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Blowback for American sins in the Philippines
Boston Globe ^ | October 16, 2016 | Stephen Kinzer

Posted on 10/23/2016 4:41:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

SOMETIMES AMERICANS THINK we have won a war, only to realize years or decades later that our victory was incomplete. Now we are facing an eruption of anger over a war we waged more than a century ago. Rarely has blowback from an overseas intervention come back to haunt us so long after the shooting stopped.

This unexpected challenge has emerged from the Philippines. The new president, Rodrigo Duterte, recently announced plans to pull his country out of America’s orbit and adopt an “independent” foreign policy. “I am anti-West,” he explained. “I do not like the Americans. It’s simply a matter of principle for me.”

Duterte’s grievance is rooted in history. Americans, he asserted, unjustly seized the Philippines in 1899, waged a horrific military campaign to suppress native resistance, and “have not even apologized to the Filipino nation.” He waved photographs showing bodies of Filipinos killed in that war.

Soon after Duterte made that startling speech, his foreign minister, Perfecto Yasay, went even further. In 1899, Yasay asserted, the United States “arrogated our victory in the struggle for freedom” and then used “invisible chains” to bind Filipinos into “shackling dependency.” Americans, he said, treat Filipinos as “little brown brothers not capable of true independence or freedom.” To escape from that humiliation, he concluded, the Philippines must end its “subservience to United States interests.”

Most Americans would have no idea what these new Filipino leaders are talking about. We forgot the Philippine War long ago. Filipinos remember it vividly. It stands with the horrors of Japanese occupation during World War II as one of their great national traumas. A very old debt is finally coming due.

(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: duterte; philippines
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1 posted on 10/23/2016 4:41:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

I notice he said that in English, not Japanese.


2 posted on 10/23/2016 4:43:45 PM PDT by bk1000 (A clear conscience is a sure sign of a poor memory.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Search for Obama in the article came up goose eggs.


3 posted on 10/23/2016 4:43:45 PM PDT by AU72
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To: SeekAndFind

[It stands with the horrors of Japanese occupation during World War II as one of their great national traumas]

Yeah and who ended that occupation for them with blood and guts?


4 posted on 10/23/2016 4:44:12 PM PDT by headstamp 2 (Fear is the mind killer.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Fck em. Let their women become comfort women for the Red Army. Philippines has nothing to offer us.


5 posted on 10/23/2016 4:45:24 PM PDT by Salvavida (The restoration of the U.S.A. starts with filling the pews at every Bible-believing church.)
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To: SeekAndFind

“Most Americans would have no idea what these new Filipino leaders are talking about.”

So would most Philippinos.


6 posted on 10/23/2016 4:45:29 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: SeekAndFind

It’s not Obama’s fault, it’s “America’s” fault, from a hundred years ago.


7 posted on 10/23/2016 4:45:29 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: Salvavida

Hopefully Mt Pinotaubo will blow again and bury the whole place.


8 posted on 10/23/2016 4:46:08 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: SeekAndFind

well so much for my long awaited trip to Cebu in the spring... smh...


9 posted on 10/23/2016 4:47:24 PM PDT by sit-rep
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To: Salvavida

But, where will the Dems get all their houseboys?


10 posted on 10/23/2016 4:47:49 PM PDT by jessduntno (The mind of a liberal...deceit, desire for control, greed, contradiction and fueled by hate.)
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To: headstamp 2

Maybe MacArthur shouldn’t have returned. My dad was part of that operation.


11 posted on 10/23/2016 4:47:59 PM PDT by virgil (The evil that men do lives after them)
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To: virgil

I suspect actual Philippinos will begin to tire of this lunatic eventually.


12 posted on 10/23/2016 4:50:23 PM PDT by headstamp 2 (Fear is the mind killer.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Complete BS from these leaders in PI, what they are really mad about is we armed PI to fight communist guerillas and complicated their vision with US Bases in Luzon.

A very small portion of the population is mad at the US, these are all commies.


13 posted on 10/23/2016 4:52:13 PM PDT by dila813 (Voting for Trump to Punish Trumpets!)
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To: SeekAndFind

“Civilized ‘em with a Krag.”


14 posted on 10/23/2016 4:53:21 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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To: SeekAndFind

15 posted on 10/23/2016 4:53:33 PM PDT by TADSLOS (Vote Trump. Defeat the Clinton Crime Syndicate. Reset America.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Bah.
We’ve become a bad ally. Weak, poor and distracted.


16 posted on 10/23/2016 4:54:00 PM PDT by mrsmith (Dumb sluts: Lifeblood of the Media, Backbone of the Democrat/RINO Party!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Perhaps the Filipinos should go back to the days when Japanese soldiers would raid their homes then take Filipino babies and toss them into the air for another Japanese soldier to ‘catch’ on a board with nails driven through it.


17 posted on 10/23/2016 4:54:04 PM PDT by CivilWarBrewing (Females DESTROYED America.)
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To: AlexW; Berosus; buwaya; dagogo redux; DFG; Doofer; Fai Mao; knarf; LadyDoc; lquist1; Mark17; ...
PIng
18 posted on 10/23/2016 4:54:15 PM PDT by ASA Vet (Trump is the first Presidential candidate since Reagan for whom I have WANTED to vote.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Are FReepers really buying the author's premise? That all of a sudden the Philippines want to assert their independence, just now? Why didn't they do this decades ago, especially in the 80s when the country was a corrupt mess?

The real story is that nobody trusts America anymore thanks to Obama, and if Clinton wins, Russia will be the lone superpower in the world. Our foreign policy and relations with other countries are a sick, pathetic joke.

I don't blame Duterte for doing what he's doing.

19 posted on 10/23/2016 4:58:13 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (TRUMP THAT BEYOTCH!)
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To: virgil

So was my Uncle Bud part of that operation...

He died at a place called ZigZag Pass trying to liberate the Phillipines from the Japanese...

Any “sins” America allegedly committed in the PI have long since been expiated in blood...


20 posted on 10/23/2016 5:01:54 PM PDT by elteemike (Light travels faster than sound...That's why so many people appear bright until you hear them speak)
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