Justifying Torture in the Philippine-American War

Abstract

Through primary documents such as court-martial transcripts, letters, and diaries, the Philippine-American War (1899–1902) provides an underexploited opportunity to see torturers themselves justifying their behavior at length. U.S. soldiers accused of abusing prisoners consistently played down their acts, arguing that the rope went around the detainee’s jaw instead of his neck, that the hits were slaps from the sides rather than punches straight out from the shoulder, that the “water cure” (which is somewhat like waterboarding) did not last very long, and so on. Yet at the same time, soldiers believed that it was necessary to use methods that would not be considered appropriate in other settings, because, as one veteran of the war put it, “[S]cruples often mean[t] flat failure or belated action.” Overall, U.S. interrogators in the Philippines believed that their techniques were, in the words of one practitioner, “the least brutal and painful which would be efficacious.”