This was originally posted in another forum where Japanese war crimes were being discussed. It was not welcome there, and its truthfulness challenged.
Estimates of deaths in this genocide range from hundreds of thousands to almost a million
Do you mean your post in the thread called “WWII POW camps in Taiwan” that is in the Culture and History forum?
It’s a shame you have such strong feelings on a subject you are so ignorant about.
The first problem is your title. The Spanish-American War and the subsequent Philippine Insurrection both began under William McKinley, not Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt played a major part in the war, first as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under McKinley and then as a Colonel during the short war, but ultimately the decision to go to war and later to pacify the Philippines was McKinley’s, not Roosevelt’s.
On the day the Philippine Insurrection began, Roosevelt wasn’t even a part of the McKinley Administration; he had given up his commission and made a successful run for Governor of New York. He would later join McKinley as his Vice President in 1900 as McKinley ran for reelection. When McKinley was assassinated, he became president in September, 1901. By that time, Roosevelt was continuing a policy on the Philippines that had been well-established by his predecessor.
While there is not doubt that Roosevelt agreed completely with the aims and methods of the war and pacification, neither of them were his decision, any more than the waging of the Vietnam War was Gerald Ford’s decision.
The second problem with your post is that no one glosses over the U.S.'s imperial role in the Philippines. Anyone who knows anything about American history knows that the war and the subsequent pacification campaign were very controversial and the methods of the pacification brutal. Mark Twain who was the most famous novelist in America at the time said that perhaps the Stars and Stripes on the U.S. flag should be replaced with a skull and crossbones. A Marine officer named Waller was put on trial at the time (1902) for using brutal tactics against the Filipinos, including killing children, and his testimony implicated his commanding general.
Why don’t more people know about this? Because, like you, they are ignorant of American history and require someone like Vidal to spoon-feed it to them in little, tasty digestible pieces they can understand. They then make the mistake of thinking everyone is still as ignorant as they once were.
[quote=“Soddom”] Estimates of deaths in this genocide range from hundreds of thousands to almost a million
I neglected to mention that Soddom misuses the word genocide. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic killing of a people by a government for their membership in some racial, ethnic, religious, or socio-economic class. It doesn’t mean, as Soddom seems to think it does, just killing a lot of people and it doesn’t mean slaughter in an indiscriminate fashion.
Soddom did a real bangup job on this thread. It’s not too often that someone can create a thread title with two whopping errors in it.
Thanks for your comments. Let me respond to your questions.
Your allegation of my alleged ignorance in this matter do nothing but satisfy your indignation Thank you for posting further historical information which is correct. That I did not is not proof, as you say, of my being a “liar”, “stupid” or “ignorant”. I simply posted enough information to get the discussion ball rolling. Post title aside, your historical information is in agreement with that which I posted. Let
[quote=“Soddom”]Your allegation of my alleged ignorance in this matter do nothing but satisfy your indignation Thank you for posting further historical information which is correct. That I did not is not proof, as you say, of my being a “liar”, “stupid” or “ignorant”. I simply posted enough information to get the discussion ball rolling. Post title aside, your historical information is in agreement with that which I posted. Let
There is nothing one could say to excuse this, absolutely nothing!!!
So what, still no reason for me. I’m sure they teach that in Germany, but how should I know? I’m not German…[/quote]
Right. My mistake. You’re from Switzerland. (I remember you talking about -ese and German). I imagine the gaps in your education are about the same as a German’s.
Tell me, is Switzerland still the former dictator/war criminal’s banker of choice? When do you think the Iraqi people will see some of their money stashed there by Saddam? Think the Jews will ever see all of their money stolen by the Nazis and their Swiss banker friends?
Liar. I asked you for your source on this post:
[quote=“Soddom”][Like this?
[quote][size=150][b]American Terrorism and Genocide of the Philippine People, 1899
It
By your own posts here, you are a liar. When I asked for your sources of quotes claiming American soldiers to be “rabid military dogs”, “professional baby-killers” and “racist American monsters” you switched quotes and then accused me of questioning your truthfulness. 
I didn’t. I simply asked for your sources which you never did supply.
If you like the IAC so much, maybe you should join. Your attention to the truth should make you feel right at home.
It
Despite my last post, which focuses on Soddom’s mistakes, I should acknowledge when someone corrects their errors, and Soddom, however grudgingly, has at least made a start by changing the title of the thread.
