[News] Waterboarding in American History

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/katz11082007.html

November 8, 2007


Using the "Water Cure" in the Philippines


Waterboarding in American History

By WILLIAM LOREN KATZ

Some high U.S. officials claim not be aware of it, and Judge Michael 
Mukasey, the President's choice for attorney general, prefers to 
equivocate, but water boarding has long been a form of torture that 
causes excruciating pain and can lead to death. It forces water into 
prisoner's lungs, usually over and over again. The Spanish 
Inquisition in the late 1400s used this torture to uncover and punish 
heretics, and then in the early 1500s Spain's inquisitors carried it 
overseas to root out heresy in the New World. It reappeared during 
the witch hysteria. Women accused of sorcery were "dunked" and held 
under water to see if they were witches.

In World War II Japan and Germany routinely used water boarding on 
prisoners. In Viet Nam U.S. forces held bound Viet Cong captives and 
"sympathizers" upside down in barrels of water. Water boarding also 
has been associated with the Khmer Rouge.

An extensive record of its use by the United States land forces 
exists in the records of the invasion and occupation of the 
Philippines that began in 1898. As the U.S. encountered armed 
resistance by the liberation army of Filipino General Emilio 
Aguinaldo, and sank into a 12-year quagmire on the archipelago, U.S. 
officers routinely resorted to what they called "the water cure." 
Professor Stuart C. Miller's study of the Philippine war, "Benevolent 
Assimilation," reveals this sordid story through Congressional 
testimony, letters from soldiers, court martial hearings, words of 
critics and defenders, and newspaper accounts. The pro-imperialist 
media of the day justified the "water cure" as necessary to gain 
information; the anti-imperialist media denounced its use by the U.S 
or any other civilized nation.

Fresh from their recent victories in the Indian wars, the Philippine 
invasion of 1898 began with a big war whoop. U.S. forces landed in 
the Philippines in 1898 led by American officers such Pershing, 
Lawton, Smith, Shafter, Otis, Merritt, and Chafee, who had fought 
"treacherous redskins." At least one officer had taken part in the 
infamous 1891 massacre of 350 Lakota men, women and children at 
Wounded Knee. A U.S. media that had supported the Army's brutal 
Indian campaigns rhapsodized about this new opportunity for distant 
racial warfare. The influential San Francisco Argonaut spoke 
candidly: "We do not want the Filipinos. We want the Philippines. The 
islands are enormously rich, but unfortunately they are infested with 
Filipinos. There are many millions there, and it is to be feared 
their extinction will be slow." The paper's solution was to recommend 
several unusually cruel methods of torture it believed "would impress 
the Malay mind."

President William McKinley dispatched Admiral Dewey to the 
Philippines with a pledge to bestow civilization and Christianity on 
its people, and promise eventual independence. Perhaps he was unaware 
that most Filipinos were Catholics. Perhaps he did not know that 
General Aguinaldo and his 40,000 troops were 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0767912314/counterpunchmaga>
[]
poised to remove Spain from the islands. Dewey supplied Aguinaldo 
with weapons and encouraged him, but that soon changed.

 From the White House and the U.S. high command to field officers and 
lowly enlistees the message became "these people are not civilized" 
and the United States had embarked on a glorious overseas adventure 
against "savages." Officers and enlisted men - and the media -- were 
encouraged to see the conflict through a "white superiority" lens, 
much as they viewed their victories over Native Americans and African 
Americans. The Philippine occupation unfolded at the high tide of 
American segregation, lynching, and a triumphant white supremacy ideology.

U.S. officers ordered massacres of entire villages and conducted a 
host of other shameful atrocities as the Philippine quagmire dragged 
on for more than a decade. "A white man seems to forget that he is 
human," wrote a white soldier from the Philippines.

Atrocities abounded. To produce "a demoralized and obedient 
population" in Batangas, General Franklin Bell ordered the 
destruction of "humans, crops, food stores, domestic animals, houses 
and boats." He became known as the "butcher" of Batangas. General 
Jacob Smith, who had been wounded fighting at Wounded Knee, said his 
overseas campaigns were "worse than fighting Indians." He promised to 
turn Samar province into a "howling wilderness." Smith defined the 
enemy as anyone "ten years and up" and issued these instructions to 
Marine Commander Tony Waller: "I want no prisoners. I wish you to 
kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please 
me." He became known as "Howling Jake" Smith.

The "water cure" was probably first instituted when U.S. forces 
encountered local resistance. Professor Miller states that General 
Frederick Funston in 1901 may have used it to capture the Filipino 
General Emilio Aguinaldo. A New York World article described the 
"water cure" as forcing "water with handfuls of salt thrown in to 
make it more efficacious, is forced down the throats of patients 
until their bodies become distended to the point of bursting . . .." 
This may have been only one on the versions used.

