That seems like a very British thing to do, and entire ministry devoted to going around the world saying ‘sorry old chap’.
I agree it’s not necessarily relevant to an apology for past policies whether they were ‘legal’, anyway a fraught term when it comes to war, at the time.
The more fundamental issue in case of the US-Philippine War was touched on early posts linking and copying pasting. The claim that the US policy was ‘genocidal’ or anything close to that is questionable. The largest numbers of civilian deaths are calculated by simple subtraction of census figure of dubious reliability, not documenting quantitatively a large number of non-combatant deaths by direct US action. Rather, the other piece is qualitatively documenting atrocities against combatants or suspected combatants.
It would probably be illustrative if the people arguing either side were asked if the US committed genocide in South East Asia, whether Eisenhower’s command really killed 100,000’s of German Army prisoners etc. There’s a lot of anti-US feeling, no need to debate how much of it is justified, but it often results in debatable claims of US misconduct.
I’d recommend “The Philippine War” by Brian McAllister Linn. It’s more of a treatment of the military campaign than specifically to investigate the scale of US misconduct. But one can see on that detailed level that the qualitative statements/incidents ‘tame em with a Krag’, ‘turn it into a howling wilderness’, water torture photographs etc applied to heavy guerilla fighting later in the war in a limited number of places. After the Filipino independence movement’s semi-conventional army was defeated early in the war on Luzon, the war basically ended in most of the Philippines, not just around Manila or even just on Luzon.
The United States is a loose collection of 340 Million different people, none of whom were alive in 1899. I’m not really cool with “apologies” given on my behalf for things I had nothing to do with. It would not be an apology anyway, just a choreographed and selfish PR act.
I’ve never really understood the idea behind these sorts of apologizes. What are they supposed to accomplish since a living person would be apologizing for an entire living population on behalf of an entirely dead population? I can guess that it might have meaning as a symbolic gesture from one abstract entity to another (two countries), but I can’t imagine what value it would have beyond that. I guess that’s why I would make a terrible diplomat.
It’s either your country or it isn’t. You probably weren’t alive when the US annexed Hawaii, either, but I doubt you’d demand that somebody look at your passport when you flew there.
Yes but I see no evidence of genocide. What evidence is there that the USA intended to eliminate the Filipino peoples?
This. There will not be an apology, because Filipinos are not asking for one. IME, they are possibly the most reflexively pro-American nation in the world (which doesn’t mean they don’t disagree on this or that policy).
I once had two Filipinos tell me – proudly – that their nation is “America’s little brother.”. I later learned this is a controversial term with a long history, but a not-insignificant segment of the population still feels that way.
Fighting side-by-side with the Americans against the Japanese, and then peacefully being granted independence, is much more a part of the national memory than fighting against them in 1899.
OTOH, I have never been to Mindanao.
None. You might want to look up genocide because your definition is a bit narrower than the actual definition.
Which only lessens the horror of actual genocides.
But the country that committed those atrocities hasn’t existed since 1918. Its a bit like the descendants of the victims of Leopold and Loeb suing the descendants of Leopold and Loeb for damages. Now modern Germany might want to make a token payment and an apology but I don’t see how they have any liability for the acts of Hohenzollern Germany.
And Homo Sapiens eradicated the Neanderthals before all of us were born, but that doesn’t mean Europeans should abandon the continent and go back to Africa. It’s either your species or it isn’t. That argument doesn’t sway me.
Oh, you’re back? Would you care to respond to the question of when the government of the Philippines is going to apologize for their brutal crimes against their own people and compensate them for them?
Marcos was recently reburied in Heros’ Cemetery. Considering his many crimes, was this appropriate? When will his victims be compensated?
What about all the atrocities Duterte has recently taken credit for? Should the families of his victims be compensated? After all, they’re still alive.
This has previously been addressed. Genocide does not require the intent to eliminate an entire people. You should read the entire thread if you want to discuss it.
I see that you participated earlier, when this thread was first opened, and this was explained to you already.
I’ve brought this up with Filipinos I know and they generally have little knowledge of such events or dismiss them.
You must remember that the Philippines are a group of islands that would probably be separate nations if they could and those areas where most of the fighting happened are seen as breakoffs and radicals anyways which a Filipino from Manila hardly cares for anyways.
I think the US has to wait its turn to apologize. I gather it’s around 40,723rd in the queue of nations waiting to say sorry to other nations at the moment. There’s a huge backlog but I’m sure we’ll get there in the end.
Or of course we could just all concentrate on the present and forget about making futile gestures for past sins.
You did make essentially this same post back in September.
Hi all, if one recognizes his/her wrong doing, the next step then, should be an apology…
Now the French Emmanuel Macron, the centrist French politician who is surging in the polls two months ahead of the presidential election, has been forced to defend himself after criticizing his country’s colonial past.
You see, he really feels guilty for the wrong doing of his Country and maybe I will still see the day when they (and hopefully all other) apologize…
Peace
I was there the past 6 weeks. I heard, and I believe, that a significant portion of those 7,000+ deaths are upper level drug people killing those they consider to be untrustworthy.
There have been remarkably few reported collateral deaths. Only 2 have been widely reported. This is nearly miraculous and suggests that whoever is doing the killing is well-disciplined and professional. I never heard any complaints of non-druggies getting killed.
I had thought the drug war was solely against methamphetamine and was surprised to learn that people involved with large quantities of marijuana have been targeted.
People on different islands might as well be in different countries. There are literally hundreds of local dialects which are seriously different from each other. Most people are too poor to travel, even to other locations on the same island.
Fun fact: the Philippines has long had its own KKK.
That is all.
However you might want to think about the political or legal ramifications of the US actions after the Spanish/American war, I am ashamed of what our country did there and, at the very least, think we should use our guilt as a stimulus to help prevent any future such action anywhere in the world.
Don’t hold your breath. France is still (shamefully) very divided on the subject.
Essentially the right says “colonization was a good thing we did for them uncivilized savages” while the left is more on the “what we did was sort of shit, wannit ?” side of the fence. And while our last colonies have ceased to be over 50 years ago, it’s still a somewhat warm issue because it’s obviously tied with the plight of our minorities for one thing, and because many racist old fucks remember the “good old days” for another - and those guys have a vote.
I remember back when Sarkozy was president, his government tried to sneak in a provision that history teachers had to emphasize the positives of colonization and minimize the bloody. Since educators tend to skew left in general ; and the academic education system as a whole has long fought to keep itself independent from such political bullshit ; the measure immediately sparked demonstrations and protests and was discreetly withdrawn. Still, that’s an example of how that shit’s not settled yet.
It’s discouraging, really.