Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed such a forceful retaliation against Hamas in Gaza that “what we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the enclave would be cut off from vital services, vowing there would be “no electricity, no food, no fuel” for its estimated 2.3 million residents.
A lot of Filipinos fought with the Americans to topple the Spanish rule and hopefully get their freedom but when they found out that they were just replacing one colonial power with another, some revolted and took up arms against their former allies, of a sort. Can’t blame them for trying…sort of like the Vietnamese asking for their country back from the French in 1918 and getting rebuffed at Versailles by Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau. Then they got screwed again when the French came back into power after 1945, after thinking that the U.S. would finally end European colonialism in SE Asia…yeah…we never seem to learn.
It's my understanding from reading some detailed history of the American military in the Philippines, the U.S. initially promised independence to the people of the Philippines and then reneged. I have a very disturbing series of photos that someone in my cousin's family had of the hanging of two brothers, key leaders of the "insurgents" (or freedom fighters, if you will). The choice of hanging them was deliberately cruel. According to the author quoted below, there were, in fact, no more hangings.
Here is an excerpt I copied to file with the photos: Le Roy, James A. The Americans in the Philippines; a history of the conquest and first years of occupation, with an introductory account of the Spanish rule. With an introd. by William Howard Taft., 1914, vol. II, pp. 211-12 [footnote 1]:
“The first of these hangings (the first executions in the Philippines under American rule, beheld with considerable awe by the Filipinos, as the garrote had been in recent years the Spanish method of exectuion for civil crimes and shooting the method used in military executions) took place on March 30, 1900, at San Carlos, Pangasinan (Harper’s History, p.340). A number of other chiefs, bandits pure and simple, were tried in Pangasinan, Tarlak, and several other provinces, during the early months of the year, but only two other executions had taken place under General Otis as reviewing authority before his departure. See Sen.Doc. 331, pp. 1000-25 and 1340-50, for the records of the first trials of this sort, especially pp. 1344-47, the trial of Vicente and Innocencio Prado, in Pangasinan in June, 1900, they being convicted of murder and other crimes, both felonies and semipolitical and against Americans as well as Filipinos. They were hanged at Dagupan in December, 1900. Vicente Prado had been a member of the congress at Malolos; this is an indication of the character of the men the revolutionary leaders would sometimes employ, especially in regions of factional feeling like Pangasinan."
Such a well-thought out, and beautifully expressed, response to what is happening in Israel right now. Your thinking is both subtle and profound, and needs to be heard by everyone. Having said that, I took a History seminar on the Spanish-American War in college (UNC). The Samar Campaign never ONCE was mentioned. Did my professor even know about it??
Nope - never heard or read of the Samar Campaign! I'm pretty sure theres nothing in any history books - nor at the rate education is "progressing" there likely wont be.
It sounds pretty much like the "campaigns" to dominate the Native Americans or any other indigenous group on this planet, doesnt it?
Sure would be a leap in the right direction if the Israeli people disagreed loudly with their current leader - the one who I'm sure is happy and gloating at his future propects.
There were several uprisings in the Philippines after the Spanish ceded control of the island nation to the United States. The U.S. Army was fighting armed bands of Filipinos all over from Luzon to Mindanao. There was a book I read way back in my college days about the Moro insurrection in Mindanao and the harsh reprisals and atrocities committed by both sides in the guerrilla warfare that took place…stuff that I knew nothing about until I took a history class taught by a long-haired prototypical hippie professor who knew his stuff about all the dirty little wars we were involved in Asia and Central America.
Ineresting sidestory on the Moros. When the Americans started putting up telegraph lines, Moros would cut them down, then wrap themselves in it to attack a patrol in a jungle clearing - the troops had bolt action Krag rifles and might get off one shot each, which wouldn't penetrate. The officer had a six shot 38-caliber pistol, which wouldn't stop him. Even if he died, the machete he was swinging would get 3 or 4 of them. The result was the .45 automatic pistol - fast firing, and a bullet big enough to stop a guy like that.
There’s no love lost between the Moros and the Americans, or between the Moros, who are predominantly Muslims, and the Filipino government in Manila. One of the ploys the Americans employed was to behead any Moros captured or killed in fighting and leave the bodies out in the open for retrieval. Burial rituals for the Moros dictated that the bodies had to be entire in order for the deceased to enter Paradise, so the Moros had to go to American forts to ransom the heads, leading to the capture of more insurgents. Also captured Moros were put in cages and forced to eat pork or would be sewn up in a pig carcass. And the Americans were supposed to be the “good guys”…
I had never heard of Smith or the battle before this post. How vile to exalt such a horrible creature. Thank you for the details and truth of the situation. They would likely not be found in many places. “Good Christian’s” are as guilty as the worst among us if they condone such. And too many of our citizens do.
