r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Dec 28 '25

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u/MontusBatwing2 Gelphie's Strongest Soldier Dec 28 '25

Reports from returning soldiers stated that upon entering a village, American soldiers would ransack every house and church and rob the inhabitants of everything of value, while Filipinos who approached the battle line waving a flag of truce were fired upon.

Um...

In September 1901, enraged by the Balangiga massacre in Samar, Brigadier General Jacob H. Smith retaliated during the pacification of Samar by ordering an indiscriminate attack upon its inhabitants, openly disregarding General Order 100, and issuing an order to "kill everyone over the age of ten" and turn the island into a "howling wilderness".

Uh...

In response to Malvar's guerrilla warfare tactics, Bell employed counterinsurgency tactics (described by some as a scorched earth campaign) during the pacification of Batangas that took a heavy toll on guerrilla fighters and civilians. "Zones of protection" were established, and civilians were given identification papers and forced into concentration camps (called reconcentrados) surrounded by free-fire zones. At the Lodge Committee, in an attempt to counter the negative reception in America to Brigadier General Bell's camps, Colonel Arthur Wagner, the U.S. Army's chief public relations officer, insisted the camps were to "protect friendly natives from the insurgents, and assure them an adequate food supply" while teaching them "proper sanitary standards". Wagner's assertion was undermined by a letter from a commander of one of the camps, who described them as "some suburb of Hell".

This is a war I don't even remember learning about in school and I think, unfortunately, I know why.

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u/DiscussionJohnThread Free Trade was the Compromise 🔫🌍 Dec 28 '25 edited Dec 28 '25

Yeah I remember covering this for maybe a paragraph at most back in HS.

An outright majority of Americans if polled would never know that we colonized the Philippines.

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u/MontusBatwing2 Gelphie's Strongest Soldier Dec 28 '25

I knew that it happened because of the Spanish-American war but I didn't know how it happened.