Published on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 by the Long Island, NY Newsday
Important History Lessons for the President
by James P. Pinkerton
George W. Bush proves once again that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. His speech in the Philippines on Saturday airbrushed the long and bloody history of America's intervention in that country, even as it provided a rationale for a similarly protracted and costly intervention for the United States in Iraq.
In a speech to the national congress in Manila, Bush sought to embrace the Pacific nation into his vision of the war on terror, even if he had to spin the truth. "Together," he told his audience, "our soldiers liberated the Philippines from colonial rule."
Now that's a howler, because at the time, the United States was the colonial ruler in the Philippines. That American colonial rule was interrupted by Japan during World War II, and it is true that Americans and Filipinos both fought against Japanese fascism in such blood-sanctified places as Corregidor and Bataan.
But decades before, America had been fighting a war of its own against the Filipino people. And that's why it's worrisome to see Bush drawing parallels between the United States in the Philippines and the United States in Iraq, because if he's right, we've got hell coming and so do the Iraqis.
A little history: The Philippines rose up in rebellion against their Spanish overlords in 1896. Coincidentally, the Spanish-American War broke out two years later. When the fighting ended, the United States seized the opportunity to seize the Philippines.
But Filipinos did not want to see the American flag flying above Manila any more than they wanted the Spanish flag over their heads. So the rebellion continued, only now the Americans were the heavies - the imperial enforcers. As is so often the case, America's "asymmetrical" war against guerrillas was much more costly than the earlier "symmetrical" war against Spain. In fighting the Spanish, just 385 Americans died, but in the next five years of battling the insurrectos, a total of 4,234 Americans died. Oh, and by the way, 200,000 Filipinos were killed, too, from 1898 to 1903.
Bush mentioned none of this horrible history in his speech on Saturday. Indeed, he heaped praise on Manuel Quezon, an advocate of Filipino democracy in the middle of the last century. But he didn't recall Quezon's most famous quote: "I prefer a government run like hell by Filipinos to a government run like heaven by Americans." The Philippines gained its independence from the United States in 1946; the last American military bases closed in 1992.
To be sure, in the last few years, American-Philippines relations have improved, mostly because the Manila government sees America as an aid-provider for its own local war against Muslim separatists.
But one might ask, Should America look forward to replaying its Philippines experience in Iraq? That is, the easy victory going in, and the tough fighting for a long time thereafter? Indeed, around the world over the last century, great powers have found it impossible to subdue nationalist passions in the Third World. That was the story of the United States in Vietnam, the French in Algeria - and it's the story today of the Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza.
Most Americans don't expect such a debacle, because the re-election-conscious Bush administration has been hinting to trusting reporters that most American forces will be coming home relatively soon. Thus the Pentagon-spawned headline in Sunday's Washington Post: "Reductions in US Troops Eyed for '04." OK, so far so good. But then came the subhead: "Gradual Exit Strategy Tied to Iraq's Stability." But here's the obvious question: What happens if Iraq isn't stable?
The Bush people say that such pessimism is unwarranted. They cite the number of playgrounds, etc., that they have built as proof that we are winning Iraqi hearts and minds. But these are the same people who predicted that Americans would be greeted as liberators, who said that reconstruction would be financed by Iraq's own oil, and that the rest of the world would wish to join us in the occupation, putting their own boots on the ground.
If Bush had known the history of Iraq, he wouldn't have made all these mistakes earlier this year. But, of course, if he had known the history of the Philippines, he wouldn't have given the speech he gave on Saturday.
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