"Together our soldiers liberated the Philippines from colonial rule." - W

[Khephra]

From Manila, Today's History Lesson

President Bush stopped in Manila on Saturday to speak to the Philippine Congress. The speech was warmly received, though some eyebrows lifted when he said, "America is proud of its part in the great story of the Filipino people. Together our soldiers liberated the Philippines from colonial rule."

Actually, a lot of Filipinos think they had won liberation from Spain in 1898, and that "our soldiers" then fought a bloody four-year war -- against each other -- over U.S. colonial rule.

In the war, or "insurrection," depending on your point of view, more than 4,000 U.S. troops died -- about 1,000 in battle and the rest from disease and other causes. At least 16,000 Filipinos were killed in combat, and another 200,000 died from disease or starvation, according to a reference work called Warfare and Armed Conflicts. The Philippines remained a U.S. colony until 1946.

(other interesting bits on other topics)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61602-2003Oct21.html

1. history of the present

Good editorial about this subject here:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/1003/22phil.html

I also noticed that Bush said the Philippines were a good example of how we could succeed in Iraq, our newest colony.
Ok, he didn't Say they were our newest colony.

[LoneStarLiberal]

4. A slip or his true beliefs?

Maybe this is just our Nobel-Prize winning President up to his silly rhetorical and historical hijinks again...

...or maybe not.

Seems to me that with our current coddling of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, two uninspiring models of political liberalization and tolerance, that the administration REALLY DOES believe that our experience with the Phillipines is a good model. I mean if you like Musharaff, how can you dislike Marcos?

The policy people over at Foggy Bottom have to be alternatively dying in laughter and then sobbing in grief over comments like this one.

[BrewerJohn]

2. There go those "revisionist historians" again!

:evilgrin:

[DisgustipatedinCA]

3. I keep reposting this

Because it keeps getting into threads that drop like a stone. :)

Here's how we "liberated" them:

I'm typing directly from my copy of A People's History of the United States, by Anthony Zinn.

(page 315)
A captain from Kansas wrote: “Caloocan was supposed to contain 17,000 inhabitants. The Twentieth Kansas swept through it, and now Caloocan contains not one living native.” A private from the same outfit said he had “with my own hand set fire to over fifty houses of Filipinos after the victory at Caloocan. Women and children were wounded by our fire.”
A volunteer from the state of Washington wrote: “Our fighting blood was up, and we all wanted to kill ‘niggers.’…This shooting human beings beats rabbit hunting all to pieces.”

…

(further down on page 315)

In November 1901, the Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger reported:

“The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog…Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to make them talk, and have taken prisoners people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later, without an atom of evidence to show that they were even insurrectos, stood them on a bridge and shot them down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down, as examples to those who found their bullet-loaded corpses.

And on page 316:

In Manila, a Marine named Littletown Waller, a major, was accused of shooting eleven defenseless Filipinos, without trial, on the island of Samar. Other marine officers described his testimony:

“The major said that General Smith instructed him to kill and burn, and said that the more he killed and burned the better pleased he would be; that it was no time to take prisoners, and that he was to make Samar a howling wilderness. Major Waller asked General Smith to define the age limit for killing, and he replied “Everything over ten.”

[DrBB]

5. Well, just keep on doing it!

The "Spanish-American War" and the 100s of thousands Filipinos killed in the US's great imperial slaughter deserves to be retold. Everytime I see some halfway intelligent person like Tom Friedman sign on to the PNAC plan, I want to shove these facts in their faces. "Oh but we'd never do it that way now!" Oh no? Just watch.....

[IrateCitizen]

16. I remember reading that myself in "People's History"

My jaw just about hit the floor. How we can maintain the mirage of being a beacon of freedom and democracy and self-determination is absolutely amazing in the face of evidence like this. It's really not far off from the revision of history that Winston Smith engages in in 1984.

BTW -- it's HOWARD, not ANTHONY Zinn. Just a small quibble.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

17. Thanks

I wonder how I came up with Anthony.

[denverbill]

18. General Anthony Zinni, that's how:)

[DisgustipatedinCA]

23. That's the one

of the Roadmap v 1.0 fame.

Thanks, and I apologize for putting the wrong name out there.

[Loonman]

6. Reagan

Reagan used to call Ferdinand Marcos a "champion of democracy".

[IrateCitizen]

7. Not to mention the Afghan mujahadeen, whom he called...

"The moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers."

Come to think of it, I think he might have said a similar thing about the Nicaraguan Contra terrorists.

