1906 -- Philippines: US occupation troops attack the stronghold of an "unruly" band of hill Moros, mowing the stubborn tribespeople down with a combination of artillery fire & infantry assaults. All these Moros men, women & children are slaughtered, whereupon Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Theodore Roosevelt, congratulates these brave Americans for, "A brilliant feat of arms wherein you...upheld the honor of the American flag." Asked to define the age limit for killing, General Smith replied, "Everything over ten." In 1898, philosopher William James & other prominent US intellectuals formed the Anti-Imperialist League to educate the public on the horrors of US policy in the Philippines...but the US destruction & domination of the Philippines continues. To charges of brutality in the Phillipine war, Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Secreatary of War Elihu Root responded, "The war in the Phillipines has been conducted by the American Army with scrupulous regard for the rules of civilized warfare...with self-restraint & with humanity never surpassed." "The major [accused of killing 11 defenseless Filipinos] said that General Smith instructed him to kill & burn, & said that the more he killed & burned the better pleased he would be; that it was no time to take prisoners See the Web page for many links "We have pacified some thousands of the islanders & buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, & turned their widows & orphans out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have acquired property in the three hundred concubines & other slaves of our business partner Sultan of Sulu, & hoisted our protecting flag over that swag. & so, by the Providences of God -- & the phrase is the government's, not mine -- we are a World Power." --- Mark Twain (no WildEyedRadical or murdering anarchist he...) The war in the Phillipines remains an obscure episode in American history textbooks, & Manifest Destiny resurfaces in future years under a variety of more "sophisticated" guises; following the disasterous Vietnam War, for example, comes a "New World Order," "WTO," "War on Drugs", "War on Terrorism," etc. FROM the Daily Bleed.
