Racism, Imperialism and the “Divine Mission of America”

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Sat Feb-13-10 10:01 PM
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Racism, Imperialism and the “Divine Mission of America”

It is (and probably always has been) in the nature of human beings that whenever they do something wrong they seek to justify and rationalize their actions as motivated by noble purposes. The more heinous the crime, the more a person needs to justify it. The history of the United States of America is no exception to that rule. That is as true today as it was in the days of slavery, and the American people would do well to keep that in mind.

U.S. WAR AGAINST THE PHILIPPINES

In April 1898, at the start of the Spanish-American War, the American Navy destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in the Philippines. The “Treaty of Paris” between the United States and Spain, signed on December 10th, 1898, ceded Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the United States.

President McKinley’s decision to take the Philippines

Now the United States had to decide what to do with their new possessions. I’ve discussed how they took control of Cuba and Puerto Rico in a previous post. In this post I discuss U.S. actions in the Philippines.

President William McKinley led the way. He was besieged with advice from businessmen with commercial interests in the Philippines and by military men who believed we should gain control over the Philippines for strategic military purposes. This is how McKinley justified his decision to pursue conquest of the Philippines:

The truth is I didn’t want the Philippines, and when they came to us, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them… I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance… And one night late it came to me this way… that we could not leave them to themselves – they were unfit for self-government – and they would soon have anarchy and misrule; and 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… and the next morning I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States, and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President!

The day after the Treaty of Paris was signed McKinley officially proclaimed sovereignty over the Philippines.

There was only one problem with that: The Filipinos had declared independence on June 12th, and the Republic of the Philippines was proclaimed on January 23rd, 1899, with the Filipino rebel leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, as its first President. The Filipinos wanted American rule over their country no more than they had wanted Spanish rule. So twelve days after proclaiming their new Republic, they declared war against the United States.

Now it was up to the U.S. Senate to decide whether to commit the U.S. to war against the Philippines by ratifying the Treaty of Paris, or to turn away from American imperial ambitions. Many Senators denounced the treaty as an imperialist land grab – which it was of course. The main arguments in favor of approving the treaty were the commercial and strategic advantages that control of the Philippines would give to the United States, and of course our need to civilize and Christianize the Filipinos (Most Filipinos were Catholic, but few Americans knew that.) During the Senate debate a brief skirmish between the Filipino and American military forces gave several Senators all the excuse they needed to vote for the treaty, and it was approved by a vote of 57-27.

Senator Beveridge explains why we had to continue our mission in the Philippines

As in Vietnam, and later in Iraq and Afghanistan, the conquest turned out to be a lot more difficult than originally thought. A vicious guerilla war ensued. In January 2000, Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana made a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate arguing in support of continued conquest. That speech reflected the imperialist and racist attitudes that to this day permeate that portion of the American population that is so gung-ho for war against third world countries. In those days racism was more acceptable than it is today, so racist speeches tended to be less disguised than they are now. Here are some excerpts from Senator Beveridge’s blatantly racist and imperialistic speech:

Mr. President… The Philippines are ours forever, territory belonging to the United States… And just beyond the Philippines are China’s illimitable markets… We will not repudiate our duty… We will not abandon our opportunity in the Orient. We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world… with gratitude for a task worthy of our strength… For power to administer government anywhere and in any manner the situation demands… is the power most necessary for the ruling provisions of our race – the tendency to … revitalize decaying peoples, and plant civilized and civilizing governments all over the globe…

This question is deeper than any question of party politics… It is racial. God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing… No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns… He has made us the master organizers of the world… that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples. Were it not for such a force as this the world would relapse into barbarism and night. And of all our race He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the glory, all the happiness possible to man. We are trustees of the world’s progress, guardians of its righteous peace…

What shall history say of us? … Shall it say that, called by events to captain and command the proudest, ablest, purest race of history in history’s noblest work, we declined that great commission? … Blind indeed is he who sees not the hand of God in events so vast, so harmonious, so benign… Craven indeed is the heart that… dares not win a glory so immortal… Do you remind me of the precious blood that must be shed? … As a nation every historic duty we have done… has been by the sacrifice of our noblest sons…

One might argue with me that Senator Beveridge was just one man – that our nation was not defined by his sentiments. Not totally, no. But notwithstanding that fact, his argument carried the day, and the war continued.

The course of the Philippine-American War

The war lasted three and a half years, from February 1899 until the middle of 1902. It was characterized by widespread torture, rape, pillage, and the frequent refusal of the American military to make a distinction between civilians and the Filipino military. Rationalizations provided for this behavior included the brutal behavior by the Filipino “savages” (true, but who was invading whose country?) and the claim that the atrocities were the work of a few “bad apples” (not true at all). By the time that the U.S. had “pacified” the Philippines, the dead included 4,374 American soldiers, 16 thousand Filipino guerillas, and 20 thousand Filipino civilians.

A report in the Philadelphia Ledger in 1901 gave the American people their first glimpse of the atrocities committed during the American-Philippine War:

Our men have been relentless; have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people, from lads of ten and up, an idea prevailing that the Filipino, as such, was little better than a dog… Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to “make them talk,” have taken prisoner people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later… shot them down one by one…

President Theodore Roosevelt, who succeeded McKinley after he was assassinated on September 6, 1901, declared the war over 10 months after taking office, on July 4, 1902, though “minor uprisings and insurrections against American rule periodically occurred in the years that followed.”