Waffle waffle and beat about the bush if you like boys, but there is a central truth in all this which you apparently fail to accept:
The American government committed a genocide of hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines. Provenance aside, all of the sources cited attest to this.
Blueface - in typical fashion - resorts to slandering the sources and the poster, me; while Cold Front is more interested in disparaging Gore Vidal and using lame sophistry to argue that “democide” is not murder.
If you are at all interested in discussing the issue, please either accept that this event occurred, or provide evidence that it did not. It
A case for genocide.
From what I understand it was the Muslim population on the Southern islands who wanted to form an independent Islamic nation. Mindanao was the location of most of the killings just as it is today, for the same reasons.
In his book, “The Philippines, Land of Broken Promises”, historian James B. Goodno claims
In
Amends to who? Where is the outcry from Asia against these so-called genocides? Hmm it doesn’t exist. Gee, I wonder why?
[quote=“Soddom”]The American government committed a genocide of hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines. Provenance aside, all of the sources cited attest to this.
Blueface - in typical fashion - resorts to slandering the sources and the poster, me; while Cold Front is more interested in disparaging Gore Vidal and using lame sophistry to argue that “democide” is not murder. [/quote]
Well, that’s the last time I provide this idiot with even a backhanded compliment.
No one seriously tries to refute that the U.S. military committed serious crimes against the Filipinos after the end of the Spanish-American war. When the domestic insurrection flared up, the U.S. military – which at the time did not have a good deal of experience and was vastly outnumbered by the locals rebelling against them – tortured and killed civilians it knew were not part of the rebellion. This is a matter of record and, even by the much lower standards of that time, it was considered wrong.
But the half-literate and thoroughly uneducated Soddom is not interested in discussing the matter intelligently. He’s interested in hyping up an anti-American case. It’s not enough to say crimes were committed by the U.S. No, one must say genocide was committed. It’s not enough to give the top estimate for the number of dead at two to three hundred thousand; no, one must say hundreds of thousands and even link to a source that once claimed three million was the figure. The truth is far more interesting and subtle, but Soddom is not likely to understand it any more than a swine understands fine dining.
Predictably, Soddom’s sources include Gore Vidal and Howard Zinn. (He only needs to include Noam Chomsky to make the anti-U.S. triumvirate complete.) Neither of these men know shit about the Philippines and are not well-versed enough on the country and the war to know which sources on the topic are well-regarded and which are not to be trusted. They are ideological generalists – when reading the history of the country, their conclusions about it are that the U.S. is always wrong and the worst things said about it are always to be believed.
Anyone searching for information on the American-Philippine war will be struck by how little information can be found. This war is usually subsumed in a discussion about the wider American-Spanish war. I have searched a number of US historical sources for information and they yielded little, if anything about this genocide. No doubt this is why some of the more provocative historians have tackled the subject.
It’s genocide because it was a genocide. When the US government officially acknowledges how many Filipinos it tortured and murdered, we will have an official figure. Until then, we must rely on the accounts of those who were there and historians.
For an author to be able to write a whole book on the Philippines, I suspect he may know “more than shit”. At the very least, he could say “shit” eloquently. Zinn is a respected academic, while The New York Times Book Review (no friend to Vidal in his younger days) said of him "Gore Vidal is the master essayist of our age. Thus the credentials of these two authors are sound. We can only assume why you have not attacked the other sources.
Still, if you find these authors acceptable, I invite you to contribute the research of others on this matter. Then instead of mud slinging, you could debate the issue. Or could you?
I went to a state high school in Pennsylvania and learned about Emilio Aguinaldo (spelling?) in World Cultures class in the 10th grade.
Perhaps you could provide more details, Tigerman. The key point is, was the genocide discussed? It isn’t in this Library of Congress page, or any others I have yet found. loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/aguinaldo.html
Another estimate of the death toll.
[quote]As early as May 1901, U.S. General Bell estimated that there were already 600,000 Filipino casualties in Luzon alone of which perhaps only between 15,000-20,000 were soldiers. This was only after two years of fighting and before the systematic “pacification campaigns” in Luzon and the Visayas. Entire populations were herded into so-called “zones of protection” and so many tens of thousands died from hunger, exposure and disease. Perhaps 100,000 Muslims were also killed in their resistance from 1903 to 1913 in Mindanao. It is certain that U.S. imperialism killed between 10-15% of our population then of some 8 million, or from 800,000 to over a million deaths. By any account that is a staggering amount.
www.apk2000.dk/netavisen/artikler/verde … ention.htm [/quote]