A-Bomb, Justified .?!

[Legal Tender]

I see we have that old problem again about if "it" should have been used or
not..

Well I did some research. I checked over the wanted adds in papers from Ca
to Wa for Oct and Nov 1941.
I did not see any adds from America asking another country to attack us.
Ok we got that out of the way,
We did not ask to be attacked or dragged into a war. We all agree on
that????

The Japs did not honor the Geneva Convention, they did honor the rules of
war.
The Geneva Convention says treat the prisoners good, rules of war say kill
all of the enemy.
The japs thought it was a dishonor to surrender, that is why our men who did
surrender were treated as badly as they were. (are we listening out there?)
Tojo was a God to them and they gave it all for him and would have fought to
the last man. I seem to remember many jumped off cliffs rather than
surrender.

As we did not start the war or want it, why should we have anymore Americans
killed than was necessary??
Did we forget what the japs did in China? or in any other country they
occupied..
And yes you can say this or that about the Jap civilians, but let me ask you
a question, If we were invaded, as a civilian would you fight??
So do not say the Jap Civilians would not have fought. Remember Tojo was a
God to them. {Think back to the concessions we made for him at the
surrender}
Yes they would have fought with sticks, pitch forks and any else they could
have gotten their hands on, just as I would if this country was invaded.
Would we have lost up to 1,000,000 men? Maybe less, maybe more.
Patton was right, you win wars by making the enemy die for his country..
Remember Korea? Remember Nam? we lost our ass's there. A lot of good men
died there because we were not ready, we did not think, we did not do that
etc etc.

When the 2nd bomb dropped all the fight was gone. We had Japan under
control.
Granted the A bomb is a nasty piece of work, but if the Japs had it they
would have used it and more than 2 times.
No I hope the bomb is never used again, or any thing like it, but it doesn't
matter much as most countries have stuff worse than the A bomb, and they are
not afraid to use it if givin the chance..

Oh by the way this was told to me by another person doing research on the
last days of the war. I have not had a chance to check it out, so this is
hear say. If we would have gone with the invasion of Japan, we would have
set up on some of the closer islands near the base of Japan. Appox 1 to 1
and 1/2 months after we would have been getting set up a massive typhoon
came through those islands. It wiped out everything and anything that would
have been on the island.. If we would have been there this would have been a
sign for the Japs to fight harder. Remember the Divine Wind, Kamikaze? This
would have been taken as a sign from the Gods..

Nope I know it was justified..
Frank

[L'acrobat]

"Legal Tender" > wrote in message
...

> The Japs did not honor the Geneva Convention, they did honor the rules of
> war.
> The Geneva Convention says treat the prisoners good, rules of war say kill
> all of the enemy.

no they don't.

> The japs thought it was a dishonor to surrender, that is why our men who
did
> surrender were treated as badly as they were. (are we listening out
there?)


ah the old Japanese honour system defence.

explain why they did not all commit seppuku after (or rather than) the
surrender, why prison camp guards turned up to surrenders pretending to be
hospital staff?

> Tojo was a God to them and they gave it all for him and would have fought
to
> the last man. I seem to remember many jumped off cliffs rather than
> surrender.

Tojo was not considered a god by them.

[Keith Willshaw]

"Legal Tender" > wrote in message
...
> I see we have that old problem again about if "it" should have been used
or
> not..
>
> Well I did some research. I checked over the wanted adds in papers from Ca
> to Wa for Oct and Nov 1941.
> I did not see any adds from America asking another country to attack us.
> Ok we got that out of the way,
> We did not ask to be attacked or dragged into a war. We all agree on
> that????
>
> The Japs did not honor the Geneva Convention, they did honor the rules of
> war.
> The Geneva Convention says treat the prisoners good, rules of war say kill
> all of the enemy.

No sir , the rules of war do not.

> The japs thought it was a dishonor to surrender, that is why our men who
did
> surrender were treated as badly as they were. (are we listening out
there?)

Which is balderdash. During the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 they treated
their prisoners well, during WW1 the German POW's taken were so
well treated many stayed on voluntarily after the war .

The simple fact is the militarists who took power in the 30's
used brutality as a deliberate technique of control, both in
their own army and in their dealings with others.


> Tojo was a God to them and they gave it all for him and would have fought
to
> the last man. I seem to remember many jumped off cliffs rather than
> surrender.
>

Do try and get the facts straight. Hideki Tojo was a general in the army
who became prime minister of Japan in October 1941.

