Bad American

William Blum in ICH

I could have wrote the first two sentences:

01/05/08 “ICH” – - “More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” — Woody Allen

Food riots, in dozens of countries, in the 21st century. Is this what we envisioned during the post-World War Two, moon-landing 20th century as humankind’s glorious future? It’s not the end of the world, but you can almost see it from here.

American writer Henry Miller (1891-1980) once asserted that the role of the artist was to “inoculate the world with disillusionment”. So just in case you — for whatever weird reason — cling to the belief/hope that the United States can be a positive force in ending or slowing down the new jump in world hunger, here are some disillusioning facts of life.

On December 14, 1981 a resolution was proposed in the United Nations General Assembly which declared that “education, work, health care, proper nourishment, national development are human rights”. Notice the “proper nourishment”. The resolution was approved by a vote of 135-1. The United States cast the only “No” vote.

A year later, December 18, 1982, an identical resolution was proposed in the General Assembly. It was approved by a vote of 131-1. The United States cast the only “No” vote.

The following year, December 16, 1983, the resolution was again put forth, a common practice at the United Nations. This time it was approved by a vote of 132-1. There’s no need to tell you who cast the sole “No” vote.

These votes took place under the Reagan administration.

Under the Clinton administration, in 1996, a United Nations-sponsored World Food Summit affirmed the “right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food”. The United States took issue with this, insisting that it does not recognize a “right to food”. Washington instead championed free trade as the key to ending the poverty at the root of hunger, and expressed fears that recognition of a “right to food” could lead to lawsuits from poor nations seeking aid and special trade provisions.[1]

The situation of course did not improve under the administration of George W. Bush. In 2002, in Rome, world leaders at another U.N.-sponsored World Food Summit again approved a declaration that everyone had the right to “safe and nutritious food”. The United States continued to oppose the clause, again fearing it would leave them open to future legal claims by famine-stricken countries.[2]

Mike Whitney in ICH

In a nutshell:

But Bernanke won’t raise rates because he doesn’t really give a hoot about the people in Cameroon who have to scavenge through garbage-dumps for a few morsels to keep their families alive. Nor does he care about the average American working-stiff who gets cardiac-arrest every time he pulls up to the gas pump. What matters to Bernanke is making sure that his fat-cat buddies in the banking establishment get a steady stream of low interest loot so they can paper-over their bad investments and ward off bankruptcy for another day or two. Its a joke; it was the investment banks that started this downward spiral with their rotten mortgage-backed securities and other debt-exotica. Still, in Bernanke’s mind, they are the only ones who really count.

And don’t expect Bush to step in and save the day either. The “Decider” still believes in the unrestricted activity of the free market; especially when his crooked friends can make a buck on the deal.

From the Washington Times:

The Bush administration knows there’s hanky-panky going on, but they just look the other way. It’s Enron redux, where Ken Lay Inc. scalped the public with utter impunity while regulators sat on the sidelines applauding. Great. Now its the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) turn; they’re taking a hands-off approach so Wall Street sharpies make a fortune jacking up the price of everything from soda crackers to toilet bowls.

snip

The US has been gaming the system for decades; sucking up two-thirds of the world’s capital to expand its cache of Cadillac Escalades and flat-screen TVs; giving nothing back in return except mortgage-backed junk, cluster bombs, and crummy green paper. Nothing changes; it only gets worse. But this is different. The world is now facing the very real prospect of ”completely avoidable” famine because twelve doddering old banksters at the Federal Reserve would rather bailout their sketchy friends and preserve their spot at the top of the economic food-chain then save the lives of  starving women and children. Bernanke now has an opportunity to do more damage than Bush with one swipe of the pen. If he cut rates; the dollar will fall, commodities will spike, and people will starve. It’s as simple as that.

In America, as long as the right people make money, everything is OK.

But this is glimpse into the future where such divisions will be sharper and harder as fuel prices and global climate change put the hits on food production and distribution. Right now, Americans are grumbling about prices and starting to hoard. One should point out that Americans still have the luxury of hoarding - they’re not reduced to going through dumps to feed their families - yet. But when that happens (and it did early in the 20th century and we have the photos to prove it) then we’ll see how long before Americans go for their guns and say ‘enough.’

