Waterboarding and U.S. History

by William Loren Katz

"U.S. officers in the Philippines routinely resorted
to what they called ‘the water cure.'"

Some
high U.S. officials claim not be aware of it, and Judge Michael Mukasey, the
President's choice for attorney general, prefers to equivocate, but
waterboarding has long been a form of torture that causes excruciating pain and
can lead to death. It forces water into prisoner's lungs, usually over and over
again. The Spanish Inquisition in the late 1400s used this torture to uncover
and punish heretics, and then in the early 1500s Spain's inquisitors carried it
overseas to root out heresy in the New World. It reappeared during the witch
hysteria. Women accused of sorcery were "dunked" and held under water to see if
they were witches.

In World War II Japan and Germany routinely used
waterboarding on prisoners. In Viet Nam U.S. forces held bound Viet Cong
captives and "sympathizers" upside down in barrels of water. Water boarding
also has been associated with the Khmer Rouge.

An
extensive record of its use by the United States land forces exists in the
records of the invasion and occupation of the Philippines that began in 1898.
As the U.S. encountered armed resistance by the liberation army of Filipino
General Emilio Aguinaldo, and sank into a 12-year quagmire on the archipelago,
U.S. officers routinely resorted to what they called "the water cure."
Professor Stuart C. Miller's study of the Philippine war, Benevolent
Assimilation, reveals this sordid story through Congressional testimony,
letters from soldiers, court martial hearings, words of critics and defenders,
and newspaper accounts. The pro-imperialist media of the day justified the
"water cure" as necessary to gain information; the anti-imperialist media denounced
its use by the U.S or any other civilized nation.

"The pro-imperialist media of the day justified the
‘water cure' as necessary to gain information."

Fresh
from their recent victories in the Indian wars, the Philippine invasion of 1898
began with a big war whoop. U.S. forces landed in the Philippines in 1898 led
by American officers such Pershing, Lawton, Smith, Shafter, Otis, Merritt, and
Chafee, who had fought "treacherous redskins." At least one officer had taken
part in the infamous 1891 massacre of 350 Lakota men, women and children at
Wounded Knee. A U.S. media that had supported the Army's brutal Indian
campaigns rhapsodized about this new opportunity for distant racial warfare.
The influential San Francisco Argonaut spoke candidly: "We do not want
the Filipinos. We want the Philippines. The islands are enormously rich, but
unfortunately they are infested with Filipinos. There are many millions there,
and it is to be feared their extinction will be slow." The paper's solution was
to recommend several unusually cruel methods of torture it believed "would
impress the Malay mind."

President
William McKinley dispatched Admiral Dewey to the Philippines with a pledge to
bestow civilization and Christianity on its people, and promise eventual independence.
Perhaps he was unaware that most Filipinos were Catholics. Perhaps he did not
know that General Aguinaldo and his 40,000 troops were poised to remove Spain
from the islands. Dewey supplied Aguinaldo with weapons and encouraged him, but
that soon changed.

From
the White House and the U.S. high command to field officers and lowly enlistees
the message became "these people are not civilized" and the United States had
embarked on a glorious overseas adventure against "savages." Officers and
enlisted men - and the media - were encouraged to see the conflict through a
"white superiority" lens, much as they viewed their victories over Native
Americans and African Americans. The Philippine occupation unfolded at the high
tide of American segregation, lynching, and a triumphant white supremacy
ideology. Officers of the occupying Army routinely characterized the foe as
"gooks," "redskins," and "N______s."

U.S.
officers ordered massacres of entire villages and conducted a host of other
shameful atrocities as the Philippine quagmire dragged on. "A white man seems
to forget that he is human," wrote a white soldier from the Philippines.

"The Philippine occupation unfolded at the high tide of
American segregation, lynching, and a triumphant white supremacy ideology."

Atrocities
abounded. To produce "a demoralized and obedient population" in Batangas,
General Franklin Bell ordered the destruction of "humans, crops, food stores,
domestic animals, houses and boats." He became known as the "butcher" of
Batangas. General Jacob Smith, who had been wounded fighting at Wounded Knee,
said his overseas campaigns were "worse than fighting Indians." He promised to
turn Samar province into a "howling wilderness." Smith defined the enemy as
anyone "ten years and up" and issued these instructions to Marine Commander
Tony Waller: "I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you
kill and burn the better it will please me." He became known as "Howling Jake"
Smith.

WaterboardingVietnam

The
"water cure" was probably first instituted when U.S. forces encountered local
resistance. Professor Miller states that General Frederick Funston in 1901 may
have used it to capture the Filipino General Emilio Aguinaldo. A New York
World article described the "water cure" as forcing "water with handfuls of
salt thrown in to make it more efficacious, is forced down the throats of
patients until their bodies become distended to the point of bursting . . .."
This may have been only one on the versions used.