[LoneStarLiberal]

8. Mobutu, Too

Had Mobutu Sese Seko, aka Jukin' Joe Mobutu, as an official guest at the White House and awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

[eleny]

9. Bush only carries books for photo ops

He's got to be one of the most ill informed presidents. And the administration is shocked and appalled when people say he's an embarrassment.

Here's a graphic I created a while back. Seems like an appropriate time to drag it out for another look.

[Richardo]

10. The Phillipine "war" was the inspiration for Mark Twain's "War Prayer"

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/making/warprayer.html

chilling in today's context.

[maha]

11. Went on longer than 4 years

I read about this speech in an op ed by James Pinkerton in New York Newsday. Mr. Pinkerton does a pretty fair job of setting the record straight.

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-vppin213503433oct21,0,4494417.column?coll=ny-news-columnists

I discussed the "liberation" of the Philippines by the U.S. on my blog awhile back, also.

http://www.mahablog.com/id4.html

In my opinion, America's little escapade in the Philippines a century or so ago remains among the ugliest, most brutal, and most depraved things this nation ever did. It's right up there with slavery, the massacre of native Americans, and Vietnam.

We sure as hell did not fight "with" Philippines soldiers to liberate the Philippines. Rather, after defeating Spanish forces in Manilla, the United States proceeded to fight a long and bloody war against Filipinos in order to take the place of Spain as colonial ruler. This adventure culminated in the massacre of at least 900 Filipino Muslims, including women and children, by U.S. troops on the island of Jolo in 1906. Notice that the war had officiall ended.

I realize that if I stopped ten thousand Americans in the street today and asked them about the Filipino-American war, only a handful would have any clue what I was talking about. But, I am told, the people of the Philippines have not forgotten, especially Filipino Muslims. The island of Jolo today is a hotbed of anti-American Muslim extremism, and not by coincidence.

Back to Shrub's speech. The members of the Philippines national congress showed remarkable restraint by remaining in their seats and not rising up against Shrub to throttle him. However, I can't imagine our "President" reassured many people in the Philippines that we have their best interests at heart.

Not surprisingly, Filipinos staged some lively anti-Bush demonstrations during Bush's brief visit.

But ... WTF? Doesn't anyone on the White House staff have a brain? It's bad enough that the alleged President of the United States doesn't bother to learn his own country's history. But you'd think someone on the staff would be put in charge of reviewing the Simpleton's speeches for stupidity, especially after the State of the Union-Niger yellowcake fiasco.

I guess not.

Mr. Pinkerton ended his op-ed: "If Bush had known the history of Iraq, he wouldn't have made all these mistakes earlier this year. But, of course, if he had known the history of the Philippines, he wouldn't have given the speech he gave on Saturday."

It's one thing to be ignorant. But it's another thing to be in a position of power and then remain ignorant out of sheer laziness. Bush isn't even trying to do his job; he just coasts along, expecting his staff to make him look good and clean up his messes. Words cannot describe how disgusted I am.

[KG]

12. just like all those slave sailing away from africa to freedod inthe US

the chimp so eloquently put it earlier this year. what a complete moron.

[MUAD_DIB]

13. This is just another shining example of how

The Smirking Chimp makes America look like a crossroads of knowledge, culture and brilliance.

</sarcasm>

Can this horses ass open up his mouth without embarassing this country?

Can this monkey's dearth of history, considering that he should be debriefed by his handlers on what he is going to say, be any more apparent?

What a sad and scarey joke we must seem to the rest of the world.

[IrateCitizen]

14. HEY -- wasn't Junior a HISTORY major at Yale???

I mean, I never gave him an credit for intellectual curiosity, but you'd figure that odds are that at least SOMETHING would have snuck in there by accident during his time at Yale????

[Classical_Liberal]

22. You can hire people to take your tests at most colleges

I believe that is what W did. He is a fraud and a liar.

[TSElliott]

15. Maybe he was talking about...

Liberating them from the Japanese Colonial rule after WWII?

[mumon]

19. OOOoooooooooooooohhhhh....

Killing people is "liberation."

Sick, sick, sick.

[WilliamPitt]

20. "What is history but a fable agreed upon?" - Napoleon

[Classical_Liberal]

21. He didn't do it out of Ignorance.

This distortion of history is happening on purpose. He lied, plain and simple. The Bush adminstration are demogogues who deliberately mislead people. The neocons are apologists for the Philipines war, and Karl Roves hero is William McKinley. Read Nail Ferguson, and Mas Boot if you don't believe me.