Once again my account got locked for unusual activity because I hit the like button on someone's post saying that they are disabled and @DrJillStein's policy with image attached could really help them.
🚨 The First US War Overseas Was A Genocide—It Was Erased From History 🚨
During the Spanish-American War, which was largely created by US propaganda, the US went after Spanish colonial territories — one of those being the Philippines. In the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898, the US won a decisive victory, destroying the Spanish Pacific fleet. Afterward, one might think the Americans would turn around and sail home, singing sea shanties with grog in hand. …But no.
President McKinley decided it made more sense to try to take over the entire Philippines even though few Americans knew what it was or where it was. About this decision, McKinley stated:
“One night late, it came to me this way. There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos and uplift them and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could for them, as our fellow men for who Christ also died.” (Quotes are from the book "Overthrow".)
It’s unclear if the hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who would die in McKinley’s pursuit felt uplifted by the experience. Also interesting is the fact that McKinley believed there was “nothing” else he could do but subjugate, oppress, convert, and control the Filipino people. Apparently no one made him aware of the idea of leaving them alone. (I bet when he heard about that years later, it was a real head-smack moment.)
Prior to the arrival of the Americans, there were already Filipino guerrilla forces fighting against the Spanish colonizers. After the Battle of Manila Bay, the head of those forces, Emilio Aguinaldo, met with Commodore George Dewey, the head of the US naval force. The two of them differed on what happened at that meeting. Aguinaldo believed they had agreed to defeat Spain together, at which point the Filipino people would have their independence. Dewey later claimed that’s not at all what happened. But then again the two of them didn’t speak each other’s language, and there was no interpreter. Also, the United States has broken every promise it has ever made to indigenous people — so this was just par for the course.
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A few months later the US and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898, which brought the Spanish-American War to a close. In the agreement, the US paid Spain $20 million for the entire Philippine archipelago, which consisted of 7,000 islands and was home to 7 million people who had no idea they’d just been sold from one colonizer to another. (That means the US paid $2.85 per Filipino.)
The Filipino people proceeded with implementing their newfound independence. They approved a constitution, created a republic, and proclaimed Aguinaldo president.
“Twelve days later, this new nation declared war against the United States forces on the islands. McKinley took no notice. To him the Filipinos were what the historian Richard Welch called ‘a disorganized and helpless people.’”
Oddly, at this time in American history, some percentage of Congress believed the US should not be a dastardly and repulsive imperial hegemon. (I know. I’m as shocked as you are.) Therefore, the Senate (for a bit) refused to ratify the Treaty of Paris.
“Senator George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts warned that it would turn the United States into a ‘a vulgar, commonplace empire founded upon physical force, controlling subject races and vassal states, in which one class must forever rule and the other classes must forever obey.’”
Ha! Can you imagine that? The US would never do something so grotesque! …except for the next 125 years and counting. (Also, my man George gets extra credit for having the middle name Frisbie.)
Hmmm, so how can America’s ruling psychopaths get Congress to play along with the subjugation of 7 million Filipinos? I bet those pesky politicians would change their tune if the US forces in the Philippines were attacked by the barbarians who lived there. Oh, what do you know?! That’s exactly what happened next!
During the Senate’s debate, the Filipino rebels attacked the American forces in Manila. This helped push the Senate to finally ratify the treaty. …But it was later revealed that the American troops actually fired the first shots. So we can see the US tradition of false flags used to drag us into bloody wars goes back quite a way. (Apparently, the long arc of history bends towards repeating itself.)
In the battles that followed, the Filipinos—up against superior US weaponry—used every guerrilla tactic they could think of in order to defend their land, families, villages, and lives. The Americans responded with genocide. In just one example:
“General Wheaton ordered every town and village within twelve miles to be destroyed and their inhabitants killed.”
The US military worked to stop any reporting of the ethnic cleansing from getting back to the home audience. Eventually, in 1901, some of the extent of the horror made its way into US newspapers. Average Americans found out the troops were using torture, rape, and ethnic cleansing to subdue the local population. They rarely differentiated between combatants and noncombatants.
“‘We have actually come to do the thing we went to war to banish,’ the Baltimore American lamented. The Indianapolis News concluded that the United States had adopted ‘the methods of barbarism,’ and the New York Post declared that American troops ‘have been pursuing a policy of wholesale and deliberate murder.’”
Of course, plenty of US newspapers fell all over themselves to defend the genocidal colonizers. Can you guess which rag led the way?
“The New York Times argued that ‘brave and loyal officers’ had reacted understandably to the ‘cruel, treacherous, murderous’ Filipinos.”
