The Phillipines

"America is proud of its part in the great story of the Filipino people," George W. Bush, October, 2003, "Together our soldiers liberated the Philippines from colonial rule." That remark prompted these thoughts from John Judis in the July/August 2004 Foreign Policy:

As many Philippine commentators remarked afterward, Bush's rendition of Philippine-American history bore little relation to fact. True, the U.S. Navy ousted Spain from the Philippines in the Spanish-American War of 1898. But instead of creating a Philippine democracy, the McKinley administration, its confidence inflated by victory in that splendid little war, annexed the country and installed a colonial administrator. The United States then waged a brutal war against the same Philippine independence movement it encouraged to fight against Spain. The war dragged on for 14 years. Before it ended, about 120,000 U.S. troops were deployed, more than 4,000 were killed, and more than 200,000 Filipino civilians and soldiers were killed. Resentment lingered a century later during Bush's visit.

As for the Philippines' democracy, the United States can take little credit for what exists and some blame for what doesn't. The electoral machinery the United States designed in 1946 provided a democratic veneer beneath which a handful of families, allied to U.S. investors-and addicted to kickbacks-controlled the Philippine land, economy, and society. The tenuous system broke down in 1973 when Philippine politician Ferdinand Marcos had himself declared president for life. Marcos was finally overthrown in 1986, but even today Philippine democracy remains more dream than reality. Three months before Bush's visit, a group of soldiers staged a mutiny that raised fears of a military coup. With Islamic radicals and communists roaming the countryside, the Philippines is perhaps the least stable of Asian nations. If the analogy between the United States' liberation of the Philippines and of Iraq holds true, it will not be to the credit of the Bush administration, but to the skeptics who charged that the White House undertook the invasion of Baghdad with its eyes wide shut.

Now via Daniel Larison, we see Michael O'Hanlon and Jason Campbell once again citing the Phillipines as a model of success: "The experience of successful counterinsurgency and stabilization missions in places such as the Philippines and Malaysia, by contrast, leads us to place a premium on tracking trends in the daily lives of typical citizens." To a remarkable extent our contemporary debates are just re-hashing the controversies over imperialism of over a century ago.

Comments

Why is Michael O'Hanlon allowed to say anything about anything?

Posted by ItAintEazy | July 15, 2007 9:30 AM

To a remarkable extent our contemporary debates are just re-hashing the controversies over imperialism of over a century ago.

Exactly right.

Posted by otto | July 15, 2007 9:47 AM

Countering obvious lies seems an odd style of "debate".

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 15, 2007 10:05 AM

The Phillipine Insurrection was, of course, the original "White Man's Burden," the original "Savage War of Peace" . . .

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Kipling.html

Posted by rea | July 15, 2007 10:11 AM

Here is what William McKinley said in justification of the annexation of the Philippines:

When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them. I sought counsel from all sides—Democrats as well as Republicans—but got little help. I thought first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then other islands perhaps also. I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way—I don’t know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain—that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany—our commercial rivals in the Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self-government—and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department (our map-maker), and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States (pointing to a large map on the wall of his office), and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President!

What I want to know is when we are putting Iraq on the map of the United States, because the US map on my wall is looking, like, so 1959.

Posted by Dan Kervick | July 15, 2007 10:18 AM

To a remarkable extent our contemporary debates are just re-hashing the controversies over imperialism of over a century ago.

If your book consisted of nothing but this point, repeated over and over with increasing shrillness, it would probably be the most important addition of the decade to our elite foreign policy dialogue.

Posted by DivGuy | July 15, 2007 10:21 AM

Santayana notwithstanding, these kinds of historical comparisons tend to break down pretty quickly. That said, the parallels between Bush and Iraq/McKinley and the Philippines are downright spooky in some respects. Here's one, highly fortunate, way the comparison breaks down: McKinley/Hanna really did achieve a "permanent" Republican majority.

Posted by Incompetence Dodger | July 15, 2007 10:24 AM

Considering that 10 soldiers just got their heads lopped off in the southern Philippines, I'd say that our contemporary debate consists of ways to define success downward.

Posted by daveNYC | July 15, 2007 10:43 AM

Oh. My. God.