The
water cure became front-page news when William Howard Taft, appointed U.S.
Governor of the Philippines, testified under oath before Congress and let the
cat out of the bag. The "so called water cure," he admitted, was used "on some
occasions to extract information." The Arena, an opposition paper, called
his words "a most humiliating admission that should strike horror in the mind
of every American." Around the same time as Taft's admission a soldier boasted
in a letter made public that he had used the water cure on 160 people and only
26 had survived. The man was compelled by the War Department to retract
his damaging confession. But then another officer stated the "water cure" was
being widely used when he reported, "the problem of the 'water cure' is in
knowing how to apply it." Such statements leave unclear how often the form of
torture was used for interrogation and how often it became a way to exhibit
racial animosity or display contempt.

"A soldier boasted in a letter made public that he had
used the water cure on 160 people and only 26 had survived."

During
a triumphal U.S. speaking tour General Frederick Funston, bearing a
Congressional Medal of Honor and harboring political ambitions, bellicosely
promoted total war. In Chicago he boasted of sentencing 35 suspects to death
without trial and enthusiastically endorsed torture and civilian massacres. He
even publicly suggested that anti-war protestors be dragged out of their homes
and lynched.

Funston's
words met far more applause than criticism. In San Francisco he WaterboardingOldPrint suggested that
the editor of a noted anti-imperialist paper "ought to be strung up to the
nearest lamppost." At a banquet in the city he called Filipinos "unruly
savages" and (now) claimed he had personally killed fifty prisoners without
trial. Captain Edmond Boltwood, an officer under Funston, confirmed that the
general had personally administered the water cure to captives, and had told
his troops "to take no prisoners."

President Theodore Roosevelt reprimanded Funston and
ordered him to cease his inflammatory rhetoric. Facing a political challenge
from General Nelson Miles based in the Philippines, TR, who rode into the White
House on his heroic exploits at San Juan Hill, did not intend to nourish more
competition. The President privately assured a friend the water cure was "an
old Filipino method of mild torture" and claimed when Americans administered it
"no body was seriously damaged." But publicly TR was silent about the "water
cure."

"It
was not torture, said the Reverend, since the victim could stop it any time by
revealing what his interrogators wanted to know."

In
an article, "The 'Water Cure' from a Missionary Point of View," Reverend Homer
Stunz justified the technique. It was not torture, he said, since the victim
could stop it any time by revealing what his interrogators wanted to know.
Besides, he insisted, it was only applied to "spies." The missionary also
justified instances of torture by pointing out that U.S. soldiers "in lonely
and remote bamboo jungles" faced stressful conditions.

Mark
Twain, a leading anti-imperialist voice, offered this view of the water cure:

"Funston's
example has bred many imitators, and many ghastly additions to our history: the
torturing of Filipinos by the awful 'water- cure,' for instance, to make them
confess - what? Truth? Or lies? How can one know which it is they are telling?
For under unendurable pain a man confesses anything that is required of him,
true or false, and his evidence is worthless. Yet upon such evidence American
officers have actually - but you know about those atrocities which the War
Office has been hiding a year or two...."

"When the convicted U.S. war criminals received only
slaps-on-the-wrist U.S. prestige abroad sunk to new lows."

U.S.
military trials for what are now known as war crimes all resulted in
convictions. Waller was acquitted because he followed the orders of Smith, and
later retired with two stars. "Howling Jake" Smith was convicted, but he
returned to a tumultuous citizens' welcome in San Francisco. When the convicted
U.S. war criminals received only slaps-on-the-wrist U.S. prestige abroad sunk
to new lows.

A
San Francisco park was named after General Funston. TR appointed General Bell
of Batangas infamy as his chief of staff. And the President continued to wave
the banner of aggressive imperialism. In 1903 he flagrantly seized a broad
swath of Columbia's Isthmus of Panama so he could link the Pacific and Atlantic
oceans under U.S. control. This boosted his popularity and splintered the
anti-imperialist movement. TR also worked to undermine efforts to grant the
Philippines independence, which finally took place after World War II.

TR
easily won a return to the White House in 1904, and in 1908 he chose Taft as
his successor. By the time Taft left the White House in 1913, military
resistance in the Philippines had ended, and so presumably had the "water
cure." TR had become a Mount Rushmore-size American icon.

The "water cure" was accepted as a necessary embarrassment in wartime.
Appeals to muscular patriotism had exonerated the "water cure" and reduced a crime
of torture to a misdemeanor. Is the U.S. headed the same way in 2007?

William Loren Katz is the author of forty U.S. history books, has been
affiliated with New York University since 1973, and his website is
WILLIAMLKATZ.COM This essay is based on his latest book, The Cruel
Years: American Voices at the Dawn of the 20th Century [Beacon Press, 2003]
and even more heavily draws on Stuart Creighton Miller, Benevolent
Assimilation [Yale University Press, 1982]. WLKATZ@aol.com.

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