The Philippine American War: Waterboarding

This is from the Inquirer. Obviously waterboarding is not a new torture method or even new to Americans. The article draws some interesting parallels to the war in Iraq even noting that the American public became rather indifferent to the conflict or at least the reporting of atrocities.



By Michael Tan
Columnist
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: March 28, 2008


MANILA, Philippines—In the year 1902, the Philippines was very much in the Americans' public consciousness, much like Iraq is today. America's adventure in the Philippines began in 1898, when it went to war against Spain. Commodore George Dewey sailed into the Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, and quickly defeated the already demoralized Spanish forces. Spain had its hands full in the islands, with Filipino revolutionaries fighting for independence and was probably only too happy to unload the Philippines, together with Guam and Costa Rica, to the Americans through the Treaty of Paris.
But trouble was already brewing when the Treaty of Paris was ratified by the US Senate in February 1899. Only two days before the ratification, hostilities had broken out in Manila when an American patrol was supposedly attacked by a band of Filipino insurgents. The Philippine-American War erupted and more American soldiers had to be sent to the islands.

Within a few weeks after the Philippine-American War broke out, allegations of US military atrocities began to appear in the United States. In April 1899, a New York newspaper, the Evening Post, carried reports of a massacre of Filipino prisoners in Caloocan. Then, as today in Iraq, such reports often came from conscience-stricken American soldiers, who would request anonymity. The Evening Post ran into trouble because they could not bring out the soldiers and eventually had to retract.

But the letters continued and more American newspapers picked up on these reports. Most disturbing were reports of the use of the "water cure," large amounts of water forced into prisoners to extract confessions. There were so many reports of this torture that eventually, the US Senate had to launch an inquiry into the behavior of American soldiers in the Philippines. The hearings began on Jan. 31, 1902, and were conducted by the Senate's Committee on the Philippines, headed by Henry Cabot Lodge.

The Committee's members were largely biased in favor of the American occupation of the Philippines but enough evidence was presented in the hearings, about the water cure, "reconcentration" camps and outright massacres, to bring out public condemnation of the war. Last Wednesday I gave some of the details about those hearings and said I'd continue this Friday and tell you what came out of the Lodge Committee hearings.

The hearings put the American military on the defensive. It supplied witnesses who claimed that the instances of military misconduct were isolated. William Howard Taft, who had been assigned to the Philippines, even argued that the Filipinos themselves sometimes asked to be tortured, so that if they gave away information about their comrades, they could claim this was forced out of them.

Other American soldiers testified that the Filipino insurgents also had their share of atrocities. Former Sgt. L. E. Hallock said they had used the water cure after one of their men had been captured and then tortured to death by roasting. Other American soldiers testified that the water cure was inflicted mainly by Macabebes, Filipinos recruited from Pampanga, to serve as interpreters and scouts for the Americans.

Again, as with Iraq, war was cruel for both sides, and one can imagine how difficult it was for American soldiers to understand the Philippines and Filipinos. What was clear though was that many of the Americans were goaded on by racism. A Gen. Robert Hughes, asked if the military's behavior in the Philippines came under the "limits of civilized warfare," replied: "These people are not civilized."

Senator Lodge himself proposed that the misconduct had "grown out of the conditions of warfare, of the war that was waged by the Filipinos themselves, a semi-civilized people, with all the tendencies and characteristics of Asiatics, with the Asiatic indifference to life, with the Asiatic treachery and the Asiatic cruelty, all tinctured and increased by 300 years of subjection to Spain."

The hearings did result in some action. Capt. Edwin Glenn, accused of ordering the use of the water cure and the burning of Igbaras, Iloilo, was court-martialled. He asked that the hearings be conducted in Catbalogan, Samar, away from the "high state of excitement in the United States." The trial included testimony from Tobeniano Ealdama, Igbaras' presidente and a victim of the water cure. Glenn admitted that the water cure had become "the habitual method of obtaining information from individual insurgents" and that this was "a legitimate exercise of force under the laws of war."

Glenn was found guilty of "conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline," suspended for one month and ordered to pay a $50 fine. In 1919, he retired as brigadier general. Ealdama went back to prison, where he was serving a 10-year sentence of hard labor for his participation in the insurgency.

Another court martial was ordered for Gen. Jacob Smith, this one held in Manila. One of his officers had testified that "Hell-roaring Jake" had ordered troops to retaliate against the town of Balanginga in Samar for an ambush that resulted in the death of 48 US Army soldiers. Smith allegedly ordered: "the more you kill and burn, the better it will please me." Asked who they could spare, Smith was said to have commented that even a child of 10 could bear arms. Reports on the number of Balanginga's death toll vary, going up as high as 5,000.

Smith was found guilty, and his punishment consisted of a slight reprimand and early retirement.

The Lodge Committee hearings, and these court martials, may have served to defuse public anxieties, and eventually, the Americans grew tired of the news about the Philippines. As early as April 1902, one New York newspaper complained that readers were being served too much of "Philippine atrocities" for breakfast.

On July 4, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt declared a victorious end to the Philippine Insurrection. Officially, there were no more insurgents, only "brigands" (bandits). The Lodge Committee officially declared an end to its inquiry on February 1903.

'Waterboarding'
It was not, however, the last we were to hear of the American military and the water cure. More than a century later, in fact just last month, an investigation into "waterboarding" began in the US Congress. The US Central Intelligence Agency's Michael Hayden argued that "Strapping a person to a surface, covering their face with cloth and pouring water on their face to imitate the sensation of drowning" could be used if "an unlawful combatant is possessing information that would help us prevent catastrophic loss of life of Americans or their allies." Hayden said they had used the method in 2002 and 2003 but only on three top al-Qaida suspects. The US attorney general, Michael Mukasey, said he would not open a criminal investigation into the CIA's use of waterboarding.

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Email: mtan@inquirer.com.ph





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