Philippine-American War

[Hawker]

The Philippine-American War started on February 4, 1899 and was officially proclaimed by President Roosevelt to have ended on July 4, 1902.

The Philippine-American War was a war of attrition. The Americans identified their objective as the capture of Emilio Aguinaldo, the President of the fledging Philippine Republic. They initially perceived conquest and pacification as dependent on the fall of the Aguinaldo government. Because of their superiority in weapons, they also believed that the war would be short and swift in their favor. But the Americans were shocked at the courage and tenacity of the Filipinos who dragged the Americans into several years of battle.



In 1899, because of their firepower, the US forces under General Arthur MacArthur (father of Douglas) were able to "break out" of Manila and begin moving into the interior, aided in particular by heavy shelling from naval vessels. Dewey's artillery destroyed the area where the Filipinos were entrenched, causing heavy casualties (3000 that first day). It also caused a British observer to say that "this is not war; it is simply massacre and murderous butchery." As they moved through the suburbs, homes were vandalized and looted (a letter home from a soldier reads "the house I had at Santa Ana had five pianos. I couldn't take them, so I put a big grand piano put of a second-story window.").

The american Newspaaper Chicago Tribune commented the fighting deaths that occurred the night the Philippine-American War began:

"The slaughter at Manila was necessary, but not glorious. The entire American population justifies the conduct of its army at Manila because only by a crushing repulse of the Filipinos could our position be made secure. We are the trustees of civilization and peace throughout the islands."




US troops continued to spread outward from Manila, taking the small towns and cities as they went. On the way, the soldiers (many of whom did not want to be there and some suffering from sicknesses common in the area) inflicted heavy casualties on the Filipinos; sometimes killing prisoners (if taken at all). Houses and buildings were burned. One soldier stated that he had "with his own hand set fire to over fifty houses of Filipinos after the victory at Caloocan. Women and children were wounded" (note: after the victory). In many cases, between the fighting and fleeing, towns were left without any inhabitants. Said of the battle referred to in the last quote: "Caloocan was supposed to contain 17,000 inhabitants. The Twentieth Kansas swept through it, and now Caloocan contains not one living native."

Town after town seemed to fall under the US control. And with it came the carnage. After shelling Malabon, the soldiers "went in and killed every native we met, men, women, children." On the other hand, it went both ways as the Filipinos were sometimes known to hack up the soldiers with their bolos (whether they would have resorted to doing so with innocent noncombatants is an interesting question).



The Filipinos waged a guerrilla warfare which was suitable for the country’s terrain and their limited firearms. Many of them were peasants by day and revolutionaries by night. They were sustained in their struggle by the unrelenting support of entire towns. Even if the American flag was displayed in the town and the local elite officials publicly acknowledged support to the United States, it did not matter since the guerrillas received food, supplies, and shelter from the people. It was dangerous for an American to stray away from the U.S. garrison lest he be hacked to death by the guerrillas and their sympathizers.



Towards the end of 1900, the Americans declared martial law. To combat guerrilla warfare, they launched a scorched-earth "pacification" campaign. Every Filipino, whom the Americans called "nigger", was viewed as an enemy regardless of whether he or she took up arms. Entire towns were held responsible for the actions of guerrillas. Mere objection to the Americans was termed treason. Villages sympathetic to the guerrilla were burned and people indiscriminately killed. Torture was systematically used to elicit information from suspected guerrillas or their symphatizers. One form of torture was the "water cure" treatment where the victim was forced to drink excessive amounts of water after which he was stomped on the stomach. These atrocities were widely known since the U.S. War Department imposed a blanket censorship, but American soldiers wrote to their families and relatives in the U.S. and related their activities. Some of these letters were eventually published in American local newspapers, thus highlighting the brutality of these "pacification" campaigns.

Part of the strategy was the introduction of "reconcentration", a policy of hauling an entire population into concentration camps to flush out the guerrillas among them and to cut their material support to the resistance movement. In the process of reconcentration, whole towns suffered from starvation and disease. Villagers were taken from their sources of livelihood and were not decently fed. Worse, living conditions were less than adequate, with people confined in overcrowded camps without proper sanitation. Camps then became breeding grounds for the spread of deadly diseases such as cholera.

Major General Franklin Bell wanted to break the resistance movement of the Batangueno Filipino General Miguel Malvar. The Batanguenos were forcibly brought into reconcentration camps. Everything outside the camp was confiscated or destroyed, and anyone caught outside was automatically deemed a guerrilla. In Batangas, casualties as a result of fighting and reconcentration surpassed 100,000.