The God emperor was Hirohito who while nominally having
absolute power had none in reality. Up until the 1920's
the Japanese political system was lareky analagous to
that of Britain. There was a cremonial head of state
with an elected Parliament, there was however a fatal
flaw in that the armed forces were responsible directly to
the Emperor and were thus able to circumvent Parliamentary
control and effectively seize power.

Keith

[Michael Starke]

The recent book by James Bradley, "Flyboys" spends many
pages trying to explain the reasons behind the cruel treatment
of American POW's by the Japanese.

He writes that the Japanese where perplexed at America's indignation
and contempt of the way the war in China was being waged
considering that the model they were following was America's treatment
of it's own indigenous people who, in some cases, were rounded
up and slaughtered. He also cites the poor treatment Philippinos got
by American forces after the Spanish occupation. Bradley says the
Japanese were not doing anything different than Americans
had done in the west.

The Japanese said the Geneva Convention rules did not apply to
Americans because they indiscriminately bombed civilians in
their raids on Japan.

I'd be interested in other opinions of "Flyboys" as I was somewhat
disappointed in sub-textural message of moral relativism that permeates
the book. We can't make moralistic determinations because we
all acted badly at some point in our history? I'm not sure I buy that.

I see a difference in the institutionalized brutality that came from the
top down in Japan and the individual acts listed by Bradley as being
committed by the American forces.

As horrible as the A bomb was to use, it wasn't any worse than the
firebomb raids on Tokyo which killed many more in just one night.



mjs


"Legal Tender" > wrote in message
...
> I see we have that old problem again about if "it" should have been used
or
> not..
>
> Well I did some research. I checked over the wanted adds in papers from Ca
> to Wa for Oct and Nov 1941.
> I did not see any adds from America asking another country to attack us.
> Ok we got that out of the way,
> We did not ask to be attacked or dragged into a war. We all agree on
> that????
>
> The Japs did not honor the Geneva Convention, they did honor the rules of
> war.
> The Geneva Convention says treat the prisoners good, rules of war say kill
> all of the enemy.
> The japs thought it was a dishonor to surrender, that is why our men who
did
> surrender were treated as badly as they were. (are we listening out
there?)
> Tojo was a God to them and they gave it all for him and would have fought
to
> the last man. I seem to remember many jumped off cliffs rather than
> surrender.
>
> As we did not start the war or want it, why should we have anymore
Americans
> killed than was necessary??
> Did we forget what the japs did in China? or in any other country they
> occupied..
> And yes you can say this or that about the Jap civilians, but let me ask
you
> a question, If we were invaded, as a civilian would you fight??
> So do not say the Jap Civilians would not have fought. Remember Tojo was a
> God to them. {Think back to the concessions we made for him at the
> surrender}
> Yes they would have fought with sticks, pitch forks and any else they
could
> have gotten their hands on, just as I would if this country was invaded.
> Would we have lost up to 1,000,000 men? Maybe less, maybe more.
> Patton was right, you win wars by making the enemy die for his country..
> Remember Korea? Remember Nam? we lost our ass's there. A lot of good men
> died there because we were not ready, we did not think, we did not do that
> etc etc.
>
> When the 2nd bomb dropped all the fight was gone. We had Japan under
> control.
> Granted the A bomb is a nasty piece of work, but if the Japs had it they
> would have used it and more than 2 times.
> No I hope the bomb is never used again, or any thing like it, but it
doesn't
> matter much as most countries have stuff worse than the A bomb, and they
are
> not afraid to use it if givin the chance..
>
> Oh by the way this was told to me by another person doing research on the
> last days of the war. I have not had a chance to check it out, so this is
> hear say. If we would have gone with the invasion of Japan, we would have
> set up on some of the closer islands near the base of Japan. Appox 1 to 1
> and 1/2 months after we would have been getting set up a massive typhoon
> came through those islands. It wiped out everything and anything that
would
> have been on the island.. If we would have been there this would have been
a
> sign for the Japs to fight harder. Remember the Divine Wind, Kamikaze?
This
> would have been taken as a sign from the Gods..
>
> Nope I know it was justified..
> Frank
>
>

[L'acrobat]

"Michael Starke" > wrote in message
news:ly5Gb.439267$Dw6.1339032@attbi_s02...
> The recent book by James Bradley, "Flyboys" spends many
> pages trying to explain the reasons behind the cruel treatment
> of American POW's by the Japanese.
>
> He writes that the Japanese where perplexed at America's indignation
> and contempt of the way the war in China was being waged
> considering that the model they were following was America's treatment
> of it's own indigenous people who, in some cases, were rounded
> up and slaughtered. He also cites the poor treatment Philippinos got
> by American forces after the Spanish occupation. Bradley says the
> Japanese were not doing anything different than Americans
> had done in the west.
>
> The Japanese said the Geneva Convention rules did not apply to
> Americans because they indiscriminately bombed civilians in
> their raids on Japan.
>
> I'd be interested in other opinions of "Flyboys" as I was somewhat
> disappointed in sub-textural message of moral relativism that permeates
> the book. We can't make moralistic determinations because we
> all acted badly at some point in our history? I'm not sure I buy that.

