[News] Waterboarding in American History
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu Nov 8 11:59:51 EST 2007
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
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20071108/9889d2df/attachment.htm>
More information about the News
mailing list