I am more than aware of the horror of the Bush crowd and how they blew a chance to show the world how a leader in world affairs should behave. I was ashamed of being an American every day of that embarrassment. Eight long years of thinking that was as low as republicans could go.
The current mess doesn’t mention a word of Bibi’s horrific actions, especially since he was re-elected. Now he is giving orders for crimes against humanity. No heroes no where. Not even any human characteristics that I can spot.
I have to admit that Hamas has upped the horror ante with the hostage situation. Wasn’t it Stalin who said that one death is a tragedy and a million deaths are a statistic.
Yes, Jeri, shame. I felt it keenly too, before that nightmare and after, pretty much my whole life from my teens forward when I began to understand the horrific way our country was built and has comported itself ever after.
The idiots running the Texas government, who want to protect students from the uglier truths of our history, have a point. It does make one ashamed and embarrassed to face the ugly truth. And so it should. I wish I had confronted such earlier in my life. I grew up with people who likely attended, or knew of the “after church on Sunday” lynchings. I was 18 when I did confront my Dad about a racist remark. He was embarrassed, as he should have been. Reconciliation and healing require acknowledgement of wrong. We are good at pointing fingers at Germany for WW2, but I had no idea that Adolf got some ideas from our Jim Crow period. And that so many in this country espoused Nazism. Japan fixed that. We haven’t learned that yet. Jews have a good thing with atonement, we desperately need it.
BTW, the thing that I have forever admired about us was the Marshall Plan. Maybe the Koch’s didn’t have the power to oppose it then. Or, no oil involved (that I know of).
My hope is that all those thousands and thousands of Israeli reservist forces called up will temper actions in the field. After all, they were the ones threatening Netanyahu's grand scheme to undermine Israel's supreme court. They are mostly young and mostly disenchanted with the right wing extremists in the current government and those placed in the upper echelons of the military by Bibi.
True civilization seems to be an elusive dream, doesn't it? Perhaps that's why dystopias are so prevalent in our culture right now; they are closer to our reality.
Only vaguely before I read Jonathan Ganz’ excellent biography of Smedley Butler, “Gangsters of Democracy”. Butler was the Zelig of bad American foreign policy, right there with National City Bank and Sullivan & Cromwell. Well worth reading!
yes, it is. I'd known about the plan to install him as president, but the extent to which Butler really WAS a sort of Zelig, but also--very often--a mover and shaker. when he called himself a gangster, he knew what he was saying.
but the author is Jonathan Katz, who also has an excellent Substack.
I have Smedley Butler's own book, "War is a Racket".....a very interesting book, as he was involved in the Central American interventions the Marines carried out to protect US businesses.
Simple minded allegiances based on “Israel Good” Palestine Bad” or vice versa will now guide the media’s reporting and thus the tenor of the discussions as foreign policy experts slam their palms into their foreheads attempting to educate the masses in the face of politicians who have no interest in the conflict except as it can be used as a campaign lie
I didn't know about this but it doesn't surprise me. It is an early example of the "gook" defense--I'm glad you mentioned My Lai--also don't forget Bến Tre, the town that needed to be destroyed in order to save it. Dehumanizing anyone related to an enemy, including through mere ethnicity, is all too common. A look at Wikipedia's list of war crimes is illuminating.
Brilliant Tom, thanks. "Still, they must be brought into subjugation, and kept so until they learn that the purpose is to give them freedom and the blessings of that..." Or, in other words, beatings will continue until moral improves.
Never heard of the Balangiga Massacre, or the Samar Campaign. They didn't make it into "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, although it sure sounds like they should have. Thanks for this report, TC.
Like many reading your fabulous essay, I have never heard any of this history regarding the Philippines. Thanks so much for this essay. We certainly need more history of more nations and peoples being appropriately taught throughout all generations. If we knew and understood more of our own history maybe there would have been more capacity to resist the MAGA virus.
It is unfortunate that Israeli voters have put Netanjahu in office too often. He and djt appear to have been cut from the same cloth. It is a piece of cloth intended for a shroud I fear.
A lot of Filipinos fought with the Americans to topple the Spanish rule and hopefully get their freedom but when they found out that they were just replacing one colonial power with another, some revolted and took up arms against their former allies, of a sort. Can’t blame them for trying…sort of like the Vietnamese asking for their country back from the French in 1918 and getting rebuffed at Versailles by Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau. Then they got screwed again when the French came back into power after 1945, after thinking that the U.S. would finally end European colonialism in SE Asia…yeah…we never seem to learn.