"Flyboys" sounds like a load of ********.

The ' the Americans bombed Japanese civilians argument' hardly applies to
the Baatan death march victims and does not apply at all to commonwealth
prisoners, who were treated as badly (see Changi, Sandarkan death march,
etc).

The other arguments ignore the fact that the Japanese had shown earlier
(WW1) that they were quite capable of not behaving with total brutality.

The brutality was a policy decision on the part of the Japanese.

[Chris Mark]

>From: "Michael Starke"

>I'd be interested in other opinions of "Flyboys" as I was somewhat
>disappointed in sub-textural message of moral relativism that permeates
>the book.

I was disappointed in Bradley's book. I ordered it based on a presentation I
saw him make on C-SPAN. It's an important subject that deserves and
intelligent, learned and thoughtful examination by someone with decent writing
skills. A much better book on the general subject, although painted in broad
detail and not down to the flight crew level, is:
"Power Across the Pacific: A Diplomatic History of American Relations With
Japan"
by William R. Nester, New York University, 1996. Since Bradley brings up the
subject of US treatment of the Indians, it is interesting that Nester is both
an expert on Japan (having written the two-volumes of "The Foundation of
Japanese Power" and other works on Japan) and on Indian-European/American
warfare, having written the very good "The First Global War : Britain, France,
and the Fate of North America, 1756-1775," and "The Arikara War: The First
Plains Indian War, 1823," among many other solid works.






>The Japanese said the Geneva Convention rules did not apply to
>Americans because they indiscriminately bombed civilians in
>their raids on Japan.

If I'm not mistaken, did not the Japanese enthusiastically bomb Chinese
civilian population centers?




Chris Mark

[Charles Gray]

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 09:17:24 -0000, "Keith Willshaw"
> wrote:


>The God emperor was Hirohito who while nominally having
>absolute power had none in reality. Up until the 1920's
>the Japanese political system was lareky analagous to
>that of Britain. There was a cremonial head of state
>with an elected Parliament, there was however a fatal
>flaw in that the armed forces were responsible directly to
>the Emperor and were thus able to circumvent Parliamentary
>control and effectively seize power.
>
>Keith
>
I would say that you are correct in most areas-- but there is some
evidence that Hirohito was more "in the know" than has been commonly
believed.
Of course, there are also those who say that this is simply trying
to "rewrite" history, and I for one don't have the knowledge base to
decide between the two viewpoints.

[B2431]

>From: Charles Gray
>Date: 12/23/2003 11:31 PM Central Standard Time
>Message-id: >
>
>On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 09:17:24 -0000, "Keith Willshaw"
> wrote:
>
>
>>The God emperor was Hirohito who while nominally having
>>absolute power had none in reality. Up until the 1920's
>>the Japanese political system was lareky analagous to
>>that of Britain. There was a cremonial head of state
>>with an elected Parliament, there was however a fatal
>>flaw in that the armed forces were responsible directly to
>>the Emperor and were thus able to circumvent Parliamentary
>>control and effectively seize power.
>>
>>Keith
>>
> I would say that you are correct in most areas-- but there is some
>evidence that Hirohito was more "in the know" than has been commonly
>believed.
> Of course, there are also those who say that this is simply trying
>to "rewrite" history, and I for one don't have the knowledge base to
>decide between the two viewpoints.
>

There were documents that proved Hirohito's complicity in specific projects
like Unit 731. The other deity MacArthur turned them over to the Japanese.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

[Keith Willshaw]

"Michael Starke" > wrote in message
news:ly5Gb.439267$Dw6.1339032@attbi_s02...
> The recent book by James Bradley, "Flyboys" spends many
> pages trying to explain the reasons behind the cruel treatment
> of American POW's by the Japanese.
>
> He writes that the Japanese where perplexed at America's indignation
> and contempt of the way the war in China was being waged
> considering that the model they were following was America's treatment
> of it's own indigenous people who, in some cases, were rounded
> up and slaughtered.

