Pictures of Torture

[khaosworks]

Yes, I've been hearing about the torture pictures. How could one not?

No, I'm not surprised, nor should anyone who knows about United States military history overseas. The Philippines. Haiti. Korea. Vietnam.

Imperialistic, paternalistic motives produce imperialistic attitudes. Great white hunter go tame natives, make monkeys dance.

To be fair, of course, I'm not saying that every American soldier in Iraq is doing this - the vast majority are probably fine, decent people. The roots, however, of this are cultural, and structural, and are built into the American psychological landscape. Most people simply aren't aware of it, or have conveniently forgotten. If you don't keep an eye on those demons, they're going to sneak up and sucker punch you.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I was quite pleasantly surprised when I learned how seriously the Marine Corps took its history, after I got to Parris Island in 1972. During the 13 weeks of basic training we were steeped in the long history of the Corps, including a lot of stuff that wasn't even mentioned in high school history classes. Much of it was not exactly complimentary either. We learned about Smedley D. Butler, and his famous "War Is a Racket" condemnation of the policies of the US government.

Many years later, when I was an analyst at Quantico, I asked one of the command historians there about this institutionalized policy of teaching *all* of our history to every Marine. His opinion was that it began during the Mexican War, with Marines who were troubled by fighting against children. It's a way of building up an internal conscience, by perpetuating the knowledge of what we've done in other places and times.

It's not perfect, by a long shot. But I think it's good. It sure beats the Army's approach, which is largely non-existent.

Since you mention the Philippine campaign, have you ever had a chance to study the legal conflict between the Army and the Navy in that little mess? The Navy (and by extention the Marines) had a policy that "the Constitution follows the flag," and that was their guide in the Philippines. The Army, by contrast, went in using policies based on the Indian Wars, with no Constitutional protections afforded to the Filippino people. The two different views eventually led to a US Supreme Court case. The Supreme Court found for the Army, and that decision is having repercussions in Iraq today.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

No, actually I haven't. I've heard of it peripherally, but the Filipino war hasn't been in my field of vision. Any references or books?

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Let me see what I can find. I learned of it via articles in the Marine Corps Gazette and Proceedings of the US Naval Institute back about 10 years ago.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I just looked through the archives of the Marine Corps Gazette, which you can find here. An archive search for "Philippine Insurrection" returns a lot of references, but they want money for them. If you feel like hunting around in the abstracts you might find something there.

I think the incident also is mentioned in Al Millett's book, Semper Fidelis. That may be in your university library. I don't think it gets covered in J. Robert Moskin's generally excellent US Marine Corps Story.

[acrobatty.livejournal.com]

If it helps, I seem to recall that Mark Twain wrote a savage contemporary critique of our Philippine campaign, both its goals and its methods.

BTW, I dunno if our troops' war crimes are about Big White Hunter or just the nature of war. As other people pointed out, every nation does this sort of thing in every war. Do you happen to know whether we refrained from similar acts in occupied Germany, Vichy France, & Italy?

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

There was mistreatment of German POWs in American camps during World War II, but it seems to have been minimal, and usually as a reaction to reports of mistreatment of American POWs in German camps. There are also anectdotal reports of the slaughter of surrendered soldiers, of course.

But systematic abuse of prisoners, as far as I can remember, only happened when the US was occupying places where the local population was largely non-white. That suggests a racial dimension to the treatment.

Take other countries. The Nazis, of course, felt they were superior to everyone else, and that justified atrocities committed during World War II. The British routinely abused and killed uppity natives in their colonies in Africa and India. The Japanese tortured and abused those under their occupation in the Pacific during World War II as well, and the Japanese cultural propaganda at the time was that they were superior to other races - including the Chinese.

Race is obviously a factor, but to say that the abuses are racially motivated is to miss one other cause, that in all these cases there is an element of resistance to the occupying forces' rule. The segments of the local population who are quiet don't get kicked around as much. As always, we have to look at an interaction of various causes and motivations. Call it Imperalism, Paternalism, Manifest Destiny, the Plan for a New American Century, the White Man's Burden, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, ultimately it boils down to, "We're bigger, we're better, we know what's good for you, so shut up and take it or we'll beat the crap out of you."

[acrobatty.livejournal.com]

You say that like it's a bad thing!

Seriously, sounds right.