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发帖数: 38600 | 1 America’s Other Original Sin
We have never reckoned with the bloody U.S. takeover of the Philippines, our
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americas-other-original-sin
-philippines/
1898 US Political Cartoon: U.S. President William McKinley is shown holding
the Philippines, depicted as a savage child, as the world looks on. The
implied options for McKinley are to keep the Philippines, or give it back to
Spain, which the cartoon compares to throwing a child off a cliff. (
Uncredited cartoonist for the Minneapolis Tribune/public domain)
Can there be more than one Original Sin? I’m guessing that may be a
theological nonstarter, but as a basis for historical interpretation there
is real merit in considering the possibility of multiple exiles from the
Garden of Eden.
That the arrival of the first African slaves to Jamestown 400 years ago this
month qualifies as America’s Original Sin is now widely recognized. While
holdouts remain, most agree that slavery and racism together have left an
indelible stain on our nation. Many would argue that this awareness has
arrived belatedly. I might even cite myself as an example.
As a kid growing up in Northwest Indiana in the middle of the last century,
I judged slavery to have been an unfortunate mistake long since corrected.
In the de facto segregated Calumet region where my family lived, race
obviously remained a sensitive subject, but to my mind one best kept at arm
’s length. I had more important things to worry about than the relationship
between white people like me and those who were not white—why the Cubs
were permanently stuck in or near the National League cellar being but one
example. In the decades since, I’ve learned to see matters differently. So
have many others.
But let me suggest the possibility of a Second Original Sin, not rising to
the level of the first, but at least deserving far more attention than it
has received. And that’s the sin committed in December 1898, when the
United States laid claim to the Philippines. The history of this transaction
, centering on a transfer of sovereign authority from Madrid to Washington,
is both well known and almost entirely forgotten. As had been the case with
race in East Chicago, Indiana, back in the late 1950s, the incorporation of
the Philippines into an increasingly far-flung American empire has been
written off. This, I have come to believe, is unfortunate, especially today
when the American empire appears increasingly precarious.
The essential facts are these. In April 1898, the United States went to war
with Spain. The war’s nominal purpose was to liberate Cuba from oppressive
colonial rule. The war’s subsequent conduct found the United States not
only invading and occupying Cuba, but also seizing Puerto Rico, completing a
deferred annexation of Hawaii, scarfing up various other small properties
in the Pacific, and, not least of all, replacing Spain as colonial masters
of the Philippine Archipelago, located across the Pacific.
That the true theme of the war with Spain turned out to be not liberation
but expansion should not come as a terrible surprise. From the very founding
of the first British colonies in North America, expansion has constituted
an enduring theme of the American project. Separation from the British
Empire after 1776 only reinforced the urge to grow. Yet prior to 1898, that
project had been a continental one. The events of that year signaled the
transition from continental to extra-continental expansion. American leaders
were no longer content to preside over a republic stretching from sea to
shining sea.
In that regard, the decision to annex the Philippines stands out as
especially instructive. If you try hard enough—and some politicians at the
time did—you can talk yourself into believing that U.S. actions in the
Caribbean in 1898 represented something other than naked European-style
imperialism with all its brute force to keep the natives in line. After all,
the United States did refrain from converting Cuba into a formal colony and
by 1902 had even granted Cubans a sort of ersatz independence. Moreover,
both Cuba and Puerto Rico fell within “our backyard,” as did various other
Caribbean republics soon to undergo U.S. military occupation.
Geographically, all were located within the American orbit.
Yet the Philippines represented an altogether different case. By no stretch
of the imagination did the archipelago fall within “our backyard.”
Furthermore, the Filipinos had no desire to trade Spanish rule for American
rule and violently resisted occupation by U.S. forces. The notably dirty
Philippine-American War that followed from 1899 to 1902—a conflict almost
entirely expunged from American memory today—resulted in something like 200
,000 Filipino deaths and ended in a U.S. victory not yet memorialized on the
National Mall in Washington.