Absolute ********, the average Japanese soldier in China had never
heard of the Shoshone or Sioux and the US Army certainly didnt
issue instructions that raping women was OK but only if you
killed them afterwards, the Japanese army did.

> He also cites the poor treatment Philippinos got
> by American forces after the Spanish occupation. Bradley says the
> Japanese were not doing anything different than Americans
> had done in the west.
>

So when did the US Army adopt germ warfare in the Phillipines

> The Japanese said the Geneva Convention rules did not apply to
> Americans because they indiscriminately bombed civilians in
> their raids on Japan.
>

Complete ********. The US raids on Japan didnt start in earnest
until almost 10 years AFTER the Japanese bombed civilian
centres in China

Brutality was a deliberate policy of the Japanese militarists.
Its that simple.

Keith

[Charles Gray]

On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 09:49:36 -0000, "Keith Willshaw"
> wrote:

>
>"Michael Starke" > wrote in message
>news:ly5Gb.439267$Dw6.1339032@attbi_s02...

>
>> He also cites the poor treatment Philippinos got
>> by American forces after the Spanish occupation. Bradley says the
>> Japanese were not doing anything different than Americans
>> had done in the west.
>>
>
>So when did the US Army adopt germ warfare in the Phillipines
andwhile there were arguable atrocities by American soldiers, it
should also be noted that this occured during a very ugly guerrilla
war-- but that civilians not-involved in such hostilities were by and
large not simply left alone, but actively aided by the American
authorities.
For example, the Philipene education system was almost completely
built by the U.S. among other things. More importantly, you should
note that the U.S. agreed with the Taft amendment to return the
phillipines to local control, and followed through in 1946-- the
planned date being delayed due to the war.
Japan, conversely, viewed their possessions as resource points, from
which everything of value was to be extracted. This included the human
resources.


>
>> The Japanese said the Geneva Convention rules did not apply to
>> Americans because they indiscriminately bombed civilians in
>> their raids on Japan.
>>
>
>Complete ********. The US raids on Japan didnt start in earnest
>until almost 10 years AFTER the Japanese bombed civilian
>centres in China

And such an arguement would play better if you could say the
treatment of U.S. fliers differed noticably from that of other POWS--
when the Bataan death march occured, bomb one hadn't fallen on Japan.
At no point can I think of any officer who gave and seriously aattmped
to insure compliance with, order mandating the treatment of Allied
POW's in accordance with the conventions Japan had signed.


>
>Brutality was a deliberate policy of the Japanese militarists.
>Its that simple.

As shown by just how *loved* Japan is in most of Asia.

>
>Keith
>

[Cub Driver]

>I'd be interested in other opinions of "Flyboys"

Okay, Michael, you asked for it! Herewith my opinion:

*******************************************

I was hugely disappointed with this book.

First, the howlers: jet fuel spilling on carrier decks; engines
stalling in mid-air; Singapore falling before China gets raped. B-25
bombers are misnamed Billys. The book refers to Roosevelt as the
Dutchman; Hirohito as the Boy Soldier; the 20th Air Force commander as
Curtis; and American flyers of course as Flyboys. Casualties are
confused with fatalities. Aerial warfare takes place in the third
dimension, land warfare in the first, and naval warfare in the second.
On page 141, eight hundred Japanese on Attu Island made a suicide
charge against American troops; on page 143, the number is 2,350.
Japanese pilots become "another notch in a Flyboy's belt."

Second, the historical research: Bradley's technique seems to have
been to find the most startling book--in English--on a subject, then
to borrow heavily from it. Often enough he doesn't bother to rewrite
the excerpts; he throws quotation marks around them and inserts them
into his text without saying where they're from. I generally read a
book like this with my right index finger in the citations page; in
this case, it's the only way to know whom he's quoting.

Third, the faulty reasoning: He says that American soldiers during the
pacificiation of the Philippines earlier in the century killed 7,000
locals a month, then declares that "Hitler and Tojo combined, with all
their mechanized weaponry, killed the same per month." Huh? Hitler and
Tojo killed a million people a month, of whom 7,000 happened to be
American servicemen.

It's the same with his analogies: sure, the Japanese murdered a few
prisoners, but what about Americans who sank Japanese transports, then
machine-gunned the survivors in the water? To Bradley, these are
similar atrocities, rather overlooking the fact that soldiers in the
water haven't surrendered and will become combatants if they get
ashore. Killing them wasn't pretty, but it wasn't a war crime.

