Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 81 - Philippines American War Part 3: War Crimes and Misdemeanors

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

At the conclusion of our series on the Philippines American War we dive into the Moro Rebellion and American war crimes so prolific they are turned into things of legend in the modern day. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/creator-home Support Brandon Lee: https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-brandon-lee Follow us on Twitter @lions_by Buy our stuff on Teespring: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store

Hello and welcome to yet another episode of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe and with me today is nick in his absolutely terrible november mustache you know army regs make it look like a pedophile all mustaches look like a pedophile mustache the i all right so joshua chamberlain's mustache in the gettysburg movie baller yes can't pull that off here uh i think that the the army recruiting uh system would be much better if they're like grow whatever the fuck you want yeah it'd be fucking awesome uh i mean but there's so many people who can't grow mustaches or beards that just walk around look like somebody glued like pubes to their face um very true yeah because I see that every time I go anywhere.

People are like, yeah, I'm trying to grow a beard. It's only on your neck. I don't like the people that just shave the mustache and leave the beard. It looks weird. It's terrible. Mustaches should never be alone, but also beards need company.

Mustaches that grow up into your sideburns hmm like what are those called I don't know a civil war helmet so we are on part three and the final part of the

Philippine American war now do whatever you want to do, but I recommend going back and listening to the first. Oh yeah. The last one was dope. I will start this episode with a quote from market Darrow, it's a writer and researcher from UNC Chapel Hill. And I'm not quoting him because this college once paid for me to get blackout

drunk. What up y'all? But because it is, it is is it's fitting for this episode. Now, as I as I say this quote, just think of what it could be compared to. Quote, a distant country, mostly unknown to Americans. The United States is at war. The military takes the capital city and captures the foreign leader. The president announces mission accomplished.

Rebels raid American strongholds and supply lines. The indigenous Muslim population, hardly loyal to the fallen leader, resents American occupation. Despite inferior firepower, the insurgents do not surrender. A guerrilla war sets in. Meanwhile, anti-imperialists chastise the American press for keeping quiet on the war's immorality. They accuse the government of stealing natural resources. Soldiers torture captives. Locals want Americans out. Terrorism grips the region,

and the world watches on as America is in the hot seat. Does that sound familiar? What war? Which one? So when we left you last week, the main Filipino insurgency against American imperial domination was brought to an end

as Emilio Alginato finally threw in the towel, mostly because he was captured, but it did not mean the people of the Philippines Island were done fighting. This brings us to the fiercely independent Island of Mindanao. Ooh, there is probably a very good reason why America would eventually have such a hard time attempting to pacify the second largest Island in the entire chain because so had everybody else consider mininao something of the afghanistan of the philippines oh and yeah that continues kind of today uh the people of the

island had even for the philippines a much different culture and attitude towards outsiders than other people they long ago converted to Islam, the oldest mosque being built in the 14th century. Though there was some native animist type religion floating around in some of the outliers, but they aren't really what we're going to talk about today.

They had violently rejected Spanish rule, and they didn't want anything to do with Emilio's Philippine Republic either. They clearly just wanted to be left the fuck alone and be allowed to do their own thing. Rightfully so. For instance, the Spanish kind of just gave up on trying to bring the island to heel. Nice. I would go with that.

Not that surprising. Instead, they kind of just built a couple outlying forts and just stayed in them. Don't attack us. Yeah, they they would lead like punitive expeditions out whenever one of the sultans would get kind of uppity and not listen to them. But they didn't have a lot of success. Instead, they decided to just kind of get treaties with all the largest rulers of the area, which happened to work for them. Oh, that's good. largest rulers of the area which happened to work for them oh that's good mostly by work for them it meant like they weren't killing spaniards that in large numbers oh in large numbers yeah because

there was there was definitely so here and there well there was still outlying insurgencies like the the the sulu sultanate which is like the main the main one we're going to talk about was uh sign tree with the spanish but like there's a lot of other people like no fuck those guys so and like the sulu's didn't control all of mindanao so they're like this is like yeah we only do so much y'all yeah uh so it should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that the people of the island who i will collectively refer to as the moros throughout this because that is kind of what they're known as moros Moros. So it is based on the Spanish. So in history, the Iberian Peninsula, which we now know as Spain,