The water cure became front-page news when William Howard Taft, 
appointed U.S. Governor of the Philippines, testified under oath 
before Congress and let the cat out of the bag. The "so called water 
cure," he admitted, was used "on some occasions to extract 
information." The Arena, an opposition paper, called his words "a 
most humiliating admission that should strike horror in the mind of 
every American." Around the same time as Taft's admission a soldier 
boasted in a letter made public that he had used the water cure on 
160 people and only 26 had survived. The man was compelled by the War 
Department to retract his damaging confession. But then another 
officer stated the "water cure" was being widely used when he 
reported, "the problem of the 'water cure' is in knowing how to apply 
it." Such statements leave unclear how often the form of torture was 
used for interrogation and how often it became a way to exhibit 
racial animosity or display contempt.

During a triumphal U.S. speaking tour General Frederick Funston, 
bearing a Congressional Medal of Honor and harboring political 
ambitions, bellicosely promoted total war. In Chicago he boasted of 
sentencing 35 suspects to death without trial and enthusiastically 
endorsed torture and civilian massacres. He even publicly suggested 
that anti-war protestors be dragged out of their homes and lynched.

Funston's words met far more applause than criticism. In San 
Francisco he suggested that the editor of a noted anti-imperialist 
paper "ought to be strung up to the nearest lamppost." At a banquet 
in the city he called Filipinos "unruly savages" and (now) claimed he 
had personally killed fifty prisoners without trial. Captain Edmond 
Boltwood, an officer under Funston, confirmed that the general had 
personally administered the water cure to captives, and had told his 
troops "to take no prisoners."

President Theodore Roosevelt reprimanded Funston and ordered him to 
cease his inflammatory rhetoric. Facing a political challenge from 
General Nelson Miles based in the Philippines, TR, who rode into the 
White House on his heroic exploits at San Juan Hill, did not intend 
to nourish more competition. The President privately assured a friend 
the water cure was "an old Filipino method of mild torture" and 
claimed when Americans administered it "no body was seriously 
damaged." But publicly TR was silent about the "water cure."

In an article, "The 'Water Cure' from a Missionary Point of View," 
Reverend Homer Stunz justified the technique. It was not torture, he 
said, since the victim could stop it any time by revealing what his 
interrogators wanted to know. Besides, he insisted, it was only 
applied to "spies." The missionary also justified instances of 
torture by pointing out that U.S. soldiers "in lonely and remote 
bamboo jungles" faced stressful conditions.

Mark Twain, a leading anti-imperialist voice, offered this view of 
the water cure:

"Funston's example has bred many imitators, and many ghastly 
additions to our history: the torturing of Filipinos by the awful 
'water- cure,' for instance, to make them confess -- what? Truth? Or 
lies? How can one know which it is they are telling? For under 
unendurable pain a man confesses anything that is required of him, 
true or false, and his evidence is worthless. Yet upon such evidence 
American officers have actually -- but you know about those 
atrocities which the War Office has been hiding a year or two...."

U.S. military trials for what are now known as war crimes all 
resulted in convictions. Waller was acquitted because he followed the 
orders of Smith, and later retired with two stars. "Howling Jake" 
Smith was convicted, but he returned to a tumultuous citizens' 
welcome in San Francisco. When the convicted U.S. war criminals 
received only slaps-on-the-wrist U.S. prestige abroad sunk to new lows.

A San Francisco park was named after General Funston. TR appointed 
General Bell of Batangas infamy as his chief of staff. And the 
President continued to wave the banner of aggressive imperialism. In 
1903 he flagrantly seized a broad swath of Columbia's Isthmus of 
Panama so he could link the Pacific and Atlantic oceans under U.S. 
control. This boosted his popularity and splintered the 
anti-imperialist movement. TR also worked to undermine efforts to 
grant the Philippines independence, which finally took place after 
World War II.

TR easily won a return to the White House in 1904, and in 1908 he 
chose Taft as his successor. By the time Taft left the White House in 
1913, military resistance in the Philippines had ended, and so 
presumably had the "water cure." TR had become a Mount Rushmore-size 
American icon.

The "water cure" was accepted as a necessary embarrassment in 
wartime. Appeals to muscular patriotism had exonerated the "water 
cure" and reduced a crime of torture to a misdemeanor. Is the U.S. 
headed the same way in 2007?

William Loren Katz is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0689809018/counterpunchmaga>Black 
Indians: A Hidden Heritage. His new, revised edition of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0767912314/counterpunchmaga>The 
Black West [Harlem Moon/Random House, 2005] also includes information 
on the Philippine occupation, and can now be found in bookstores. 
This essay is based on his latest book, "The Cruel Years: American 
Voices at the Dawn of the 20th Century" [Beacon Press, 2003] and even 
more heavily draws on Stuart Creighton Miller, "Benevolent 
Assimilation" [Yale University Press, 1982. He can be reached through 
his website: <http://www.williamlkatz.com/>www.williamlkatz.com




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