Even the cannibalism on Chichi Jima isn't as unknown as he makes out.
I read about it long ago in Lord Russell's Knights of Bushido. Indeed,
the most eye-popping bit of evidence in Flyboys (a formal order to
produce the flesh of an American pilot for a battalion feast) is
lifted from Russell's book.

Bradley did do some original research. He walked the ground on Chichi
Jima--always a good idea, but one seldom pursued by historians--and
best of all he interviewed some of the Japanese survivors, including
one of the cannibals. Surely he could have made a book out of this
material without the foolish Flyboys, Billys, and Dutchmen, and
without the strained efforts to show that the Japanese, if no better
than the Americans, were at least no worse. It would have been a
shorter book and a better one.

***********************************************



all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

[Greg Hennessy]

On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 06:25:22 -0500, Cub Driver
> wrote:


>It's the same with his analogies: sure, the Japanese murdered a few
>prisoners, but what about Americans who sank Japanese transports, then
>machine-gunned the survivors in the water? To Bradley, these are
>similar atrocities, rather overlooking the fact that soldiers in the
>water haven't surrendered and will become combatants if they get
>ashore. Killing them wasn't pretty, but it wasn't a war crime.

That would be the battle of the bismarck sea.

http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/remembering1942/bismark/


"One B17 was bought down by escorting Zero fighters from New Britain and
they were seen to machine gun the crew in their parachutes or life vests."



greg


--
Once you try my burger baby,you'll grow a new thyroid gland.
I said just eat my burger, baby,make you smart as Charlie Chan.
You say the hot sauce can't be beat. Sit back and open wide.

[Chris Mark]

>From: Charles Gray cgra

>>> He also cites the poor treatment Philippinos got
>>> by American forces after the Spanish occupation. Bradley says the
>>> Japanese were not doing anything different than Americans
>>> had done in the west.

> andwhile there were arguable atrocities by American soldiers, it
>should also be noted that this occured during a very ugly guerrilla
>war-- but that civilians not-involved in such hostilities were by and
>large not simply left alone, but actively aided by the American
>authorities.

Two points about this: 1)the atrocities were real and terrible; 2)Americans
were appalled by them _at the time_. The US Senate investigated atrocities in
the Philippines _while the war was going on_ issuing a full report in 1902.
Essentially all attacks on US actions in the Philippines in the decades since
the war have relied on contemporary condemnatory _American_ coverage.
The general American view of the war in the Philippines can be summed up in
this line from William Vaughan Moody's popular poem of the day, "On a Soldier
Fallen in the Philippines":

"Let him never dream that his bullet's scream went wide of its island mark,
Home to the heart of his darling land where she stumbled and sinned in the
dark."

The poem, "The Charge of the Wood Brigade" about the the Massacre of Mount
Dajo, where 600 civilians were
slaughtered by US troops, was written by Rep. John Sharp Williams (D-Miss.) and
read by him in the House of Representatives, in 1906, shortly after the news of
the atrocity reached the US. It contains such stanzas as:

Chased them from everywhere,
Chased them all onward
Into the crater of death,
Drove them -- six hundred!
"Forward, the Wood Brigade;
Spare not a one," he said;
"Shoot all six hundred!"

("Wood" being Leonard Wood)

By the next year Theodore Roosevelt had concluded acquisition of the
Philippines was a mistake. And the US proceded to do good by the Philippines
and prepare it for genuine independence (not some puppet statehood, a la
Manchukuo).

I don't see any of this as comparable to what Japan did. When elements in the
US (principally the "Boston Imperialists") advocated the US become an Empire in
the classic European sense, the US made some tentative movements and then
domestic political resistance aborted the movement. There was no follow-up to
the Spanish-American War--no Franco-American War, no Anglo-American War (both
urged by the BIs)--and the entanglements ensuing from that war in the Caribbean
and Asia, echoing down to the Cuban Missle Crisis, at least, have been the
fodder for US domestic politics ever since, and inform attitudes and
discussions about the US role in the middle east today.

