationality of war - its unending search for the enemy and its sense of comfort offered to the self-righteous. Torture results in what the torturer wants to hear, which is rarely the truth.
According to other accounts I have read, the punishments given to US soldiers and officers for this, were, when administered at all, mere slaps on the wrist.
And torture, this and other methods, continued under our aegis and even instruction in the Marcos satrapy through the seventies.
Yes, I know, big surprise there - US funded dictator with US-trained torturers in the 70s. But still.
...What was claimed at first to be a war of liberation (the Philippines from Spain), soon dissolved seamlessly into a campaign of colonization. More than 4,000 Americans died with another 2,800 wounded. Conservative estimates put the Filipino casualty rate at more than 20,000 soldiers and 500,000 civilians killed. Writing in 1973, Luzviminda Francisco provided an historical account of that long-forgotten war, making the point in her essay's title it was "The First Vietnam."
As the Philippine-American war moved from the strategic port capitol of Manila to the outlying areas of the archipelago, the fighting intensified. American soldiers used psychological warfare techniques to break the resolve of Filipino fighters. Some commanders accelerated the tempo of combat, frustrated with advances made by the over-matched native soldiers. U.S. General Jake Smith's infamous orders to turn the island of Samar into a "howling wilderness," to "take no prisoners," and to kill anyone over the age of ten years old earned him the moniker of "Howlin' Jake" as well as a discharge (but only after the public embarrassment of a federal inquiry). Torture became the preferred method for learning the whereabouts of "insurgents" and "insurrectos." One soldier writing home boasted that he had personally administered one form of torture - the "water cure" - to 160 Filipinos, all of whom, save for 26, died.
The water cure consisted of tossing handfuls of salt added to a stream of water that poured down the throats of the tortured while on their backs. After the bodies bloated to the point of bursting, those administering the "Òcure" followed by a stomping on the victims" stomachs to expel the water.
Soldiers in the field like Lieutenant Samuel Powell Lyon didn't seem to have a problem with the use of torture. In a 1901 letter, Lyon wrote, "The problem of the 'water cure' is in knowing how to apply it." His commander-in-chief agreed. President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the practice as "an old Filipino method of mild torture."
Others preferred not use the "T" word. Methodist missionary Reverend Homer Stuntz believed that since the victim had the power to stop the process or prevent it altogether, the water cure could not be labeled as such. His reasoning continued: "The treatment is never given wantonly; or, if so, it was without sanction," only "given to spies." In a New York Times piece dated May 3, 1902, General Wheaton Young simply denied the United States Army had ever used the water cure in the Philippines.
Congressional inquiries produced three volumes of testimony and analysis that disagreed with the general. The panel believed that because it was deemed "mild" from so many quarters, the use of the water cure was widespread, not isolated. In other words, torture was not an aberration.
When government officials, then as now, consign certain military acts to the realm of the accidental, they obscure the rationality of war - its unending search for the enemy and its sense of comfort offered to the self-righteous. Torture results in what the torturer wants to hear, which is rarely the truth.
According to other accounts I have read, the punishments given to US soldiers and officers for this, were, when administered at all, mere slaps on the wrist.
And torture, this and other methods, continued under our aegis and even instruction in the Marcos satrapy through the seventies.
Yes, I know, big surprise there - US funded dictator with US-trained torturers in the 70s. But still.