Weekly
Editorials Page
11/1
to 11/7, 2001
11/8/2001:
I've
toned down a bit what I wrote last night. I'm not as shocked as I was then.
All our modern history is, in my opinion, far better
than was the ancient world. In the ancient world, "to the victor went the
spoils". The winners of a war looted the vanquished, putting them to the
sword or selling them into slavery. The women could count on being raped.
Torture was an official instrument of the state. And warfare was chronic.
11/7/2001:
I've had a rude awakening.
The
Mexican War
In the 1999 Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, I
looked up the Mexican War. Mexico had invited U. S. citizens to settle in Texas.
At first, In 1835, the Texans declared themselves a separate country
("The Republic of Texas"), winning their independence from Mexico in
1836. In 1845, they became one of the states of the United States. Texas claimed
that its border went all the way to the Rio Grande, while Mexico claimed that it
stopped about 100 miles east, at the Nueces River. In 1845, President Polk sent
James Slidell to Mexico City to negotiate the border dispute, and to try to
purchase California from Mexico. President Santayana refused to see him. In
1846, President Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to advance to the Rio
Grande. The Mexicans considered this to be an invasion of Mexican territory, and
in May, the Mexicans joined General Taylor in battle. The United States then
declared war on Mexico. The U. S. forces were outnumbered more than two-to-one,
but prevailed in each engagement. The war settlement gave the U. S. California
and the land to the Rio Grande, in return for $15 million (equivalent to perhaps
$15 billion today in terms of relative GNP's). But it was a territorial dispute. It
sounds as though President Santayana was unwilling to discuss the situation with
the United States.
The
Spanish-American War and the Philippines
The Mexican War pales in comparison with the Spanish-American
War. A revolutionary movement in Cuba was seeking Cuba's independence from
Spain. The U. S. sent the battleship Maine to Cuba to protect its
business interests in Cuba. On the night of February 15, 1898, a huge explosion
destroyed the Maine in Havana Harbor. (Our historians have suggested that
the explosion might have been implemented by U. S. interests seeking to foment a
war with Spain. William Randolph Hearst was egging on a war in his newspapers,
and wired his homesick correspondent in Cuba, Frederic Remington, "Please
remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war.")
The encyclopedia says,
"The formal peace negotiations took place in Paris,
beginning on Oct. 1, 1898. The American representatives had committed themselves
to an expansive imperialistic policy for the United States. Spain granted Cuba
its independence, and the United States was given Puerto Rico and Guam. The
difficult issue was the Philippines. McKinley was undecided on what to do about
the 7,000-island former Spanish colony. Soon, however, he was caught up in the
fervor of imperialism that was sweeping the United States. He finally concluded
that "the march of events rules and overrules human action." The
Philippines would be annexed, and--in the words of New York Tribune
editor Whitelaw Reid--the Philippines would 'convert the Pacific Ocean into an
American lake.'
"Spain parted with the Philippines in exchange for a
payment of 20 million dollars from the United States."
In the meantime, the Philippines were making a bid for their
independence from Spain, led by a revolutionary general named Emilio Aguinaldo.
Aguinaldo, expecting support from the United States, became the President of the
new Philippine Republic.
"Officials in the United States had other ideas,
however. After liberating the islands from Spain, the United States refused to
accept the notion of Philippine independence. The United States wanted to
establish a military and commercial presence in the Far East, and the island
nation seemed to be the perfect outpost.
"To keep the Philippines the United States fought a
bloody three-year guerrilla war. The United States found itself doing in the
Philippines precisely what it had condemned Spain for doing in Cuba. It has been
estimated that more than 600,000 Filipinos were killed in the insurrection led
by Emilio Aguinaldo against the United States (see Aguinaldo). The actual
number is probably much higher, though exact figures have never been released by
the Department of the Army. Some estimates place the number as high as 3
million--15% to 20% of the population? Protests against the war in the United
States were nearly as vehement as those against the Vietnam War three or four
generations later. Hostilities ended in March 1901, when Aguinaldo was captured.