On Sept. 28 1901 Filipino guerillas infiltrated the town of Balangiga, Samar, attacking American troops at their breakfast table and killing 54.
Afte the succesfull attack on American soldiers at Balangiga in 1901, due to the public demand in the U.S. for retaliation, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the pacification of Samar. And in six months, General “Jake” Smith transformed Balangiga into a “howling wilderness.” He ordered his men to kill anybody capable of carrying arms, including ten-year-old boys.

Smith particularly ordered Major Littleton Waller to punish the people of Samar for the deaths of the American troops. His orders were: “I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn, the better you will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States.”

[Hawker]

Kill every one over ten." - Gen. Jacob H. Smith
Criminals,Because They Were Born Ten Years Before We Took the Philippines.
Editorial cartoon from the New York Evening Journal, May 5, 1902

[ComradeRobertRiley]

Its sickening.


BTW from your signature, I think that if you undermine yankee patriotism alone the country will collapse.

[Hawker]

Originally posted by ComradeRobertRiley@Dec 28 2003, 11:12 PM
Its sickening.


BTW from your signature, I think that if you undermine yankee patriotism alone the country will collapse.

True,but Stalin said this,I think he knows America better than anybody.

[ComradeRobertRiley]

Cant argue with that.

[Kez]

how would Stalin know anything about America? other than trival bollocks? did he write books on it like Lenin and Trotsky? No

[Hawker]

Originally posted by TavareeshKamo@Dec 29 2003, 12:39 PM
how would Stalin know anything about America? other than trival bollocks? did he write books on it like Lenin and Trotsky? No

Quote from Sun Tzu:
"Keep your friends close,but your enemy closer"

[ComradeRobertRiley]

By your logic Kamo if you did not write a book about it then you dont know about it, hmmm you must know nothing about everything then.

[che's long lost daughter]

"The slaughter at Manila was necessary, but not glorious. The entire American population justifies the conduct of its army at Manila because only by a crushing repulse of the Filipinos could our position be made secure. We are the trustees of civilization and peace throughout the islands."
....whoever wrote this must be dead now, he should be glad he is because if not, I'll be the one to personally decapitate him with my light saber and feed his head to the lions... :angry:



It is very interesting to see someone posting about the Philippines here...are you from the Philippines, Hawker? I am and I am very proud of my people who fought in that war and in every war that the Filipino people have fought and will still fight. If you are Filipino, I am sure you also know all of these but if not, well, just read on...

You forgot to mention that before that war, we were sold by Spain to America for $20 Million and that is how the Americans came in, see how Capitalism is king of AMerica even during that time? Anyhow, the Americans won the war and left us as their commonwealth, promising us freedom and all that crap. They even have that so-called "Benevolent Assimilation" program shit which wasn't benevolent at all. They never allowed us to raise our flags and anyone who does gets imprisoned and sometimes even killed. To make the story shorter....So we got our pseudo-freedom on the 4th of July, 1946 (yeah, THEIR independence day) but we were already free when the first Philippine Republic was proclaimed...that is, until they BOUGHT us. And the buying still continues and our *ahem* president allows it because he is a slave to Bush. ABout a couple of months ago, Bush came to visit us (oh, in spite of the danger brought by the terrorists, he was brave enough to come....could someone give me a plastic bag, I want to barf :angry: ) and stayed for EIGHT HOURS and then went to Thailand and stayed there for THREE DAYS. The government spent a lot for that visit and Bush was said to have given some financial support and in exchange for what, MY PEOPLE"S FREEDOM. So unless we get a President who wouldn't slave for Bush, I guess we will never really be free


Here are two of my poems...this describes how I feel about not really being free...


Par Avion

You travel to foreign lands
And promote the beauty of our
Country to imperialists who,
In time will turn into
Vampires, sucking the blood
Out of your people and leaving
Lifeless bodies behind to be
Fed to the vultures...


Libertad
Why do you stand on the podium?
Why do you make your long speeches?
Why do you promise that never again will your people
Suffer from tyranny and oppression when I see that
You yourself are a slave to multinational companies
And foreign armies which held us captive in
Invisible cages not made of steel but of a material called
In different names like poverty, starvation, privatization,
Retrenchment, injustice and ignorance…
I guess, you yourself are ignorant because you do not know that
With every slice of venison you eat with your foreign allies,
With every glass of chardonnay you clink with theirs,
With every picture of yours taken with them,
With every handshake you make,
You cut my life and tear it into pieces;
You take away the freedom that you promised.

[Hawker]

Yeah I'm Filipino I live Washington State.

[che's long lost daughter]

I am glad to see another Filipino here...I think we are very few here, as far as I know only three--you, me and another one whose name I forgot but with the avatar of the Philippine flag with a red star in the middle...