was invaded by the Moors, which were Muslim invaders from Africa. So somehow that name kind of got used on the Philippines too, just because they're Muslim. Right. It just means the Moors. There's more of them. s'mores of them yes it doesn't mean that um now they were not going to entertain any of this american bullshit when they

showed up either uh and some moral groups will contend that that is why they still fight today though a lot of that has more to do with what they now see is ph Philippine imperialism on Taminda now. Though some of it is just straight up Islamic terror. There's layers here. There's layers. It sounds like it. History is not black and white, and either is modern day insurgency. Which is why nobody ever wins

it. There's no chance. Now American ignorance to the people they wanted to rule is nothing new. The American government had learned from the Spanish that the Moro people were simply not to be fucked with. So they decided to head this whole thing off by going to, of all people, the Ottoman Empire, which, remember, still existed because it's not World War One yet. the secretary of state went to Sultan Abdul Hamid II and asked that he write the Sulu Sultanate, which controlled a large portion of Mindanao, to submit

to American rule in the form of just kind of transferring the agreement they had with the Spanish over to the Americans. Like, look, all you gotta do is change flags. Nobody gives a shit, right? Cool? We good? Alright. He also came up with the word, hey. Now we use it today. The Sulus simply shrugged and said

Yeah whatever they're just another group of white people This sounds like a really nice neat way To end this conflict right That's it that's the end of the episode Of course it fucking didn't So Before we go into just how wrong all of this was We have to go into the brainchild

Of this whole idea, which is an idiot that everybody should remember from episode one. Elwell Stephen Otis. God damn it. Who turns out is not good at this stuff. Going into this endeavor, Otis thought three things, all of which were profoundly untrue. The first was the Sulu Sultanate controlled all of

Mindanao, which it certainly did not. Second was Otis meant to transfer the treaty that the Sulu had with the Spanish, which granted them the status of sovereign but unequal state to the Americans. So, consider his limited autonomy. I don't understand how he tried doing that.

Well, he wanted... He didn't understand the status that they had with the Spanish, is what it comes down to. He's like, well, whatever. They're just subjects. That's all it is. The Spanish are in charge. That's all it is. But there was like... He didn't understand there's nuances to this shit. The way the Spanish

got... In fact, his collaboration from the Sulu's is like, look, just run your shit and listen to us from time to time like what it came down to is like they could rule themselves if they recognize the spanish throne like they they had they weren't equal to the spanish because no no no they're brown people they can't do that nope uh but they're like just we won't fuck with each other. Kind of. Okay. So the third one was what I kind of explained. Otis had no idea the treaty that he meant to transfer did not give Americans complete control.

So he didn't understand anything. That guy's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. He didn't understand the Sulu status within the Spanish Empire, which you think he would have if he just fucking asked the Spanish. Oh, no. Which he did not. Why would you do that? He could fucking asked the spanish oh no he did not fuck he could you do that he could have asked the ottomans they probably knew

when he found i think that he doesn't understand a lot of stuff no he's just a fucking dumbass yeah so babies come in by bird right this is all stork related so when he found all this out he thought on his feet the only way that someone like him could do. He simply made his own goddamn treaty and would get rid of all the special treatment shit. They bribed the Sultan with a ton of cash in order to get him to sign it. And when that didn't work, he sailed the USS Charleston right up to their harbor to scare the shit out of them. Because they had never seen a modern warship before. So they're like, yeah, fuck it, we'll sign it.

Just don't blow us up. This became known as the Curum Bates Treaty, and it was a complete and total farce, and was admitted to be so by the man put in charge of enforcing it, General Bates. Because he said he had no intention of ratifying it, and it was just a stalling tactic to be put in place until the

rest of the insurgents, meaning Emilio Algonato's boys, could be dealt with, at which point American troops could be shifted onto Mindanao and deal with the Moro. Which is exactly the same thing they did to Emilio Algenado. And in that way, it largely worked. The Americans fought Emilio and his boys, and the South went largely ignored and left to their own devices because they didn't want to fight a two-front war. That was until it didn't american troops invaded the island and routinely changed the treaty on the fly whenever they wanted to they used the pretense that the sioux sultanate that the people that they had signed the agreement with was not doing enough

to control the spread of anti-imperialist violence which how could they they didn't have an army yeah as you can assume the moro people eventually just said fuck it it's time to go to war again Which, how could they? They didn't have an army. As you can assume, the Moro people eventually just said, fuck it, it's time to go to war again. Yeah. So this is from Patricio Albini's book, State and Society in the Philippines. Quote, they did not want to pay the invader's tax or be subject to his laws. They did not know or believe that the Americans would respect their religion. They wanted to be left alone and keep their way of life.