(See also Aguinaldo, Emilio.) It has been called the first genocide of
the 20th century. Mark Twain protested the conflict bitterly in one of his most
powerful pieces of writing, 'To the Person Sitting in Darkness.' In it he stated
that the American flag should have 'the white stripes painted black and the
stars replaced by the skull and cross bones.'
"William Howard Taft, a future president, was appointed
the first civil governor of the Philippines. In order to counter the
embarrassing domestic and foreign criticism of its imperialism, the United
States worked out a plan that guaranteed Philippine independence when the
Filipinos were prepared for it. Meanwhile, the United States governed within the
existing structures of Philippine society. Gradually the Filipino elites were
granted increased authority by gaining representation in government. By 1907 a
national assembly had been elected. The Nationalist party, led by Sergio Osmena
and Manuel L. Quezon became the dominant political force in the islands."
The bottom line is that, apparently, it was blatantly
imperialistic. It was aimed at giving the U. S. a presence in the Far East, and
although I hate to say it, our treatment of the Filipinos sounds barbaric.
Killing one to three million Filipinos and mestizos (half-Spanish/half-Filipino)
was worthy of Nazi Germany, or of Stalin's extermination of the Kulaks.
Apparently, it was about imperial aspirations, and the greed of already-wealthy
men (or at least that's how our historians have presented it).
I checked other history books besides Compton's Encyclopedia
and found a similar story.
I'm shocked. I didn't know this until today.
11/6/2001:
In
gathering news about the "war on terrorism", I've tried to tap sources
beyond U. S. borders. So far, I've relied upon British sources, but I'm going to
try to ferret out all sides of the story by tapping Middle Eastern as well as
Western sources. The editorial, "Naked Aggression follows Terrorism",
in the Milli Gazette is a shocker. The author says that a giant superpower is
ruthlessly pounding a poor devastated nation which was already reeling under
US-imposed sanctions and a three-year long drought. (I'm wondering what the US
sanctions were.) The author continues,
"Afghanistan, rather the
ruling Taliban, and their ‘guests’ Usama & Co have been pronounced
‘guilty’ without offering the world any evidence about their supposed
responsibility for manifestly terrorist and coward attacks on targets in the US
on 11 September. It is still not clear who is/are really responsible for those
dastardly acts.
"The culprits may be
home-grown terrorists a-la McVeigh, or Israel which has already perpetrated such
acts with finesse, like bombing the American Centre in Alexandria and USS
Liberty, or criminally-ambitious elements in America’s own military and
political establishment who had earlier planned to bomb their own country in
order to justify sharp foreign policy turns, or over the last two hundred years
in Central and South Americas, Indo-China, Japan, Middle East, Africa and
elsewhere whose human and political rights have been systematically crushed in
order to manipulate their countries and their wealth for the benefit of America
and its greedy allies whose sole aim is to maintain their high life styles at
the expense of a naked and hungry world."
To me, the problem with positing a non-Muslim
conspiracy behind the September 11th atrocities is that they were suicide
missions performed by Muslims who had planned such missions for years. Their
trails are easy to follow. For one thing they enrolled at U. S. flight schools.
It's hard for me to imagine recruiting 18 or 19 Islamists to perform a suicide
mission for the CIA or the Israelis.
I can't speak to the subject of "the victims over the
last 200 years whose human and political rights have been systematically crushed
in order to manipulate their countries and their wealth for the benefit of of
America and its greedy allies whose sole aim is to maintain their high life
styles at the expense of a naked and hungry world." The United States has
only been in existence a little over 200 years. Until our involvement in World
War I, (1917), we were self-sufficient, drawing upon our rich land and our
cornucopia of resources, Our wars were with the British (1812), Mexico (1848),
our Civil War (1861), and Spain (1898). Other than that, we've lived in peace
and harmony with our neighbors, Canada and Mexico. We gave the Phillippines
their independence, and offered independence to our other Hispanic possessions.
The latter chose by referendum to stay with the U. S., though as territorial
possessions rather than states. We bought much of our land through the Gadsden
Purchase, the Louisiana Purchase, and the purchase of Alaska. In our dispute
with Canada, we settled our border by negotiation. The only disputed territory
acquired by war was Texas. (We bought Florida, Arizona, and New Mexico.) (Of
course, our relationship with our Indian population is another story.)