These people shamelessly mix lies with ignorance into a truly fetid stew. The notion that we "liberated" the Philipines is scary. You could use it, I guess, in the sense that a thief liberates you from your money.

Even more scary with respect to the Iraq analogy, is the fact that an insurgency raged on for another decade after the elections of 1946. The "Huk Rebellion" nearly toppled the government of the Philipines largely based on the fact that the ruling elite had been quislings during the Japanese occupation, while the Huks had fought a Maoist style resistance to the Japanese.

These people are historical illiterates and frauds.

Posted by Klein's tiny left nut | July 15, 2007 10:52 AM

The only American imperial colony that has been run with anything approaching success is the District of Columbia - and even there arguments to the contrary can be made.

Posted by lampwick | July 15, 2007 11:08 AM

I was born and raised in the Philippines, 50s and 60s,

If your interest in this amazing story is genuine, get your hands on the following:

THE STORY OF THE PHILIPPINES AND OUR NEW POSSESSIONS, Murat Halstead, Our Possessions Publishing Co., 1898

THE GUERRILLA RESISTANCE MOVEMENT IN THE PHILIPPINES, Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, Vantage Press, 1972

PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE PHILIPPINES, 1898-1916: AN INQUIRY INTO THE AMERICAN COLONIAL MENTALITY, Kenton Clymer, University of Illinois Press, 1986

THE WHITE APOS: AMERICAN GOVERNORS ON THE CORDILLERA CENTRAL, Frank Lawrence Jenista, New Day Publishers, 1987

sv

Posted by sierra volk | July 15, 2007 11:12 AM

Atrios's description of O'Hanlon as 'the Quiet American' is vindicated more and more every time he speaks.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 15, 2007 11:22 AM

"Countering obvious lies seems an odd style of "debate"."

Also an odd style of politics, like countering a punch to the face with a critique of the pugilistic form.

The left blogosphere has spent a full week laughing at WSJ Laffer curve-fitting, with AFAIK zero discussion of why the WSJ printed it and thought they could get away with it.

Matt Yglesias will be the Norman Angell of his age.

Posted by bob mcmanus | July 15, 2007 11:37 AM

Atrios's description of O'Hanlon as 'the Quiet American' is vindicated more and more every time he speaks.

Yes, except O'Hanlon won't shut up.

Posted by Dan Kervick | July 15, 2007 11:40 AM

there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them

Most Filipinos had been Catholic for over 300 years before the Spanish-American War.

Posted by croatoan | July 15, 2007 11:54 AM

instead of creating a Philippine democracy,

Let's remembr that,to the Left, "creating a ... democracy" is a Very Bad Thing.

It is hilarious that Matthew cites this. Matthew, like most of the Left, has railed against "creating a ... democracy" over and over. It is completely anathema to everything the Left believes. Only Neocons like me are interested in "creating a ... democracy". It would be perfectly fine for me to complain that the US didn't "crea[e] a ... democracy" in the Philippines at the turn of the last century, but for Matthw??? Who is he kidding?

I will offer the bold (not) prediction that Matthew is going to be coming out with an entire book devoted to the subject that the US should not be imposing democracies in other countries.

What an odd, odd, hypocritical post.

Posted by Al | July 15, 2007 12:04 PM

Most Filipinos had been Catholic for over 300 years before the Spanish-American War.

In elitteca of the 1890's, Catholic barely counted as Christian, if at all.

Posted by rea | July 15, 2007 12:43 PM

Man, that got garbled--"elittica" = "elite America". Couldn't have been my fault . . .

Posted by rea | July 15, 2007 12:46 PM

And here comes Al right on Cue to help make Matt's point.

Good lord you can't really be this stupid. Do you think your nonsesne actually convinces anyone?

"Imposing Democracy"? Do you even know what those words mean? If you did you'd understand why the statement is absurd.

Posted by Eric | July 15, 2007 12:54 PM

"Let's remembr that,to the Left, "creating a ... democracy" is a Very Bad Thing."

