George Bush's Torture: History's Road --- The US and the Philippines (Cullinane)

Michael Cullinane, a specialist on the history of US counter-insurgency in the Philippines, writes for EA:

For many people, torture is “cruel and unusual punishment”, an act expressly outlawed by the 8th Amendment of the US Constitution.  However, according to George W. Bush, in his November 8 interview with NBC television, torture is a technique that has saved the lives of Americans at home and fighting abroad, an act he is proud to have authorised and would do so again.

Bush’s legal rationale for torture remains less than compelling --- “because the lawyers said it was legal” --- but he does have more powerful backing: that of historical precedent. More than a century ago, the US Government and military, in the name of civilising progress abroad, embraced the techniques that the 43rd President still promotes.

This was not always the case. From the inception of the Constitution, the US defined torture as “cruel and unusual”, even when advocates claimed it was a military necessity. In the wrangling over the language of the 8th amendment in 1789, one delegate argued, “it is sometimes necessary to hang a man, villains often deserve whipping, and perhaps having their ears cut off", but Congress ignored his suggestion and passed the amendment with an overwhelming majority.  Abraham Lincoln’s General Orders 100, which outlined the fight in the Civil War, insisted that “military necessity does not admit of cruelty...nor of torture to extort confessions.” 

So what changed? In 1899 the US found itself engaged in a counter-insurgency in the Philippines. While Lincoln’s General Orders were still standard operating procedure, power had devolved to regional commanders who elevated torture as a legitimate means of extracting information from uncooperative Filipinos.  From 1901 to 1903, the US Army implemented salt diets, ten-second hangings, skin stripping, water deprivation, finger stretching, and the famous “water-cure”,  pouring  gallons of water –-- typically salted –-- down a Filipino’s throat and expunging the water by stomping on the victim’s gut. 

As the stories of these atrocities returned to the US, the public grew uncomfortable with the military’s role in the archipelago. The credibility of President Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary of War Elihu Root came under severe criticism.  Yet, rather than condemn the torture as categorically unacceptable, the Roosevelt administration and Congressional allies either questioned the definition of “torture” or couched it in the context of exceptional circumstances.

Senators Henry Cabot Lodge and Albert Beveridge cited recent attacks on US soldiers as savage barbarity, proving that the conditions of war in the Philippines were significantly different than those in previous battles. Beveridge asked torture victims in Congressional testimony to be clearer on the amount of time they received the water-cure, noting that there was a great difference between five minutes of torture and fifteen. President Roosevelt summoned an argument of comparison, “For every guilty act committed by one of our troops, a hundred acts of far greater atrocity have been committed by the hostile natives.”

When the public opposition to the torture reached its apex in 1902, Roosevelt had no choice but to take further action.  Two high-ranking Army officers were convicted of criminal atrocities in a court-martial.  But the convictions were show trials, and no further action was taken against any other officers. Meanwhile, Roosevelt told a Memorial Day crowd in Arlington National Cemetery:

Our warfare in the Philippines has been carried on with singular humanity … the victories of the American Army have been the really effective means of putting a stop to cruelties … Wherever these victories have been complete … all cruelties have ceased ... our armies do more than bring peace, do more than bring order. They bring freedom.

Sound familiar?

The water-cure is the poignant precedent for waterboarding. It is not simulated drowning, as Christopher Hitchens, found out; it is actual drowning. Both the watch-cure and waterboarding belie the letter and spirit of the 8th amendment of the US Constitution, not to mention --- in the case of the latter --- the Geneva Convention and UN Convention against Torture.  While  Bush’s persistent disregard of these tenets of international law is unlikely to lead to his arrest, his new book may make the contribution of stoking anti-Americanism and reviving attacks on US soldiers in places where torture was a reality for the eight years of the Bush Presidency.

Oh, one more historical predecent. In July 1902, after years of defending torture, President Roosevelt declared that the Philippine-American War was over.

The insurgency continued for more than eleven years.