If they had been left alone, they remained in grudging, perhaps sullen and suspicious, peace. So, probably good that the Moro thought of those things because they wouldn't have been respected. I mean, look at the rest of the Philippines. The main reason why Catholicism

had such a grip is because that's what invaders generally do. Occupiers, at least back then, would attempt to win over a people and their culture by changing their religion as a form of civilizing them, which I think I talked about before. Right. So it's like when the Mormons come to my house and they attack. Yeah, that's why I just asked them to mow the lawn. And they do. What? Yeah. Yeah. If you ask them for favors they'll do it pay my bills yeah uh pet my dog now um i stopped doing that when i found out that these are like brainwashed children who work for free and then i realized

it was kind of slavery so i was like nope not doing that i just don't answer the door okay uh so since they had fought the insurgents in the north the americans had learned some pretty slavery. So it's like, nope, not doing that. I just don't answer the door. Okay. So since they had fought the insurgents in the North, the Americans had learned some pretty hard lessons in how to break the will of the people of the South. And I think you know what that means. It means search and destroy missions, torturing captives whenever

whether they be men, women, or children and throwing everyone they get their hands on into concentration camps. You know, we just can't leave people alone. If only people could be easily controlled and concentrated into, I don't know, camps? This could definitely win a war and not make us bad guys. Summer camps of liberty and freedom.

What's that, Emilio? Work will set you free? Perfect. Put that on the gate now this as you can imagine this eventually definitely did not make friends with the Moro community and the whole island went to war now if you remember

from the first two episodes Philippine insurgents did not have the easiest time getting their hands on guns sweet machetes though especially not ammo and the Moro had the same problem though amplified by have the easiest time getting their hands on guns. Sweet machetes, though. Especially not ammo. And the Moro had the same problem, though amplified by like times 10. The main reason why the other islands

had at least some weapons is, the Americans helped, but they'd capture a lot from the Spanish, also some of them had been trained by the Spanish. As the Spanish never tried to fuck around in Mindanao, a flood of guns never happened there. Right. So there wasn't really much of shit.

So very few modern firearms trickled down to the Moro. In the very beginning of the insurgency, like, they did have some repeating weapons, but most of them were muskets. Oh, God. But that did not mean that they wanted to use guns. Enter the Yoramantatos, probably the most badass motherfuckers we've ever covered. The who Enter the Euromantatos. Probably the

most badass motherfuckers we've ever covered. The who? The Euromantatos. I am probably pronouncing that wrong, but I'm using a soft J, which is about as good as I can get. So only the bravest Moro candidates would be allowed into their ranks. Because they were considered religious warriors, the young men had to be selected

by the local imams and confirmed by the sultan. After that, they would enter what became known as the path to paradise. So the path began with taking an oath on the Quran. After that, they took a ritual bath and were shaved completely bald.

Really? Like, all their body hair was shaved off. What's the ritual bath? I'm assuming with axe body, or like or shower gel. We must bathe you in gun scent. Because we don't have any. What scent is this? Winter green swords.

Okay. And then they got their eyebrows done. Because, I mean, just because you're going to go on a suicide mission doesn't mean you can't look fly as fuck, right? When I was in middle school, I used to use Cold Steel Axe body spray. Is that actually a scent? Yeah. I know it shouldn't surprise me because they have the weirdest... They got Africa, Cold Steel.

A scent called Africa? Yeah. Swear to God. They also had a chocolate one, too. Do you remember that? No. No? God.

I remember that's what high school locker rooms used to smell like. Guys, body wash and body spray scent names are fucking hilarious. Women have like- Swagger. Lavender Paradise. Daffodil. Men is like, guns. Swagger.