Do you really believe this or are you just a troll? Liberals generally like things like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the People's Revolution in the Philippines, the restoration of Chilean democracy in the late 1980's, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the Orange Revolution, etc. Just about every American I've ever met who has worked on human rights issues regarding places like Burma are liberals. What is in Iraq is an illiberal, ethnicity-based democracy, similar to what Madison called the mobicracy (sp?). After all, in Iraq we helped to push aside the last elected leader through backdoor deals and pressure to get al-Maliki in the PM's chair. Both of their power bases rested on Shi'ite parties who wish to dominate Iraqi political life. Having government-backed death squads kill Sunnis is not a feature of a functioning democracy. That is not liberal, Jeffersonian democracy. That is rule via an ethnic census. If you are separating American liberals from "The Left," then you are basically focusing on a very small number of rather insignificant figures like Chomsky who have pretty much zero influence in the real world, unless you count the United Young Socialist Revolutionaries of Berkely or whatever as the real world. An anti-democratic left is more a feature of European political life.

Posted by Reality Man | July 15, 2007 12:57 PM

"Only Neocons like me are interested in "creating a ... democracy"."

What type of democracy is that? Look at the neocon view of the Arabs as a race, which was very much influenced by the book "The Arab Mind," which claimed that Arab mothers tend to molest their children in the crib. It also claimed that the Arab mind, due to the features of the Arab language (which apparently the author had a rather superficial understanding of) is impossible of understanding things like chronology and cause-and-effect. They worship Churchill, who was involved in the merciless slaughter of Arabs and Africans just to ensure British imperial rule over people that didn't want them there.

Posted by Reality Man | July 15, 2007 1:01 PM

To the Person Sitting in Darkness, by Mark Twain
--Philippines and Spanish American War analyzed with grim and ghastly black humor

http://marktwainblog.org/to-the-person-sitting-in-darkness/

Regarding the supposed lefty aversion to democracy: I do remember the elder Bush warned Eastern Europe to go (very, imperceptably) slowly in overthrowing Soviet domination and on democratization, and conservative economists and political consultants screwing up the Russian transition because of their silly ideological fixations, and have read about Ford saying during the 1970s that Poland was not dominated by the Soviets.

If you mean by 'imposing democracy' bad faith attempts to impose autocracy, manipulate markets and potiitics (by violence if necessary), oppress the poor and ordinary working people, and control other countries for their own narrow partisan purposes and to make a buck, then I would agree that lefties tend to oppose 'imposing' democracy. As one comment said above, the very idea of 'imposing' democracy is absurd. Reactionaries and wingnuts have tended to oppose democratization whereever it would upset a status quo that the reactionary elites have found comfortable for some reason or other, and have tended to favor imposing a veneer of democratization when it can be used to further their control, or an agenda that they cannot announce publicly for fear of near universal revulsion.

Only 30% of the country believes these goofballs anymore. I hope the sane among us who are in a position to do so can explain the faslehoods, absurdities and self-contradictions of the neocons and Chenely/dub faction and get that number down to 10% or 20%. Then we might become safer and solve some of the problem these goons have created.

Posted by anon | July 15, 2007 2:38 PM

To a remarkable extent our contemporary debates are just re-hashing the controversies over imperialism of over a century ago.

So, the relevant question then is: Is imperialism still alive, or is it dead?

Let us know how you really feel. The answer truly determines how one relates to the contemporary issues in the Middle East.

Posted by Justin X | July 15, 2007 3:17 PM

In my fairly conservative Catholic secondary school ca. 1961 McKinley's idiotic remark about Christianizing the Philippines was still remembered, repeated, and treated with the contempt it deserved.

Interesting that the same (rather good) history teacher combined committed anti-Communism and committed opposition to at least the louder and more foolish side of American imperialism.

Posted by Gene O'Grady | July 15, 2007 3:21 PM

To Al: Democracies should be "created" by the citizens of a country, and not imposed upon them by a foreign power.

Posted by Jason | July 15, 2007 3:30 PM

"Most Filipinos had been Catholic for over 300 years before the Spanish-American War.

In elitteca of the 1890's, Catholic barely counted as Christian, if at all."

In addition, Muslim Filipinos were specifically targeted by the US. Muslims were among the biggest supporters of the insurgency because they felt otherwise they would be forced to convert or exterminated.

Posted by Reality Man | July 15, 2007 3:30 PM

I think Bush's reference was to the events of 1941-1945, which you may have heard of. They were in all the newspapers at the time.

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 15, 2007 3:31 PM

"I think Bush's reference was to the events of 1941-1945, which you may have heard of. They were in all the newspapers at the time."