Throughout the 19th century, we had no "greedy
allies". This was a period of colonial imperialism in which the United
States did not participate.
During the first half of the 20th century, the United States
was criticized for being "isolationist". We imported some goods from
abroad, but most of our needs were met at home. Most of our purchases had
"Made in USA" stamped upon them. ("Made in Japan" was the
most common exception.) During the first half of the 20th century, third-world
countries were British, French, Dutch, etc., territorial possessions, including
China. The United States had no part in this, and contributed to the defense of
China through volunteers such as Claire Chennaults' "Flying Tigers".
After World War II, the United States took on the role
of the defender against communism. Communism was spreading across borders, as
the U. S. S. R. carried out the Bolshevik Grand Mission of converting the world
to the benefits of communism. U. S. citizens fought and died in Korea after
North Korea attempted to carry the hammer and sickle southward by invading South
Korea. Later, the United States became entangled in South Vietnam in an effort
to stem the red tide in southeast Asia.
I don't see anyone plumping for communism in the Middle
East these days. Communism was a failed idea from the Communist Manifesto
onward, but it loomed over us like a threatening cloud for 75 years. Pakistan
could be communist, or recovering from communism had nothing stood in its path.
If the author's indignant over "America’s umpteen
victims... whose human and political rights have been systematically crushed in
order to manipulate their countries and their wealth for the benefit of America
and its greedy allies whose sole aim is to maintain their high life styles at
the expense of a naked and hungry world", imagine what he must think of the
British, who subjugated his country for over 300 years!
I hadn't intended to defend the U. S. tonight, but as I
reviewed the ideas set forth in the Milli Gazette's Editorial, these were the
thoughts that came to mind.
(To be continued)
11/5/2001:
Tonight’s Science News includes links to several Asian newspapers (Friday
Times (Lahore), Arab Media Internet
Network, The Milli Gazette- Indian,
The Star- Malay, and the Weekly
Mirror International), and to several excellent articles ( Afghan
roadmap needed, Top Ten
Tips For Ambitious Indian Prime Ministers, THE
DESERTION OF ARAFAT, Intifada
in the Aftermath, Solidarity
Convoy for Peace, A
vision to lift the spirit, The
carat and the stick, Exploding
the myth of Islamic terrorism, Paradise
lost, and Algerian security
forces kill five armed Islamic guerrillas) in these papers.
Faiza S. Khan's "Paradise Lost" is, to me, a
meaningful read. These articles may not make us comfortable, but I think it's a
privilege to be able to hear other perspectives, particularly from astute
observers who are close to the problem.
Given this kind of instant access to the whole wide world and all
its inhabitants, surely war is going to become less prevalent than it has in the
past. How can we hurt friends we care about? Also, our friends' opinions and
needs are going to register a lot stronger in Washington and Peoria than they
did in the past.
Here
in the U. S., we're all running our Lilliputian errands ninety to the minute,
going to the kids' soccer games, painting the house, changing diapers and the
oil in the car, mowing, edging, and trimming the lawn, washing the dishes, and
reading the children bedtime stories.... not to mention our jobs. We
realize in a dim and distant way that the U. S. has some influence in the world,
but most of us live in our little, local worlds, racing from one chore to
another. But the Internet, by connecting our personal, inner worlds with the
personal, inner worlds of friends halfway around the globe, is, at least for me,
changing all that. One of the articles in the Arab
Media Internet Network is saying that breaking the monstrous
Israel/Palestinian cycle of violence/counter-violence is now in President Bush'
hands.
As Faiza
says, the dropping of food packages has been admitted to be a token
gesture compared to the full-scale relief that might be provided through the
various relief organizations, and possibly, through relief agencies in Pakistan.
Perhaps, though, as the Dalia Lama has observed, it's better than the
indiscriminate and heartless targeting of civilians that has characterized prior
wars.
11/3/2001:
The editorials that were listed here may be found on the Editorial
pages.
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