Those bumper stickers that say "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam" are a clever stab at making an historical analogy. Their appeal lies in their instant understandability: we all recognize that Vietnam can be used as a metaphor for an impossible geopolitical quagmire, that both 9/11 and the Gulf of Tonkin incident were used to justify inappropriate military action, that one should never fight a land war in Asia. The analogy retains its poignancy because in the greater scheme of things, Vietnam wasn't all that long ago; its lessons are still relatively fresh in our minds. Problem is, the Vietnam/Iraq comparison contains gaping holes of context, like, um, the Cold War. Better analogies for Iraq exist within the less-recent episodes of our own history, and one of them, by fate or design, started on this very night, 107 years ago...
Just for fun, every time you see a "," ask,
sound familiar?
On the night of February 4-5, 1899, near the town of San Juan on the Philippine island of Luzon, Private William Grayson of the 1st Nebraska Infantry fired upon an approaching column of Filipinos. Thus was inaugurated a conflict that would eventually result in 126,000 American troops receiving an all-expenses-paid trip to a guerilla war being fought on unfamiliar terrain amidst a hostile population.
Tensions had been rising between the United States and Filipino insurgents since the end of the Spanish-American War, a year-and-a-half earlier. Indigenous fighters had been recruited and incited to assist the U.S. in ousting what Washington styled a dangerous, oppressive power. In exchange, the insurgents were promised American assistance and given hints of independence for their nation - after the cessation of hostilities, of course. President McKinley decided to re-visit these promises when the war with Spain ended far more quickly than anyone expected, and it turned out that an army of Filipino freedom fighters would not be needed for use as corpses in a long war of attrition.
The Filipino leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, was justifiably pissed. In order to cut the their ostensible allies out of any potential end-of-war spoils, American officers had gone so far as to collude, via intermediaries, with officials of the all-but-defeated "enemy" regime to stage a face-saving mock battle with a prearranged signal of surrender. The native resistance, sidelined for the surrender of the capitol, felt betrayed:
In the eyes of the Filipinos, their relationship with the United States was that of two nations joined in a common struggle against Spain. As allies, the Filipinos provided American forces with valuable intelligence (e.g., that the Spanish had no mines or torpedoes with which to sink warships entering Manila Bay), and Aguinaldo's 12,000 troops kept a slightly larger Spanish force bottled up inside Manila until American troop reinforcements could arrive from San Francisco in late June (1898). Aguinaldo was unhappy, however, that the United States would not commit to paper a statement of support for Philippine independence.
...Aguinaldo was told bluntly by the Americans that his army could not participate and would be fired upon if it crossed into the city. The insurgents were infuriated at being denied triumphant entry into their own capital, but Aguinaldo bided his time. Relations continued to deteriorate, however, as it became clear to Filipinos that the Americans were in the islands to stay.
-- this, and all subsequent citations save the last, are from the Library of Congress
During and shortly after the war, Aguinaldo had declared Philippine independence and established a republic. Concurrently, the United States negotiated a treaty with Spain - one in which the U.S. agreed to pay Spain $20 million. Interpretations regarding the payment of this sum have bred some disagreement:
Historian Leon Wolff: "it was . . . a gift. Spain accepted it. Quite irrelevantly she handed us the Philippines. No question of honor or conquest was involved. The Filipino people had nothing to say about it, although their rebellion was thrown in (so to speak) free of charge."
General Antonio Luna: "people are not to be bought and sold like horses and houses. If the aim has been to abolish the traffic in Negroes because it meant the sale of persons, why is there still maintained the sale of countries with inhabitants?"
President William McKinley: issued a proclamation on December 21, 1898, declaring United States policy to be one of "benevolent assimilation" in which "the mild sway of justice and right" would be substituted for "arbitrary rule."
Relations between the U.S. and those who had supported their intervention deteriorated rapidly. When the fighting began, the Americans quickly gained the upper hand, at least in the urban areas:
The Filipino troops, armed with old rifles and bolos and carrying anting-anting (magical charms), were no match for American troops in open combat, but they were formidable opponents in guerrilla warfare. For General Ewell S. Otis, commander of the United States forces, who had been appointed military governor of the Philippines, the conflict began auspiciously with the expulsion of the rebels from Manila and its suburbs by late February and the capture of Malolos, the revolutionary capital, on March 31, 1899. Aguinaldo and his government escaped, however, establishing a new capital at San Isidro in Nueva Ecija Province. The Filipino cause suffered a number of reverses. The attempts of Mabini and his successor as president of Aguinaldo's cabinet, Pedro Paterno, to negotiate an armistice in May 1899 ended in failure because Otis insisted on unconditional surrender. (emphasis mine)
They did not fare as well in the countryside, and by 1900 there were approximately 100 engagements (usually ambushes) per month between American troops and the insurgents. The war dragged on for 3 more years, with America's chosen enemy surviving the capture of its leader and defying a U.S. declaration that pacification had been achieved. One historian places civilian deaths in the range of 200,000, in addition to 16,000 Filipino resistance fighters. And for what?
From the very beginning, United States presidents and their representatives in the islands defined their colonial mission as tutelage: preparing the Philippines for eventual independence. Except for a small group of "retentionists," the issue was not whether the Philippines would be granted self-rule, but when and under what conditions.
The Philippines were granted independence on July 4, 1946.
4,234 American soldiers gave their lives in the Philippine insurrection. They died on merciless, unfamiliar terrain, far from home, killed by an enemy fighting to protect his home and win full self-determination, all in the name of motives that were, at the very least, questionable. They were deployed as part of a strategy of heavy-handed imperialism, but they died as American soldiers nonetheless - we must never forget that. And though we might disparage the cynical policies that kept them garrisoned in harm's way, we must not malign the troops themselves, nor the privations they suffered and the sacrifices they made while following the orders of their commanders - who, after all, were following the orders of their commanders.
On this night, especially, we should honor the fallen of this nearly-forgotten war. If you find such empathy difficult to summon, consider the immortal words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson:
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
And may God have mercy on the souls of all those who perished in this, and all, misguided conflicts.