It's my understanding from reading some detailed history of the American military in the Philippines, the U.S. initially promised independence to the people of the Philippines and then reneged. I have a very disturbing series of photos that someone in my cousin's family had of the hanging of two brothers, key leaders of the "insurgents" (or freedom fighters, if you will). The choice of hanging them was deliberately cruel. According to the author quoted below, there were, in fact, no more hangings.
Here is an excerpt I copied to file with the photos: Le Roy, James A. The Americans in the Philippines; a history of the conquest and first years of occupation, with an introductory account of the Spanish rule. With an introd. by William Howard Taft., 1914, vol. II, pp. 211-12 [footnote 1]:
“The first of these hangings (the first executions in the Philippines under American rule, beheld with considerable awe by the Filipinos, as the garrote had been in recent years the Spanish method of exectuion for civil crimes and shooting the method used in military executions) took place on March 30, 1900, at San Carlos, Pangasinan (Harper’s History, p.340). A number of other chiefs, bandits pure and simple, were tried in Pangasinan, Tarlak, and several other provinces, during the early months of the year, but only two other executions had taken place under General Otis as reviewing authority before his departure. See Sen.Doc. 331, pp. 1000-25 and 1340-50, for the records of the first trials of this sort, especially pp. 1344-47, the trial of Vicente and Innocencio Prado, in Pangasinan in June, 1900, they being convicted of murder and other crimes, both felonies and semipolitical and against Americans as well as Filipinos. They were hanged at Dagupan in December, 1900. Vicente Prado had been a member of the congress at Malolos; this is an indication of the character of the men the revolutionary leaders would sometimes employ, especially in regions of factional feeling like Pangasinan."
Note that the subtitle of Le Roy's book properly describes the American role as an occupation, not a liberation.
Such a well-thought out, and beautifully expressed, response to what is happening in Israel right now. Your thinking is both subtle and profound, and needs to be heard by everyone. Having said that, I took a History seminar on the Spanish-American War in college (UNC). The Samar Campaign never ONCE was mentioned. Did my professor even know about it??
Nope - never heard or read of the Samar Campaign! I'm pretty sure theres nothing in any history books - nor at the rate education is "progressing" there likely wont be.
It sounds pretty much like the "campaigns" to dominate the Native Americans or any other indigenous group on this planet, doesnt it?
Sure would be a leap in the right direction if the Israeli people disagreed loudly with their current leader - the one who I'm sure is happy and gloating at his future propects.
There were several uprisings in the Philippines after the Spanish ceded control of the island nation to the United States. The U.S. Army was fighting armed bands of Filipinos all over from Luzon to Mindanao. There was a book I read way back in my college days about the Moro insurrection in Mindanao and the harsh reprisals and atrocities committed by both sides in the guerrilla warfare that took place…stuff that I knew nothing about until I took a history class taught by a long-haired prototypical hippie professor who knew his stuff about all the dirty little wars we were involved in Asia and Central America.
Ineresting sidestory on the Moros. When the Americans started putting up telegraph lines, Moros would cut them down, then wrap themselves in it to attack a patrol in a jungle clearing - the troops had bolt action Krag rifles and might get off one shot each, which wouldn't penetrate. The officer had a six shot 38-caliber pistol, which wouldn't stop him. Even if he died, the machete he was swinging would get 3 or 4 of them. The result was the .45 automatic pistol - fast firing, and a bullet big enough to stop a guy like that.
There’s no love lost between the Moros and the Americans, or between the Moros, who are predominantly Muslims, and the Filipino government in Manila. One of the ploys the Americans employed was to behead any Moros captured or killed in fighting and leave the bodies out in the open for retrieval. Burial rituals for the Moros dictated that the bodies had to be entire in order for the deceased to enter Paradise, so the Moros had to go to American forts to ransom the heads, leading to the capture of more insurgents. Also captured Moros were put in cages and forced to eat pork or would be sewn up in a pig carcass. And the Americans were supposed to be the “good guys”…
Holy cow, how can we even claim a moral high ground on anything
jeez, Tom...my FATHER told me stories about the Moros and their famous ferocity in battle. in HIS version, they'd tie off major blood vessels.
or something like that.
Without a doubt - there is a huge lack of actual true information about any and all of the, shall we say, dominating countries in our world.
Unless, somehow we happen upon it - who would know?
I had never heard of Smith or the battle before this post. How vile to exalt such a horrible creature. Thank you for the details and truth of the situation. They would likely not be found in many places. “Good Christian’s” are as guilty as the worst among us if they condone such. And too many of our citizens do.
I am more than aware of the horror of the Bush crowd and how they blew a chance to show the world how a leader in world affairs should behave. I was ashamed of being an American every day of that embarrassment. Eight long years of thinking that was as low as republicans could go.