Why Do We Still Have War Booty From the Philippines?
Time to Break Up With the Philippines
So the Philippine Archipelago had become ours. In short order, however,
authorities in Washington changed their mind about the wisdom of accepting
responsibility for several thousand islands located nearly 7,000 miles from
San Francisco.
The sprawling American colony turned out to be the ultimate impulse purchase
. And as with most impulse purchases, enthusiasm soon enough gave way to
second thoughts and even regret. By 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt was
privately referring to the Philippines as America’s “Achilles heel.” The
United States had paid Spain $20 million for an acquisition that didn’t
turn a profit and couldn’t be defended given the limited capabilities of
the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. To complicate matters further, from Tokyo’s
perspective, the Philippines fell within its backyard. So far as Imperial
Japan was concerned, imperial America was intruding on its turf.
Thus was the sequence of events leading to the Pacific War of 1941-1945 set
in motion. I am not suggesting that Pearl Harbor was an inevitable
consequence of the United States annexing the Philippines. I am suggesting
that it put two rival imperial powers on a collision course.
One can, of course, find in the ensuing sequence of events matters worth
celebrating—great military victories at places like Midway, Iwo Jima, and
Okinawa, culminating after 1945 in a period of American dominion. But the
legacy of our flirtation with empire in the Western Pacific also includes
much that is lamentable—the wars in Korea and Vietnam, for example, and now
an intensifying rivalry with China destined to lead we know not where.
If history could be reduced to a balance sheet, the U.S. purchase of the
Philippines would rate as a pretty bad bargain. That first $20 million
turned out to be only a down payment.
We Americans are still reckoning with the consequences of slavery and racism
, a painful but necessary process. A similar reckoning with the consequences
of American imperialism is badly needed but nowhere in sight.
The sin of slavery contravened all that America professes to signify. So too
, I submit, does the sin of empire.
The American Garden of Eden, attributed to divine favor even if secured by
hook or by crook, is America itself. It is a vast and beautiful garden.
We didn’t need the Philippines in 1898. Today we don’t need Afghanistan,
Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and other artifacts of a failed imperial enterprise. It
’s past time to give our own garden the careful tending it deserves.
Andrew Bacevich is TAC’s writer-at-large and co-founder of the Quincy
Institute of Responsible Statecraft. His new book, The Age of Illusions: How
America Squandered Its Cold War Victory, will be published early next year. | b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 2 We Americans are still reckoning with the consequences of slavery and racism
, a painful but necessary process. A similar reckoning with the consequences
of American imperialism is badly needed but nowhere in sight.
The sin of slavery contravened all that America professes to signify. So too
, I submit, does the sin of empire.
The American Garden of Eden, attributed to divine favor even if secured by
hook or by crook, is America itself. It is a vast and beautiful garden.
We didn’t need the Philippines in 1898. Today we don’t need Afghanistan,
Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and other artifacts of a failed imperial enterprise. It
’s past time to give our own garden the careful tending it deserves. | z***n
发帖数: 590 | | b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 4 President William McKinley defends his decision to support the annexation of
the Philippines in the wake of the U.S. war in that country:
"When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I
confess I did not know what to do with them. . . And one night late it came
to me this way. . .1) That we could not give them back to Spain- that would
be cowardly and dishonorable; 2) that we could not turn them over to France
and Germany-our commercial rivals in the Orient-that would be bad business
and discreditable; 3) that we not leave them to themselves-they are unfit
for self-government-and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there
worse than Spain's wars; and 4) 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, as
our fellow-men for whom Christ also died."
Making Christians of a country that had its first Catholic diocese 9 years
before the Spanish Armada sailed for England, with 4 dioceses in place years
before the English sailed for Jamestown.
【在 z***n 的大作中提到】
: 大牛谈谈我党的原罪呗，看看如何转弯
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