First they’ll have do undo generations of brainwashing about the glories of ‘free market’ capitalism.

This man has the power to harm the psyches of a billion Chinese! Wow!

Buncha babies

Hollywood reporter

Huffpo

A Chinese primary school teacher and a beautician have filed a suit against CNN in New York over remarks they say insulted the Chinese people and are seeking $1.3 billion in compensation — $1 per person in China, a Hong Kong newspaper reported.
The case against the Atlanta-based cable channel, its parent company Turner Broadcasting and Jack Cafferty, the offending commentator, comes after 14 lawyers launched a similar suit in Beijing alleging that Cafferty’s remarks earlier this month violated the dignity and reputation of the Chinese people….

In New York, Liang Shubing, the beautician, and Li Lilan, a Beijing-based elementary school instructor, claimed Cafferty’s words insulted all Chinese people and “intentionally caused mental harm” to the plaintiffs, the Ta Kung Pao newspaper reported on Thursday.

Mental harm?

Please. Talk about being thin skinned in Beijing - isn’t it enough that the Chinese have such a stranglehold on the US economy and financial system (due to greedy traitorous actions by US business and financial concerns)?

Now they want us to say nice things about them? Screw that.

Cafferty was right in the first place - same old goons and thugs they’ve been for 50 years.

And remarkably thin skinned goons and thugs as well.

Apparently Jack Cafferty touched a nerve

McClatchy

Earlier this week, the state Xinhua news agency called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “disgusting.” And on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu lambasted a CNN commentator, Jack Cafferty, for his “vicious” commentary on China.

“We solemnly request that CNN, and Cafferty himself, take back the malicious remarks and apologize to the Chinese people,” Jiang said at a news briefing.

Protests plaguing a global Olympic torch relay, along with mounting criticism of China’s handling of domestic unrest by Tibetans, have embittered many Chinese. As foreign leaders discuss whether to boycott Olympic opening ceremonies Aug. 8, Chinese internet sites are replete with their own mounting calls for boycotts — of foreign goods.

The mood has definitely soured here as the nation prepares to host its biggest international event ever. Angry nationalism has replaced what had been festive anticipation as government officials to lash out at foreign critics, trying to stay ahead of public resentment _ even fury _ that foreigners may spoil the Summer Olympics with what some see as unwarranted criticism.

Several foreign journalists, including correspondents for USA Today and The Times of London, say they have received death threats.

snip

Cafferty, whose CNN commentaries are invariably acerbic, sounded off on China on the program The Situation Room April 9. He said the United States imports “their junk with the lead paint” and their “poisoned pet food” while losing factory jobs to China, a country run by “the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years.”

Jiang, the ministry spokeswoman, said Cafferty “used his microphone to denigrate China and Chinese people” and that his remarks constitute racism.

The firestorm began among angry Chinese immigrants in the United States, who launched an online petition drive (www.petitiononline.com/cnncaff/petition.html) to protest Cafferty’s remarks. Coverage quickly crossed into China, where citizens had already launched an internet campaign against CNN, accusing it of biased coverage in mid-March of an uprising of ethnic Tibetans demanding greater freedom.

A Chinese “anti-CNN” website contained plenty of vitriolic remarks against Cafferty by Tuesday.

“Nobody should ever take this hyperthyroid rooster too seriously,” said one commenter, adding that Cafferty is prone to “anti-Chinese diarrhea.”

Hyperthyroid rooster?

Someone really needs to teach the Chinese how to properly insult people. Most Westerners, when they read these kind of insults, laugh out loud because they’re funny. They’re not terribly insulting at all but perhaps they think so.

At any rate, if this helps destroy the Summer Olympics and embarrass China, so much the better. The whole idea of an Olympic Game in Beijing was a bad to begin with and can only end badly at this point.

Of course the fact that the Chinese ban my and Matt Adams’ podcast does not mean I’m bitter at all.

Of course not. I’m just a working class white guy from small town Ohio. I’m clinging to my gun right now.

Anyway, these are still the same goons who committed the slaughter of Tiannemen Square. They were doing fine in ‘89 and they’re doing fine today. I have to say, Jack Cafferty does have a way about him, however.