The current mess doesn’t mention a word of Bibi’s horrific actions, especially since he was re-elected. Now he is giving orders for crimes against humanity. No heroes no where. Not even any human characteristics that I can spot.
I have to admit that Hamas has upped the horror ante with the hostage situation. Wasn’t it Stalin who said that one death is a tragedy and a million deaths are a statistic.
That was he.
Yes, Jeri, shame. I felt it keenly too, before that nightmare and after, pretty much my whole life from my teens forward when I began to understand the horrific way our country was built and has comported itself ever after.
The idiots running the Texas government, who want to protect students from the uglier truths of our history, have a point. It does make one ashamed and embarrassed to face the ugly truth. And so it should. I wish I had confronted such earlier in my life. I grew up with people who likely attended, or knew of the “after church on Sunday” lynchings. I was 18 when I did confront my Dad about a racist remark. He was embarrassed, as he should have been. Reconciliation and healing require acknowledgement of wrong. We are good at pointing fingers at Germany for WW2, but I had no idea that Adolf got some ideas from our Jim Crow period. And that so many in this country espoused Nazism. Japan fixed that. We haven’t learned that yet. Jews have a good thing with atonement, we desperately need it.
BTW, the thing that I have forever admired about us was the Marshall Plan. Maybe the Koch’s didn’t have the power to oppose it then. Or, no oil involved (that I know of).
My hope is that all those thousands and thousands of Israeli reservist forces called up will temper actions in the field. After all, they were the ones threatening Netanyahu's grand scheme to undermine Israel's supreme court. They are mostly young and mostly disenchanted with the right wing extremists in the current government and those placed in the upper echelons of the military by Bibi.
True civilization seems to be an elusive dream, doesn't it? Perhaps that's why dystopias are so prevalent in our culture right now; they are closer to our reality.
Only vaguely before I read Jonathan Ganz’ excellent biography of Smedley Butler, “Gangsters of Democracy”. Butler was the Zelig of bad American foreign policy, right there with National City Bank and Sullivan & Cromwell. Well worth reading!
yes, it is. I'd known about the plan to install him as president, but the extent to which Butler really WAS a sort of Zelig, but also--very often--a mover and shaker. when he called himself a gangster, he knew what he was saying.
but the author is Jonathan Katz, who also has an excellent Substack.
That’s right, thanks for the correction.
I have Smedley Butler's own book, "War is a Racket".....a very interesting book, as he was involved in the Central American interventions the Marines carried out to protect US businesses.
“Gangsters of Democracy.” How did I miss it.
As always…learning. Never knew about the Samar Campaign.
And also received an email share of Professor Timothy Snyder’s post today about terrorism.. My first thought was….that’s what TC said yesterday.🤔
Simple minded allegiances based on “Israel Good” Palestine Bad” or vice versa will now guide the media’s reporting and thus the tenor of the discussions as foreign policy experts slam their palms into their foreheads attempting to educate the masses in the face of politicians who have no interest in the conflict except as it can be used as a campaign lie
Excellent essay Tom. I had zero knowledge of this.
Me, too Excellent essay. Zero knowledge of this. This awfulness.
another cool thing about Judaism is the no proselytizing thing. non-MOTs never mention this. and you know why?
because they've NEVER had to think about it.
Excellent point.
I didn't know about this but it doesn't surprise me. It is an early example of the "gook" defense--I'm glad you mentioned My Lai--also don't forget Bến Tre, the town that needed to be destroyed in order to save it. Dehumanizing anyone related to an enemy, including through mere ethnicity, is all too common. A look at Wikipedia's list of war crimes is illuminating.
Never forget https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0K3LJq9KnU
this was a good one, Tom.
and we share the same fears...
And on and on it goes. I have zero faith in Netanyahu’s ability to or interest in restraining himself.
Brilliant Tom, thanks. "Still, they must be brought into subjugation, and kept so until they learn that the purpose is to give them freedom and the blessings of that..." Or, in other words, beatings will continue until moral improves.
Never heard of the Balangiga Massacre, or the Samar Campaign. They didn't make it into "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, although it sure sounds like they should have. Thanks for this report, TC.
Like many reading your fabulous essay, I have never heard any of this history regarding the Philippines. Thanks so much for this essay. We certainly need more history of more nations and peoples being appropriately taught throughout all generations. If we knew and understood more of our own history maybe there would have been more capacity to resist the MAGA virus.
It is unfortunate that Israeli voters have put Netanjahu in office too often. He and djt appear to have been cut from the same cloth. It is a piece of cloth intended for a shroud I fear.