American actions in 1941-1945 came after half a century of American brutal domination of the Philippines. The state and democracy, to the extent these things even existed, was extremely weak and easily taken apart by Marcos. Bragging about 1941-1945 is like a rapist bragging he paid for his victim's abortion.

Posted by Reality Man | July 15, 2007 3:37 PM

I think most people familiar with US and Philippino history, certainly most Philippinos I know, would interpret:

"Together our soldiers liberated the Philippines from *colonial rule*."

as a reference to Spanis *colonial* rule, not the short but very violent Japanese *military occupation* during WWII. I think anyone familiar with history would know to be careful about how such references are precisely phrased.

On the other hand, Sailor may be correct, Bush is simply completely ignorant and did not know what he was saying.

I sometimes wonder about the Philippine connection to the Iraq war. Rove has said his ideal president is McKinley, and Rove clearly aspires to be the new Mark Hanna to Bush's reincarnation of McKinley. I wonder if the US colonization of the Philippines was the model for the Iraq invasion. It is documented that Rove has attended presidential meetings on Iraq and Middle East strategy, and I remember reading Rove saying in one of those that the US would be liked in iraw and the ME after we had shown that we were willing to push our weight around in the area. Splendid Little War, indeed.

Wolfowitz has said that no one could agree on why we should invade Iraq, except WMD -though whether he meant everyone agreed that it was truly a valid reason or a merely a good cover story is unclear. I wonder if at the top, the two real reasons were stupid resource war and power projection fantasies (Cheney and his mega air bases) and narrow domestic partisan political advantage (Rove and Dub, and note the latter said that he considered being a 'war president' a good political strategy before he became president). Bush may have adapted the 'let freedom ring' rationale to hide the awful truth from himself, but he is a vicious deluded goof, and there is no telling what he really thinks or why.

Posted by anon | July 15, 2007 4:07 PM

"To a remarkable extent our contemporary debates are just re-hashing the controversies over imperialism of over a century ago."

You're absolutely right that the same illuminati/intellectual class that trashes our mission in Iraq today soundly sneered at McKinley's reasoning then, while they were more than willing to suspend their gullibility for the new-fangled Marxism coming into vogue. Like Matt they were willing to swallow anything as long as it was avant garde and not proposed by some frumpy conservative fuddy-duddy.
Does Matt argue that the German and Japanese fleets were not circling outside Manila Bay if we didn't offer temporary trusteeship? Does Matt argue that Aguinaldo was a duplicitous bandit that murdered his own supporters for Spanish payments? The Phillipines has never produced a very competent or disinterested political class, denouncing McKinley for noticing that at the beginning doesn't really square with your opinions of the Iraqi Parlament today. The fact is we did offer the Fillipinos a transition period to independence, that it was interupted by the Japanese, and the Fillipinos were the only colonial subjects that sincerely fought alongside their "colonial rulers" during that war, because they realized the promises America had made were sincere as well.

Posted by wayne s | July 15, 2007 5:28 PM

Ha ha, Bush probably thinks that McKinley liberated the Phillipines from the Japanese.

Posted by serial catowner | July 15, 2007 5:28 PM

Reality : The US influence, colonial and post-colonial military,is probably the best thing that ever happened or will happen to those islands and the people living there.

Posted by Jozef | July 15, 2007 5:48 PM

I hope people read some of the references posted earlier in this post and judge the foolish wayne s and Jozef comments for themselves.

Posted by anon | July 15, 2007 6:28 PM

"Reality : The US influence, colonial and post-colonial military,is probably the best thing that ever happened or will happen to those islands and the people living there.

Posted by Jozef | July 15, 2007 5:48 PM "

You sound like the type of guys who used to brag that Mussolini or Stalin made the trains run on time.

wayne s, anti-imperialism is part of a much longer pedigree than Marxism. Montesquieu, who greatly influenced the Founding Fathers, for one was rather anti-imperialist.

