If Obama is referring to people living in the US who haven’t tortured anyone and who oppose torture (which is the majority and does not include Obama), then he’s kind of right, except to the extent that these people are still forced to support torture through having their money stolen from them and used for torture, and having zero influence over state policy.
But if by “we” he means the US state/oligarchic apparatus itself – his group – then (gasp) he’s a liar. Who would’ve thought?
Here Colten Stokes gives a brief overview of US pre 9/11/01 torture (just torture, not things like slowly killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children in the 90s). It’s only a tiny sample of the endless volumes of documentation that are available, and only covers post WW2 US evil, such as throwing people from helicopters, giving electric shocks, and driving rods into people’s skulls through ear canals.
The US also loves for its proxy forces to torture people, so it sends them torture equipment and teaches classes, including on live victims (homeless people), on such civilized dinner-conversation topics as “how to torture women”.
The US was water-boarding people when it invaded the Philippines in 1899. Oh, and being “consciously genocidal” (p. 58), as in General J.M. Bell, 1901, stating he would:
…destroy everything I find outside of towns. All able bodied men will be killed or captured. … These people need a thrashing to teach them some good common sense…
Damn right.
And the Philadelphia Ledger reported:
…our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog. . . . Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to make them talk, and have taken prisoners people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later, without an atom of evidence to show that they were even insurrectos, stood them on a bridge and shot them down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down, as examples to those who found their bullet-loaded corpses.
Nice!
And a marine noted that he was instructed to “kill and burn … that the more he killed and burned the better pleased [his commander] would be…”
Hey, if this grosses you out, you might not have the stomach to be a member of Obama’s “we”, but it might help to remember what a US general said at the time:
It has been necessary to adopt what in other countries would probably be thought harsh measures.
Breathe that sigh of relief. The invasion and these tactics were “necessary”. ‘Cuz that guy, whoever he was, said so, which makes it okay.
This US war of conquest against the Philippines (the US afterwards maintained the most brutal dictatorial control over the Philippines for about 100 years) killed perhaps a million people. The US locked hundreds of thousands in concentration camps, where they dropped like flies from horrific, perhaps “Salt Pit“-like conditions and neglect.
You know the divinely ordained US and white race was bringing civilization to the Philippines and world, because “It was a time of intense racism in the United States. In the years between 1889 and 1903, on the average, every week, two Negroes were lynched by mobs — hanged, burned, mutilated. The Filipinos were brown-skinned, physically identifiable, strange-speaking and strange-looking to Americans. To the usual indiscriminate brutality of war was thus added the factor of racial hostility.” (Zinn)
Soldiers writing about what they were doing said things like:
“…we all wanted to kill ‘niggers.’ . . . This shooting human beings beats rabbit hunting all to pieces.”
It suuuure does.
Why was the US committing genocide in the Phililppines? Why was this “necessary”, as the US general informed us? Ask Senator Albert Beveridge, speaking on January 9, 1900:
The Philippines are ours forever. . . . And just beyond the Philippines are China’s illimitable markets. We will not retreat from either. . . . We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race…
The Pacific is our ocean. . . . Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? Geography answers the question. China is our natural customer. . . . The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East. . . .
No land in America surpasses in fertility the plains and valleys of Luzon. Rice and coffee, sugar and cocoanuts, hemp and tobacco. . . . The wood of the Philippines can supply the furniture of the world for a century to come. At Cebu the best informed man on the island told me that 40 miles of Cebu’s mountain chain are practically mountains of coal. . . .
I have a nugget of pure gold picked up in its present form on the banks of a Philippine creek. . . .
It has been charged that our conduct of the war has been cruel. Senators, it has been the reverse. . . . Senators must remember that we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans. We are dealing with Orientals.
Ahh. That makes sense. Same reasons why Europe committed genocide in the Americas.
This type of behavior is uniform back to 1776, when the US was, exactly like the psycho antagonist in Silence of the Lambs, skinning people (the original inhabitants of the continent) and making clothing, horse-reigns, and other useful items for themselves out of human skin.
In response to the recent release of the censored report on the latest US torture war crimes, some Fox News extremist said “America is awesome.” Well, America (Obama’s “we”) has been “awesome” for a very long time.
…
“We”, as in the public, oppose torture, as found in this major study of US public opinion polls. “We” as in the state/oligarchy, are long-time, non-stop, evil torturers, running a fifty-plus country torture regimen.
To say torture is “not who we are” is merely more childish propaganda from the current spokes-head.
The torturing, executing, genocidal “we”, of which the spokes-head is a member, must be separated from the non-torturing “we”. Let the torturing “we” go do what they want. See how long they can keep it up without a captive population footing their bills. Just leave us alone, you monsters.
Robert Barsocchini focuses on global force dynamics and writes professionally for the film industry. He is a regular contributor to Washington’s Blog, and is published in Counter Currents, Global Research, State of Globe, Blacklisted News, LewRockwell.com, DanSanchez.me, Information Clearing House, Press TV, and other outlets. Also see: Hillary Clinton’s Record of Support for War and other Depravities. Follow Robert and UK-based colleague, Dean Robinson, on Twitter.
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