So this was the “divine mission of America”, the “righteous peace” that Senator Beveridge spoke of.

FAST FORWARD TO THE EARLY 21ST CENTURY

An assessment of the Neoconservative movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries suggests how little has changed a century later. The Neoconservative movement provided much of the personnel and motivating principles of the George W. Bush administration’s foreign policy, most especially its invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Neocons and the “Project for a New American Century”

The blueprint for this foreign policy can be found in the “statement of principles” of the Neoconservative group known as Project for a New American Century (PNAC), from which the Bush/Cheney administration took its ideology and much of its personnel. The relevant portions of that “statement of principles” are as follows:

We need to … challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values … We need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles. Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

The terms “accept responsibility” and “moral clarity” and “principles” make it clear that the members of PNAC wish the world to know that they are a responsible, moral and principled organization – though what is meant by the morality and principles that they refer to is utterly unclear. The frequent references to security and prosperity lets the American people know that PNAC intends to act in their best interest to protect them and make them prosperous. And the reference to “ensuring our greatness” in the 21st Century serves as a reminder that we are better than the other peoples of the world, which is why they should be morally duty bound to do what we tell them to do. Thus it is that American icons such as Lee Hamilton could say that they are losing patience with Iraq because it was not participating in our war in the manner in which we have repeatedly told it to participate.

“Rebuilding America’s defenses”

The main document that guides Neocon ideology and policy is called “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”. Whereas our Declaration of Independence was written by a group of men who were oppressed by an empire and wished to free themselves from that empire, PNAC was founded by a group of men who aspire to be an empire and to oppress others. And whereas our Declaration talks of the unalienable rights of all people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, PNAC talks of the right of the United States to take what it wants from other nations and to shape them to meet our interests. In other words, other peoples have NO rights – only the right to live as long as they do our bidding.

Some might argue that PNAC doesn’t actually say those things that I attributed to them in the above paragraph. Ok, it’s true that they don’t actually say those things. Overt racism is not considered as acceptable today as it was in the days of Senator Albert Beveridge. So racists have to be more subtle about the way they phrase things.

The primary theme of “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” is that our military must be much stronger than the militaries of any nation or combination of nations that might oppose our ambitions. Why is that so important? Because we need to “shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests”; we need to “boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad”; without such a military we might lack the capability to maintain an “order that is uniquely friendly to American principles and prosperity”; and more specifically, we now have new “missions” which require “defending American interests in the Persian Gulf and Middle East” (This was written before the Bush administration publicly expressed any interest in invading Iraq and even before the 9-11 attacks on our country).

And how are we to protect and defend all those interests? Well, the document notes that “there are, however, potentially powerful states dissatisfied with the current situation and eager to change it….” (Those ungrateful evil doers!). Therefore, we must “deter the rise of a new great-power competitor”. And we must do this by “deterring or, when needed, by compelling regional foes to act in ways that protect American interests and principles…” Therefore, “The Pentagon needs to begin to calculate the force necessary to protect, independently, US interests in Europe, East Asia and the Gulf at all times.” And we better make some changes because the current extent of our military bases in the region do not allow for us to do that.

So it’s all about using our vastly superior weapons of mass destruction to protect American interests abroad. Their countries, our interests. They have them, we want them and we must get them. There is not the slightest indication anywhere in the document that suggests that people living in other countries have any rights when it comes to our interests.

Oh, but the document also speaks of our “principles”. That must add some moral weight to their plans, right? Nope. They say nothing about what those principles are. And since there is no separation anywhere in their document between our principles and our interests, it is obvious that they consider our principles to be the equivalent of taking whatever we want – using our superior military force to do so.

SOME THINGS HAVEN’T CHANGED MUCH

I find the similarities between the ideology of Senator Beveridge (and the like-minded public officials of his day) and that of today’s Neocons to be strikingly similar. The former led to our war against the Philippines, while the latter led to our Iraq and Afghanistan wars and occupations. It is the same ideology that characterized and rationalized our slaughter of Native Americans in the first century following our creation as a nation and the use of slavery to propel our economic growth. It is also the same ideology that characterized most of the years between the Philippine-American War and the present time.

Racism and imperialism have a lot in common. The former represents an attitude that is frequently used to justify the latter – whether implicitly or explicitly. It is reflected in a national corporate news media that rarely mentions the hundreds of thousands of deaths resulting from our imperial conquests. They aren’t important enough to dwell upon.

There are two main differences between today’s racism and that of a century ago. One is that today’s racism is more subtle than it was then – reflecting the fact that it no longer widely condoned. I guess that represents an improvement – though not enough of one.

The other main difference is that by the early years of the 21st Century our imperialistic over-reach involves so much of the rest of the world, has become so expensive, and has generated so much animosity throughout the world that it threatens to destroy us. It has been estimated that we occupy 737 foreign military bases throughout the world. We spend almost as much money on our military as the rest of the world combined. Our foreign policy is the chief cause of the risk of foreign terrorism that we face. And our frequently arrogant attitude prohibits us from working closely enough with the other nations of the world to find solutions to our common environmental and other problems.

These attitudes and policies work just fine for an elite group of corporate interests that profit from war. But they are highly detrimental to the vast majority of Americans, and if continued much longer they could very well lead to world-wide catastrophes of a magnitude never before seen, and spell the end of human civilization as we know it.