In contrast, Japan's domestic opposition to imperialism seems to have been weak
and obviously ineffective, leading Japan to embark on a monstrous era of savage
conquest ending only when the chickens came home to roost in the form of the
Enola Gay and Bock's Car. And it seems that since the war the Japanese have
not been as soul-searching about their own activities as the Americans have
always been (even extending to the Indian Wars, when it was Custer himself who
said of the red man that it was "cheaper to feed him than fight him").
The relentless, ruthless persecution of the war against Japan by the US is
really an aberration. The more typical US war is a sudden thrust, an
enthusiastic commitment confidently expecting swift resolution and lasting
good. This is followed almost immediately by self-doubt, hesitation, loss of
will. In large part this is due to the fact we are a democracy and opponents
of any war have free reign to express themselves and influence public opinion
and politics. Thus the US has long been a reluctant warrior, fighting only in
coalitions (even if weak ones such as the "Many Flags" program of the Vietnam
era).
However I look at the histories of the two countries, I cannot see moral
equivalence between the actions of America and Japan.



Chris Mark

[Chris Mark]

Here's a summary of the Jolo incident as reported at the time, from the
Literary Digest 32, March 24, 1906.

"No one, to judge from the press comment, feels much elation over the
mountain-top battle in the island of Jolo a few days ago, in which 600 Moro
men, women, and children were killed by our troops under the command of Gen.
Leonard Wood. The President, it is true, speaks of it as "a most gallant and
soldierly feat," performed "in a way that confers added credit on the American
army," and one that entitles the soldiers to "the heartiest admiration and
praise of all those of their fellow-citizens who are glad to see the honor of
the flag upheld by the courage of the men wearing the American uniform." His
newspaper defenders, however, do not go further than to consider it a grim but
necessary bit of police work. His critics take the other extreme. It was "a
frightful atrocity," declares the New Orleans Times-Democrat (Dem.); and the
Boston Post (Ind. Dem.) exclaims that if this is "imperial expansion," "heaven
save us from any more!" A list of the papers that express their horror and
disgust at this thoroughgoing victory would include practically every
Democratic and "anti-imperialist" paper in the United States. In Congress the
Democrats have branded the affair as a "horrible massacre" and an
"assassination," and Representative Williams read a derisive poem on 'The
Charge of the Wood Brigade'
The battle is represented by General Wood as the storming of a Moro bandits'
nest in the crater of Mount Dajo, and the extermination of the bandits, who
fought fanatically to the death. The crater was almost unassailable, and the
artillery had to be hoisted by block and tackle up its well-nigh precipitous
sides. The American forces lost 18 killed and 52 wounded, while the Moros lost
600 killed. General Wood says in a despatch to the Secretary of War:

'I was present throughout practically entire action and inspected top of crater
after action was finished. Am convinced no man, woman, or child was wantonly
killed. A considerable number of women and children were killed in the fight --
number unknown, for the reason that they were actually in the works when
assaulted, and were unavoidably killed in the fierce hand-to-hand fighting
which took place in the narrow enclosed spaces. Moro women wore trousers and
were dressed and armed much like the men and charged with them. The children
were in many cases used by the men as shields while charging troops.'

This explanation is accepted as valid by the expansionist press. The
extermination of these outlaws "was a necessity, and, in the long run, it was
humanity," declares the Philadelphia Press (Rep.), for "it was a question
either of subjugating them or of enduring their savage attacks for an
indefinite period." "If Aguinaldo himself were ruler of Jolo," says the
Philadelphia Evening Telegraph (Rep.) to the anti-imperialists, "he would be
compelled to kill off these murdering Malays in order to protect peaceable
people from their wild raids." And the Louisville Courier-Journal, one of the
leading Democratic papers in the country, declares that "a band of outlaws in
the mountains of Kentucky or of Colorado or of Tennessee would have had to
contend with the agencies of law and order in the same way -- resistance would
have led in similar fashion to the shedding of blood." "Was there no
possibility of forcing these Moros to surrender by starving them out?" asks one
critic. To this the New York Tribune (Rep.) replies:

"Talk of starving them into submission and thus securing their capitulation
simply indicates lack of understanding. The probability is that if Mount Dajo
had been surrounded with an army of a hundred thousand men in unbroken ring, in
an attempt to starve the outlaws into surrender, at the last moment the men
would have come rushing from the crater to hurl themselves in fanatic fury
against their besiegers, and the end would have been the same, excepting at
much greater cost. On the other hand, the daring and extraordinary achievements
of our troops in scaling those heights which had been thought by the natives
inaccessible, and in storming a stronghold which had been thought impregnable,
must have a most valuable moral effect. The remaining outlaw bands will be
panic-striken when they hear of it, they will realize that there is no
stronghold or retreat in which they will be secure, and that the new forces for
law and order in the islands are irresistable."

Sounds like reporting from the Vietnam War and even the Iraq war. The more
things change....





Chris Mark