Posted by Reality Man | July 15, 2007 6:39 PM

Reality Man,

I agree that anti-imperialism is, and has always been, the predominate ideology in the US. TR and Henry Cabot Lodge were rowing against the tide when they staged their own black ops mission, sending Dewey there without notifying their superiors. Thats also why the US offerred the Filipinos total independence in 1916, once we resolved conflicting propaganda of the various factions fighting the insurrection and realized the vast majority of the public wanted it. But I think McKinley was basically correct when he decided that temporary custody was the least bad option for the Filipino people available, at the time he made the decision. Romantic projections onto tha valiant insurrectionists says alot more about the petulant self-centered views of the Matt Yglesias-types than it does about the reality that McKinley was faced with then, or GWB is faced with now.

Posted by wayne s | July 15, 2007 6:59 PM

Regarding Al, don't feed the troll. He's not a serious man.

Posted by Randy Paul | July 15, 2007 7:14 PM

"But I think McKinley was basically correct when he decided that temporary custody was the least bad option for the Filipino people available, at the time he made the decision. Romantic projections onto tha valiant insurrectionists says alot more about the petulant self-centered views of the Matt Yglesias-types than it does about the reality that McKinley was faced with then, or GWB is faced with now."

Except here you are white-washing history. McKinley didn't say, "well, this is our least-bad option." He said that the US had the duty to Christianize the Filipino people. Nobody here ever said that the Filipino insurgents were romantic revolutionaries; just about everything I've read of the history and literature on the subject that condemns US actions there also condemn atrocities committed by the Filipino insurgents. The only ones making romantic projections are Bush and those around him who are projecting heroism onto themselves.

Posted by Reality Man | July 15, 2007 7:34 PM

the Matt Yglesias-types

Wayne, don't you mean the "illuminati/intellectual types"? Or does that go without saying?

Posted by grh | July 15, 2007 7:36 PM

Thats also why the US offerred the Filipinos total independence in 1916

The creepy part is I think you may understand completely what you mean by "independence" when referencing the meaningless Jones Act, and yeah, if that's your standard, Iraq is just a great big Freedom March. Concentration camps, mass slaughter, torture, half-ass genocide in the name of incredibly theoretical "independence". Yuck.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 15, 2007 8:06 PM

Wayne, I think the fundamental point is that McKinley is being absurdly disingenuous when he talks about the Philippines "dropping into our laps". The Spanish-American war was preceded by a decade of ruling class anxiety about the closing of the frontier, messianic intellectual prattle about America's destiny to expand its territory and influence overseas, agitation in favor of a dramatic US move to leap into the top rank of global powers and the open pining and craving of financiers, producers and strategists to expand markets abroad for American goods by acquiring colonies, establishing coaling stations, commanding shipping lanes, etc.

The war's very purpose was to was to destroy the last remnants of the Spanish empire in the New World and the Pacific, to evict the Spanish from the Western Hemisphere for good, to sink its obsolete navy and gather up the low-hanging fruit of its attractive colonial holdings. That's the purpose for which the US fleet had been built up in the first place, with the strong support of people like Roosevelt. That's why only five days after the war began, Dewey sailed into Manila harbor and sank the Spanish naval forces stationed there - an operation for which they had been prepared for years. That's why, following the US victory, we bought up Spain's holdings for $20 million.

One empire was falling and lost its holding; another was rising an achieved its well-laid ambitions. There was no falling of anything into any laps.

Posted by Dan Kervick | July 15, 2007 9:00 PM

The people in the Philipines who fought the Japanese were the Huks. They were, of course, turned on by the U.S. and the Filipino elite once the Japanese were gone.

Again, the notion that we liberated the Philipines is a joke.

My first demonstration in DC was against a White House dinner held by that renowned champion of freedom, Ronald Reagan, for Ferdinand Marcos who, as his VP (name escapes me)gushed, "we loved for his democratic values." Ugh.

Posted by Klein's tiny left nut | July 15, 2007 10:32 PM

People must not forget that Rove purposely molded his ideal Presidency on McKinley coming into the WhiteHouse as there was a big attempt to rewrite McKinley into a great President whose image was foiled by that "ugly" populism of Teddy Roosevelt.

Posted by Rob | July 16, 2007 12:18 AM

For those who didn't have it drilled into them in high school:

Philippines: 3 p's, one l

Filipino: 1 p, one l, one f, no h

As an extra bonus, Googling "Philippines" gets you several ads for mail-order bride services.

Posted by DaveL | July 16, 2007 2:36 PM