Donald Trump. (photo: AP)
Trump on Barcelona: Recalls US War on Spain, Brutal Occupation of Filipino
Muslims
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
19 August 17
A vehicular terror attack in Barcelona that left over a dozen people dead
and 100 injured has been claimed by ISIL. Another terrorist attack in the
small city of Cambrils was thwarted by Spanish police. The terrorist
organization has repeatedly threatened Spain for its logistical and other
support to the NATO effort to destroy ISIL in Syria and Iraq. Spain is also
of special interest to far right wing Muslim groups because of the nostalgia
factor. Southern Spain was once Muslim, until the Castilians completely
conquered it and expelled the Muslims in 1492. ISIL once boasted of being a
state, but it has only a few pockets of territory left in northern Iraq and
in eastern Syria. That territory is shrinking daily. One strategy defeated
terrorist groups sometimes adopt is to "haunt" the victors with revenge
attacks. It is difficult to imagine that driving down tourists in Barcelona
would have a significant impact on the Coalition war on ISIL. ISIL is also
interested in polarizing the relations between Christians and Muslims, and
this plot may lie in part behind the attack.
My heart goes out to the people of Barcelona, which I have visited on
several lovely occasions.
President Trump responded by telling again the false story that Gen. John
Pershing executed Muslim POWs in the Philippines with bullets dipped in pigs
blood, and that thereafter they were quiet.
It was a shocking story to tell on the day of an attack on Spain.
It would be sort of like if God forbid Tokyo were attacked and Trump tweeted
about how the US showed them at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Because Pershing was part of the naked act of US aggression on Spain in
1898. Under the guise of sympathizing with Cuba's desire for independence,
the US usurped Puerto Rico and Guam, and forced Spain to sell it the
Philippines for $20 mn.
Despite the cover story of sympathizing with Cuba, the US went on to occupy
Cuba three times for several years each, to usurp land for a naval base at
Guantanamo, and to practice indirect neo-colonialism in Cuba and direct
colonialism in the other Spanish possessions it stole. It still won't give
Puerto Rico statehood or let it become independent (being of in-between
status is destroying the island). Guam is also still just a "territory" (do
democracies have colonial territories?) and more recently is emerging as a
North Korean target.
As for the Philippines, like Cuba its people actually wanted independence
from the Spanish Empire.
But the Americans who invaded it and detached it from Madrid had different
ideas.
In one of the most shameful and brutal actions of the American Empire, the
US repressed Filipino uprisings, becoming responsible for killing 20,000
freedom fighters and 400,000 civilians. When villages rose up or sheltered
guerrillas, the Americans ruthlessly rounded them up and put them in
concentration camps, where unsanitary conditions led to disease outbreaks.
That is, all those American politicians who condemn Bashar al-Assad for
atrocities in Syria should remember that the US did worse to the Philippines
than al-Assad has done to his country. (Al-Assad should be condemned, but
not by people who think the US occupation of the Philippines was all right).
One group that showed special spunk in standing up to the American invasion
and occupation of their territory was the Moro Muslims in the far south.
Pershing served as military governor of this province and had the rebels
killed. In 1913 the US reduced a Muslim fortification and killed all the
fighters, refusing to take prisoners (a war crime).
Let me underline this. The only reason Pershing had to deal with Muslims was
that the US aggressively attacked Spain on the pretense of sympathizing with
rebellious colonial subjects, then promptly imposed American subjection on
the Filipinos, and polished off 420,000 of them for not going along with
this shameful proceeding. Americans who threw off the British in New York
and Massachusetts are celebrated in the US, but Filipinos, including Moro
Muslims, who similarly attempted to throw off an occupation army are
denigrated as terrorists.
Pershing did kill Moro Muslims, but not with pig's blood. As Wajahat Ali has
pointed out, pigs are not kryptonite for Muslims. Moreover, Moros never gave
up the fight for more control over their own destinies, so Trump's fantasy
that they were repressed for 25 years or 35 years is incorrect.
Worst of all, Trump has played into ISIL's hands by identifying a legitimate
national liberation movement in Moro under Pershing with terrorism.
Trump is broadcasting ISIL propaganda, that the US is a colonial power
brutalizing Muslims and just brandishing the term "terrorism" to hide its
own crimes.
So Trump could not have been more rude to Spain, in recalling 1898. And he
could not have been more accommodating to ISIL's narrative, that the US is a
brutal war criminal repressing Muslims with its colonialism, if he took out
television ads for Caliph al-Baghdadi himself.
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