But the bottom line is as long as US multinationals can make a buck off cheap Chinese imports, this sort of nonsense will continue. It’s just fun to see the mandarins in Beijing spin like turret lathes in righteous indignation.

The text of the e-mail I received from my Canadian podcasting partner-in-crime, Matt Adams:

hi,

Matt

You have to hand it to the Chinese - there must be hordes of functionaries constantly combing the Internet for any sign of “Western decadence” or some such that the Chinese people must not be allowed to hear.

And they found our little podcast. I am so honored to be singled out as a National Security Threat to the Chinese Quasi-Communist Government. At least give the Chinese credit for that - they’re pretty overt in letting people know they’re a threat. The US and Canadian governments keep you guessing whether you’re on some such list or another - or not.

This leads me to the whole Olympic issue which I’ll deal with briefly.

I pay no attention whatsoever to the Olympic Games. Never have, never will. As long as sport is used in way that encourages jingoistic nationalism - ours or anyone else’s - I could care less about it. Hitler in 1936 was just the most overt example of the trend. The Communists and the US used the games as some sort of sick showcase - if our athletes were better than yours, than our society was better than yours.

Count me out.

And the fact the IOC gave the games to the Chinese is about as odious an example as you can get. The ought to ring the running track with the bodies of dead Tibetians (?) if the Chinese are so proud of what they have done.

The Chinese state is a brutal and repressive regime that the US (also a repressive regime in other ways, more subtle but still effective), plays footsie with due to their slavish devotion to the almighty dollar.

Again, count me out.

When they have an Olympics in a truly neutral site, say Switzerland, and the athletes compete without having to wave their country’s flags and mumble their national anthems at award ceremonies, then I might care.

Back to the original subject - if you want to strike a blow for freedom of speech, listen to our podcast, highlighted twice above. It’s entertaining AND informative - wow, what a concept!

I’m watching Lindsey Graham lie through his teeth on ABC News with George S. “Winning outcomes.” War War War. It’s what we do. We enjoy it, it’s profitable for the right people, and it makes us feel all warm and runny inside. Graham want to kill Iranian woman and children so bad he can taste it.

And I don’t exactly consider Jim Webb to be a ‘opposition’ figure. He’s just as big a militarist as Graham but he’s a ‘kindler, gentler’ enabler of the military-industrial state.

Jacob G. Hornberger writes a great column pointing out that the doyenne of Democratic foreign policy, Madeleine Albright, was a butcher too. Both parties love their war money.

And so does America. Good Christian America.

According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times, at the outset of the invasion the U.S. military dropped bombs on a palatial compound in which Saddam Hussein was hiding. The article states:

“But instead of killing the Iraqi dictator, they had killed Mr. Kharbit’s older brother, Malik al-Kharbit - the very man who had led the family’s negotiations with the C.I.A. to topple Mr. Hussein. The bombings also killed 21 other people, including children, and the fury it aroused has been widely believed to have helped kick-start the insurgency in western Iraq.”

And so:

The fact is that U.S. officials didn’t care whether there were innocents, including children, in that compound. Those children and their parents were obviously considered a small price to pay if Saddam Hussein had been killed at the outset of the war.

Of course, this attitude would match the attitude taken by U.S. officials throughout the period of the brutal sanctions that were enforced from 1991 to 2003. As tens of thousands of Iraqi children were dying year after year from the sanctions, the U.S. attitude was that those deaths were a small price to pay for ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein. That’s why UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, upon being asked whether the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi from the sanctions were worth it, she replied that yes - they were “worth it.” She was expressing the sentiment of the U.S. government, a sentiment that manifested itself again in the bombing of the compound in which those Iraqi children and their families were killed.

Second, the killing of those children and their families is just one example of how U.S. foreign policy has engendered anger and hatred for the United States, which produces the threat of terrorist retaliation, which brings about the “war on terrorism,” which results in more interventions, more massive military spending, and ever-increasing loss of liberty at home.

Hornberger finishes with this:

To state what I consider self-evident moral truths, it was morally wrong and a grave violation of God’s laws to:

(1) attack a country whose government and citizenry had never attacked the United States;

(2) kill Iraqis, including children and their families, in order to achieve regime change in Iraq; and

(3) kill Iraqis, including children and their families, in order to spread “democracy” to Iraq.