Hand grenade. Knockout. Hand grenade. Dick energy. Dick cheese away. It reminds me of like the only good family guy bit that I think they've ever done where the guy

sprays himself with axe. And you know, remember the old axe commercials where women throw themselves at you, but it was axe for sick cats. And it was just like half dead cats crawling towards him. I remember the commercial where you had to make an axe on your body when you used it

such a bad smell then the Urimantados would place thick restricting bands on all of their arms, legs, and torso and genitals how do you band that? it's like really thick metal bands and I think some of them were rope

but yeah, there's effectively tourniquets also somewhere on their dick oh so there was a religious symbolism behind this but also it was practical it restricted blood flow so like if you got shot you wouldn't bleed out immediately you could just keep on trucking i imagine it'd be hard walking too your mobility sucks at that point it's like it's like walking around if you put knee wraps on before you lift. It's more of a high-speed waddle. So then they would put on white clothes,

normally they're robes, and arm themselves with large fucking swords and machetes. That's so awesome. Because if somebody invades your land, it could only be possibly purified with sweet, sweet machetes. Machetes of freedom! That's why the second part was so awesome.

If I'm gonna... A lot of machetes. If I'm gonna number my blades of freedom, guillotine's number one. Two, machete. Three, uh, what should number three be? Well, you do have a kukri on the desk. But they, like, fucking work for the British Empire.

You can't use them. Sorry. The United Kingdom. I would definitely have a kukri on the desk yeah that but they like fucking work for the british empire they can't use them sorry the united kingdom i would definitely have a bolo bolo knife but bolo knife's kind of machete yeah yeah fuck it two machetes it's it's all machetes yeah bayonet machete i mean like i said before all a guillotine is isn't it is a It's a chainsaw from Gears of War. Deal. On my weapon. Okay, yeah. Okay, so you have a machete. I have a musket and a chainsaw. Let's say you need an attachment onto that machete. Grenade launchers have not been

invented yet. Your machete has a pick-and-inny rail system with a laser pointer on it. Oh, I hope somebody makes that. And a bayonet like freedom is always it's only one through machetes only the only true freedom is ever one through machetes or bladed weapons like the there's a whole movie made about it so all right freedom can only be one through machetes or danny trejo yeah and i'm still waiting for the other one to come out where

he has to go to space that's the official uh podcast stance now is Danny Trejo is the number one freedom fighter on Earth. Yes. Which is why when I come back, we're watching Blood In Blood Out because he's in it. Okay. And it's from my hometown. So the Yoramitados obviously wouldn't like line up and run at people. That kind of defeats the purpose. Stupid.

They would lie in wait and ambush approaching enemy formations imagine the white robes don't help no they weren't exactly camouflage but they need they even though they're religious suicide warriors effectively they knew they had to still get close so they weren't gonna be dumb about it i mean if you're gonna get a sword fight if you're gonna bring a sword to a gunfight yeah you gotta bring some brains too yeah i'd have a spider hole um so they'd lie in wait for the enemy to come towards them. And they'd spring out and start fucking chopping people to bits. Oh, God. Now, pretty much everybody noted that you could not shoot these guys once and bring them down.

Like, they would just take multiple bullet holes. And there's also accounts, and I think it was in a movie as well, where they got bayoneted, and they held on to the rifle, pulled themselves closer under the bayonet so they could stab somebody oh god just going slowly into their body no no no you like no you you bayonet someone that you smile like now i have you right where i want you like oh you plan this now uh there has been and i'm sure you have heard it although there's a lot of people listening to this podcast who have heard it a whole lot of horrific urban legend slash real shit surrounding what uh american methods were used to attempt to stop these fanatical swordsmen. Some of which continue to get brought up to

this day. Really? Because time is a big, dumb, flat circle. Now, they are based in reality, and I'll go through them. This includes the story of General Blackjack Pershing, officially ordering the execution of Moro people with bullets dipped in pig's blood.

Jesus Christ. Now, for people who are unaware, for whatever reason, pigs and pork, among other things, are considered haram for Muslims. You can't eat it, and stuff like that. Everybody should know this by now. It's such a vet bro meme. Exactly.

