Monday, June 30, 2008




116.
   When we arrived on shore, we disembarked and followed the Catamites into an old city. Conrad was ill at ease. He felt we were being followed. The bristles on the back of his neck stood straight up. His ears moved up and down, back and forth.
   “What do you think of turn of the century Manila?”, one of the Catamites asked. “Imagine the Filipino patriots seething in their trenches outside the city walls. The Treaty of Paris needed to be expedited through congress so it was only a matter of time before the Americans started a skirmish with the Filipinos that would provide the excuse to start the second Philippine war for independence. The Philippine army didn’t last long against superior weapons and naval bombardment and the conventional war was replaced by a guerilla war with all the ensuing horrors of guerilla warfare. If American forces were surprised and killed, they responded with a scorched earth policy. In the village of Balangiga, forty-eight American soldiers were slaughtered in their barracks. The Americans retaliated with the ‘pacification’ of the entire state of Samar. One third of the population was massacred. Filipinos mutilated some American prisoners, and the Americans practiced the ‘Water Cure’, a torture that made water boarding seem like a walk in the park. Personally, I would rather drown than have a stick wedged in my mouth, a chute forced down my throat and water poured into my stomach until it burst. The Americans were eventually victorious and President Theodore Roosevelt declared the ‘insurrection’ over in 1902. Four thousand Americans and six hundred thousand Filipinos were dead.”
   Conrad's ears flattened. “Oliver, stop!”

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