One can only wonder whether the American people, in crises of conscience, will ever confront such issues.

No they won’t. For the Christofascists that support this bloodletting, God’s merciful grace does not extend to the brown heathen hordes of the world. In that way, we behave no better than the Conquistadors.

Danny Schechter’s latest, as always, is a great if terrifying read.

NEW YORK — If you walk through London’s High Gate cemetery and wander over to the grave of the late Karl Marx and then listen closely with your ear to the ground, you might hear a repetitive murmur of the phrase “I told you so” in a distinctly German inflected accent.

You might also see the earth moving ever so slightly as what’s left of the bones below turn over in the realization that capitalists, not the proletariat, are the ones bringing down the system.

Schechter’s story points out that tent cities of the dispossessed are now springing up outside of Los Angeles:

Today’s Contemporary Americana! 

Would we call these “Bushvilles?” I suppose Kevin O’Brien and the rest of the capitalist bootstrap enthusiasts would object. Well, screw them. Hopefully.

I always like to compare and contrast because its fun and ironic in that post-modernistic sense. So compare and contrast the above BBC story to this snippet, also from Schechter’s story:

A week earlier, Bear Stearn’s former CEO bought a Manhattan condo for $28 million, no mortgage needed. In December, compromised Wall Streeters walked off with $31 billion in bonuses, just a billion below the record set a year earlier.

So if they can walk away, why can’t the Skaggs?

Reported the San Francisco Chronicle

“As their home values tumble and their mortgages rise, these “walk away” homeowners” decide to cede their houses to their lenders. “It’s throwing good money away after bad” to pay an escalating mortgage on a home that’s plunging in value, said Army Sgt. 1st Class Nicklaus Skaggs.. He and his wife, Tishara, stopped paying their mortgage in February. They signed up with a new company called You Walk Away to help guide them through the multi-month foreclosure process.”

Other homeowners are so angry that they trashing or burning their own homes.

I’m all for that except it seems misplaced. Should we not be going to the homes of the former CEO of Bear Stearns all all the other Wall Street robber barons and trash and burn them? Preferable with them inside their homes?

Ah yes, Americans are so polite and law abiding. We wouldn’t dream of doing things like that anymore. We’ll just take whatever shit we’re fed. We don’t expect justice any more.

Oh my! I am criticizing American society? That’ll never do. I’ll never be President. Everyone knows this is paradise. And its getting more like paradise every day.

By the way, I linked the You Walk Away site to the above snippet. The Chronicle didn’t, but I figured I’d do my bit to help out anyone in desperate straits.

Now I see a lot of comments on various boards that these desperate homeowners just are getting what they deserve because they’re stupid American losers who actually bought the American Dream when they should have realized they weren’t entitled to it.

After all, just because someone dangles the Dream in front of you, the one all the commercial media tell you that you deserve, doesn’t mean you actually should grab for it. Have you gamed the system successfully? Well?

Of course, the people who are excoriating the American schmucks who got screwed out of their homes are strangely silent about the corporate chieftains who ran these little schemes that are now causing the whole economy to implode. I guess the message to our kids is now crystal clear. Rub your American flag lapel pin a little extra hard and remember this land is your land. Or at least it was. Now it belongs to the Chinese and the Arab sovereign wealth funds.

And yet there’s still enough righteous indignation among the Lou Dobbs crowd that they’re working themselves into a high dudgeon about what Barack Obama’s pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said from the pulpit. I can’t vouch for the ‘we invented AIDS’ claim and the total story of 9-11 remains in dispute. But in any case, what else did Wright say that was inaccurate?

As anyone who has bothered to ferret out the true history of the United States knows that Wright’s take on America is, if not in essence, accurate, is at least understandable as history is always written by the victors.

But telling the truth is a mortal sin in American politics and society. We drank the kool aid in grade school where we NEVER learned the parts of American history that were left out - the smallpox blankets, the Trail of Tears, the 1863 Draft Riots, the Haymarket riot, the Wobblies, the  Filipino Insurrection, the Bonus Army, Tonkin Gulf, and on and on.

No, no, no. Can’t have that. You’ll have to read Howard Zinn on your own kiddies.

So it’s no surprise that Americans have a predictable Pavolvian reaction to Wright’s invective, especially well-to-do white people.