It just happened. Blackjack Pershing is the originator of Black Rifle Coffee. Like, oh my God. Use the bacon grease from the bacon we just made yeah now obviously the really fucking galaxy brain idea here is if you shot someone with a bullet gun in pig's blood they would not go to heaven this never happened um nor is there any historical evidence that says that they actually did now i normally would say this is a war full of war crimes. This could have happened, and sure. In the realm of

possibility, it may have occurred, but Blackjack Pershing never ordered this to happen. And I say this because at the time, America never had any problems keeping all this shit on paper and talking about it in autobiographies. Oh, yeah. They were like, yeah, we did this. Isn't it badass? This is

a weird racist meme that a bunch of idiot racist Islamophobes on Facebook or maybe your family Thanksgiving and also our current president continues bringing up. Thanksgiving. Now, when

I tell you, and I just already brought him up, that this myth has been peddled by the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump himself. It is true. Now, I have a quote while he was on the campaign trail. So back then, he was just that guy who went bankrupt a lot running casinos. Quote, Persian caught 50. All right, before I start this quote, I'm not misspeaking.

This is just how he talks. Oh. Quote, Pershing caught 50 terrorists who did tremendous damage. And he took the 50 terrorists and he took 50 men and dipped 50 bullets in pig's blood. You heard about that? He took 50 bullets and dipped them in pig's blood. And then he had his men load up the rifles and he lined up 50 people and he shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said, you go back to your people and tell them what happened.

For 25 years, there wasn't a problem. End quote. Never happened. Also, that word salad is a direct quote. At a later date, he claimed it wasn't for 25 years, but 42 years. Neither one of those things happened. War continued until fucking World War I.

But it never happened. There's not a single documented historical piece of evidence that this happened. And I'm not absolving American soldiers of sin, which we're about to talk about of horrible shit. They actually did. Another popular story

was that there's an American standing policy of burying the dead swordsmen or insurgents with the bodies of pigs. This changes to the entrails of pigs, depending on who tells the story. You can imagine

how horrible the story is since it has been co-opted into the American forever war that has destroyed the middle east and afghanistan one thing this definitely happened and it happened a lot uh but it's not some kind of standing policy i think that needs to be like it happened but people say that this was like roe or some kind of standing operation procedure like that. You'd get a pamphlet when you came to the Philippines, like this is how you discard the dead.

Also that the main, the main myth here is that it worked though. I'm not arguing that happened. It definitely happened. I will read quotes about it happening, but the main myth here is the reason why we should talk about this. And when it comes to our current war is because it worked. It fucking didn't.

It absolutely didn't. The Moros are still fighting. It is 2019. Now, some units did this and some units did not. But it is important to note that officers made no attempt to control their men, at least none that I found. And Pershing himself found out about the practice he took when he took command and he said he approved it but the practices kind

of accepted to have started with Colonel Alexander Rogers of the 6th Cavalry Regiment because of course it goes back to a cavalry regiment always but like we kind of pointed out before something's really really widespread officer doesn't stop it it's kind of implying agreement making it sort of a non formal policy if you will kind of pointed out before, if something's really, really widespread and an officer doesn't stop it, it's kind of implying agreement,

making it sort of a non-formal policy, if you will. Kind of like executing members of the SS for the Western powers in World War II. People just did it a lot. Though, in a war where actual written orders were given to execute POWs and kill all men above the age of 10,

it was kind of shocking it was not a written order. Like, I just assumed it would be at this point. Yeah. But Pershing did write about it in his autobiography. He said, quote, Urim and Tato attacks were materially reduced in number by the practice the army had already adopted, one that the Mohammedans held in abhorrence.

The bodies were publicly buried in the same grave with a dead pig. Okay. Now, Pershing says that that stopped attacks and it didn't the largest bad the largest battle hadn't even happened in the war yet um but yeah it it continues but also i think pershing may have believed that it was working because maybe it was less attacks that he saw yeah also the moral rebellion didn't have like a huge body count for American soldiers.

Not that many died. Yeah, there wasn't any GoPro footage of this. Now, the Philippine-Americans War had a much higher body count, but they were also fighting a much more organized, well-armed, and well-trained resistance. So, they really can't be compared. What is important

to note here is that idiots cite these gross war crimes being what finally broke the back of the Moro Rebellion. It absolutely was not. It infuriated people to see their dead buried in such a way, swelling the ranks of the insurgents and kind of knitting a kind of solidarity between the Euromatados and the people that wanted to fight the Americans and civilians who kind of want to stay out of it, like the fence sitters of an insurgency like people may have not wanted to throw down and actually

fight but they're like i'm gonna support them now yeah which is you push them to that point that's fucking how counterinsurgency works or doesn't work for that matter the circle yeah the idea of the leading like that this brought an end to the war is trying to argue that what Robert Bales did was a positive. Oh my god. You know what I'm saying?