In early 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt had succeeded the recently assassinated McKinley. In yet another moment of foreshadowing, Roosevelt — pretending to care — pushed for hearings in the Senate to address the charges of misconduct by American forces. Teddy then got his allies to steadfastly limit the scope of the hearings. The committee never even issued a final report. As with the Warren Commission on the assassination of JFK and the 9/11 Commission, the mere appearance of an effort to “figure it out” was enough to distract the American public. The commissions never got to the truth, nor were they meant to.
By July of 1902, Teddy Roosevelt announced that the Philippines had been pacified. Most of the rebel leaders had been killed, and the indigenous population had given up its resistance.
“In three and a half torturous years of war, 4,374 American soldiers were killed… About 16,000 guerrillas and at least 20,000 civilians were also killed. Filipinos remember those years as some of the bloodiest in their history. Americans quickly forgot that the war ever happened.”
Britannica puts the death toll higher:
"An estimated 20,000 Filipino combatants were killed, and more than 200,000 civilians perished as a result of combat, hunger, or disease."
The first time US troops ever fought overseas they committed genocide. It does not seem that much has changed over 125 years.
[NOTE: Support my work (for free) by subscribing at "RealLeeCamp" on subs tack. Thanks for supporting independent media!]
Always amazes me how the US can start an unprovoked war of aggression on the other side of the planet and then claim it is "launching self-defense strikes" there.
These military forces are nowhere near the United States. The Iranian government says the Apache helicopter that was shot down "was not flying over international waters," but even if it was, it's absurd to claim "self-defense" against a country that has been defending itself in a war you started.
These freaks really do operate from the premise that the entire planet is their property, and that any failure to respect its property rights shall therefore be viewed as an act of aggression.
I mean, just look at who's making this statement. US "Central Command" is the unified combatant command responsible for military operations in the middle east. The US military has separate unified combatant commands for every part of the globe:
• Central Command (CENTCOM) for the middle east.
• Africa Command (AFRICOM) for Africa.
• Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) for Asia, the Pacific islands, Australia and Antarctica.
• European Command (EUCOM) for Europe.
• Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) for South America.
• Northern Command (NORTHCOM) for North America.
No other country on earth does this. No other military power is segmented into areas of responsibility spanning every continent on earth. This is because normal military forces are used to defend the actual, official country they belong to, whereas the US military is used to dominate the entire planet.
And in that sense it's actually entirely reasonable that the US "Department of Defense" changed its name to the Department of War. The US military is never used to defend the actual, official country of the United States of America; it is only ever used to prop up the globe-spanning imperial power structure it commands.
This is not normal. It is a freakish aberration without historical precedent. The world cannot know peace until the US empire is dismantled.
BREAKING:
Israeli settlers are burning Taybeh in occupied Palestine.
A village that has stood for thousands of years.
A place where Jesus once walked.
Home to the oldest living Christian community in the world.
And not a peep from Western mainstream media.
Donald Trump and the U.S. restarts the war with Iran by bombing their water reservoirs.
Now tens of thousands of Iranians are without drinking water. The U.S. is incapable of winning any conflict without resorting to blatant terrorism
People keep telling me that Graham Platner is anti war meanwhile this is him supporting NATO’s war against Russia
Every single “progressive” Democrat is pro NATO scum
AI is now a central component of genocide & war, ICE terror, the surveillance state, mass layoffs, & climate crisis because AI is the new frontier for super-profits for the super-rich.
They will absolutely not stop the AI juggernaut unless threatened by a powerful nationwide movement with leaders who have a backbone to go up against billionaires and the proven strategy to win for working people.
“Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.”
— George Carlin
Here we go again; the House is going to debate a clean reauthorization of the unconstitutional FISA 702 program tonight.
This program is used to surveil Americans without a warrant.
I’ll be joining the @cspan debate on the floor in the next hour… in opposition to this madness.
That time where I confronted Ro Khanna on why he supports the self determination and armed resistance for Ukrainians but doesn’t support Palestinian armed resistance
These NATO left politicians fall apart with just basic lines of questioning
For all the progressives, Black folks, Muslims, and others that knew better, but gave individual or institutional endorsements to the Zionist billionaire prison profiteer:
I hope the check cleared.
And I hope your integrity, and credibility were worth it…
The thing about voting your values, is that win or lose, you never lose.
The lies that come out of this guy's mouth are breathtaking.
"We need more diplomacy," says Adam Smith, right after he proudly announced a bill for a trillion NEW dollars for war & to fuse U.S. & Israeli militaries.
I'm fighting to stop Adam Smith’s insane warmongering agenda.
CONFIRMED: SECTION 224 WAS ISRAEL’S PLAN
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu confirms Section 224 of the NDAA was HIS PLAN in a letter to Congress, thanking them for doing his bidding.
TELL YOUR HOUSE REP TO REMOVE SECTION 224!