What seems especially clear at this point is that the powers that be most emphatically do not want Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee or President of the United States. That, despite his slavish fealty to AIPAC and the Wall Street brokers who have pumped his campaign full of cash.

He’s a hope, albeit a faint one that apparently must be crushed at all costs even if it means Hillary’s dirty tricks brigade join forces with the right wing’s flying monkey squads to make it happen.

One wonders if Obama, if he really understands the depths of the financial mess the next President will inherit, really would want the job? John McCain readily admits to his ignorance of economics so he doesn’t really care. But even Clinton must understand that any serious measures that could be taken to stem the hemorrhaging will only make the short term pain worse and make the next POTUS even more hated than Bush, if such a thing is possible.

So one seriously has to wonder if there’s some other kind of game afoot.

Today Bush said the following:

“The surge … has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror,” the president said. “We are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated.”

Does that sound like someone who is planning to give up the reins of power in 10 months?

Now that the pesky Admiral Fallon is out of the way, there are many who feel that the attack against Iran is inevitable.  In such a case, Bush could screw things up so thoroughly that he’d declare a national emergency and assume dictatorial powers including postponing the election.

OK, it sounds crazy but with the economy also tanking spectacularly the cornered rats might be getting desperate.  A national emergency would short circuit all pesky investigations into the giant financial swindle now unraveling and protect those who were instrumental in the swindle and instrumental in the war - leading right up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Needless to mention the usual caveat: I’d be happy to be dead wrong about all of this. But I think we need to put these scenarios on the table since so many very bad things are already happening and several more are in the offing.

And vigilance supposedly was always the price of freedom, right?

AFP From Information Clearing House

(or other news the American nets will never tell you because it might make you feel bad about our government and its brave troops)

31/01/08 - — LONDON (AFP) — More than one million Iraqis have died because of the war in Iraq since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to a study published Wednesday.

The highest rate of deaths throughout the country occurred in Baghdad, where more than 40 percent of households had lost a family member.

Spin it any way you want to, if we hadn’t launched an illegal and immoral war of aggression against Iraq, 98 percent of these people would probably be alive today.

Now ask the average American if they give a damn about Iraqi lives.

History will indeed judge us - at the least the history not written by Americans for American school kids.

Of course, Hillary Clinton loves the slaughter and Barack Obama cares too much about what Tel Aviv and AIPAC think to do much but sit there and stew:

“When Bush proclaimed, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among terrorists there is no doubt,’ Clinton sprang to her feet in applause but Obama remained firmly seated. The president’s line divided most of the Democratic audience, with nearly half standing to applaud and the other half sitting in stony silence.”

So here the lines are clearly drawn. In the presence of Power, a candidate who spun and twisted her own rapidly shifting position on the Iraq war is suddenly struck with an attack of wordless honesty: applauding the mythical “surge” and the war she’ll inherit and prosecute to the fullest, while her challenger sits on his hands and stares into futurity.

Ah, but she still had the presence of mind to calculate her responses somewhat, even as the truth serum worked its way through her system:

“In one instance Clinton appeared to gauge Obama’s response before showing her own. When Bush warned the Iranian government that ‘America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies, and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf,’ Obama jumped up to applaud. Clinton leaned across Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), seated to her left, to look in Obama’s direction before slowly standing.”

A kumbaya moment for the Democrats, as they all stood and saluted the main plank in the War Party’s platform: the centrality of our newly conquered Middle Eastern possessions. If Obama wins, his “New Frontier” will be a new frontier of empire, and he’s cool with that. So are his followers, or the great mass of them: they’ll follow him into battle in yet another overseas crusade to make the world safe for America’s hubris. As he enunciates platitudes as if they were profundities, his fans swoon. They’ll fall for practically anything he says, as long as he says it as if he were John F. Kennedy channeling Martin Luther King. Once in office, President Obama will be declaring that we’ll “pay any price, bear any burden” faster than you can say “we shall overcome.”

Thanks Justin Raimondo so saying it so eloquently.

Hubris and empire have a steep price and right now it’s the Iraqis who are paying the price.

ABC News Blog

The thing that most people don’t notice about the coverage of the tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto is that it is automatically assumed that the Americans and the American political establishment should ‘do something’ about the state of internal affairs in Pakistan.

It reminds me of a bumper sticker a former co-worker had on her car. An American flag with the slogan: “these colors don’t run - the world.”

But of course it is assumed that what happens in Pakistan is more important to the USA than it is to Pakistan. And the candidates for President back that up with their comments. You’d think Bhutto was assassinated in Midtown Manhattan campaigning for Hillary Clinton.

Huckabee: ABC News’ Kevin Chupka reports: During a press conference Thursday night in West Des Moines, Iowa, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee suggested that after the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the United States should, “have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our border, and particularly to make sure, if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.  We just need to be very very thorough in looking at every aspect of our own security internally.”

It’s telling that Huckabee’s first reaction would be typical American paranoia. Oh, it’s all about us or US, isn’t it? And, of course, the assassination of Bhutto automatically means that America may be next. Gotta keep the fear level up at all times to ensure a frightened populace will support the National Secutrity State - Huckabee follows the same script as all the other candidates.

And people lap it up.

More from Huck:

Huckabee also attempted to clarify comments he made earlier about marshal law in Pakistan.  In Orlando, earlier in the day, he suggested that one of the United States’ priorities should be to determine, “what impact does it [Bhutto’s murder] have on whether or not there’s gonna be martial law continued in Pakistan, suspension of the constitution.”

Marshal law having ceased two weeks ago, tonight Huckabee attempted to clear up his gaffe: “And what I said was, and it’s not that I was unaware that it was suspended two weeks ago, lifted to weeks ago.  The point was, continued, would it be reinstated, would it be placed back in –- all the aspects of marshal law have not been completely lifted, even now.  There’s still a heavy hand I think Musharraf has used.”

It’s always fascinating to me that people running for President comment on things on which they have little or no knowledge. But Huckabee can breathe easy - most Americans, similarly ignorant, won’t hold that ignorance against him. After all, look how many people credited Bush’s ignorance with making him ‘closer to real people.’ America doesn’t like egghead elitists - they make large parts of the population feel inferior, such as the letter writer on my post about the health care industry.

Those of you who are old enough remember that was the biggest weapon used against Adlai Stevenson when he ran for president in ‘52 and ‘56. Intelligence is not an asset in American politics, especially on a national level.

An excellent piece of writing by William N. Grigg in his blog Pro Libertate. There are excellent historical cites to the Philippine Insurrection and Captain Blackadder. Make sure you play the video at the end of the last minutes of the Blackadder series. Poignant and especially fitting under the circumstances.

From the article:

Not everybody in Washington approved of annexing the Philippines. Massachusetts Senator George Frisbie Hoar, for instance, complained that the seizure would turn the United States, once a proudly independent republic, into “a vulgar, commonplace empire founded upon physical force, controlling subject races and vassal states, in which one class must forever rule and the other classes must forever obey.”

Not so, parried Senator Knute Nelson of Minnesota. “We come as ministering angels, not as despots,” Nelson piously pronounced, anticipating – by more than a century – contemporary paeans to Washington’s armed missionaries of global democracy.

After Filipino partisans massacred a company of US infantrymen at Balangiga, American commanders anointed Colonel Jacob Smith, a decorated veteran of Wounded Knee, to confer the same benediction on that village he had administered to the Sioux.

“I want no prisoners,” Smith instructed his troops. “I wish you to kill and burn. The more you kill and the more you burn, the better you will please me.” He commanded his troops to raze the village and kill everyone over the age of ten, and to turn the area into “a howling wilderness.”

Elsewhere, ministering angels under the command of General Frederick Funston (who was later awarded a Medal of Honor) were detaining, torturing, and executing Filipinos indiscriminately. In their effort to locate guerrilla leader Emilio Aguinaldo, Funston’s men made plentiful use of the same interrogation tactic used decades later by the Imperial Japanese: Waterboarding, or what was then called the “water cure.” During a post-war speaking tour, Funston boasted of not only torturing countless Filipinos, but also of summarily sentencing dozens to be executed without trial, and ordering numerous massacres of civilians. The war criminal also “suggested that anti-war protestors be dragged out of their homes and lynched,” observes historian William Loren Katz.

Amazing how some things in American history never change.