Well, if we just unleash ten of those guys, the Taliban's will to fight will be broken. That's just not how it works. Over. Yeah, that's not how it works. This is the type of shit that people who claim restrictive rules of engagement, or if we took the gloves off, so to say, is why Americans lost in Vietnam, Iraq, or whatever the next place we're going to invade is going to be. We like send our Uncle Roy and turn the Middle East into a glass pit like he would like. Yeah. This is a lot like have you read or

watched all quite on the western front i have so when the main character goes home and he because he's been wounded uh and he is like a whole bunch of old guys are talking about the war yeah and he's like and the main character's like no that that won't work like a ton of people are gonna die and and nothing's nothing's gonna happen and uh the old guys who are not veterans and not in the military are like no no you don't understand you only see your one little slice of the war you're not seeing the full picture you're just like exactly yeah oh god such a good movie though uh so one thing that did stop the swordsmen was exactly what you would think would stop them.

Soul blades. Guns. Oh, fuck. Now, American soldiers were armed with a Krag-Jorgensen rifle, which was powerful, but had numerous problems in the climate of the islands. Also, it was bolt action. It's not like it was a semi-automatic rifle. So fighting charging swordsmen is kind of hard when you have to stop and work a bolt. Yeah.

swordsman is kind of hard when you have to stop and work a bolt yeah um but that did not stop this gun from becoming a lyric in a popular song of the time uh amongst u.s soldiers and the populace uh that went and this is true quote under our starry flag civilize them with a crag what fucking white people that sounds like shit. Because our history is just racist and dumb. God. No, I'm laughing at that because I could see someone singing that. I could totally see somebody singing that. I could see somebody trying to make an updated one. Yeah, definitely.

So, okay, while we're on the subject of super racist American songs, and this episode keeps going, well, this is a little off topic, but we're going to talk about a 1903 operetta called the Sultan of Sulu, which featured a white man painted up to be described as a, quote, Orientalist

clown face, and the guise of a moral leader. He was a brown face. In case you thought that was something that ended in the 1800s. This is 1903. The operetta featured a chorus of soldiers that sang verses like, We want to assimilate, if we can, the brother who is brown.

We love our dusky fellow man, and we hate to hunt him down. So when we perforate his frame, we want him to be good. We shoot at him to make him tame but if he understood what the fuck holy shit i know that had nothing to do with the war really but like what the fuck and this is how like press and popular media and and and like a narrative makes war okay yeah it's like you're singing like hey i want to be friends but i have to shoot him that's cool too yeah but like dude that's his fucking country like leave him alone no man when i i wanted to find a clip of the operetta and i

could not uh but i did find pictures of a guy in brown face uh which shouldn't surprise anybody uh because he's the prime minister of canada hey oh really oh yeah we don't get anybody because he's the Prime Minister of Canada. Ayo! Really? Yeah, we don't get the dog in Canada often, but that's a Justin Trudeau burn. Rare. But not as rare as him in Blackface. Oh, nice.

Another problem was that soldiers were routinely ambushed before they could have a chance to bring their rifles to bear or have to cycle a bolt action over and over again. They didn't have a chance to sing their song. Yeah. Quick to cycle a bolt action over and over and have a chance to sing their song yeah quick everybody civilize them with a crag i can't brent i have a sword in my chest fucking a fabian xavier uh fucking braxton god i think we just killed a lacrosse team uh so a lot of times people resort to using pistols uh they could draw them faster and shoot and shoot faster like i mean they at first they had a 38 revolver which fucking sucks um and the 38 revolver was such a piece of shit that moro uh swordsman would just run right through the bullets and there was actually some people that went back to a black powder 45 caliber revolver because it would blow fucking cantaloupe

size holes of people uh and so like the people try to use the 38 because it fires fashion the crag jorgensen also soldiers are soldiers they want to carry their goddamn rifle everywhere in the jungle fuck that dude so like yeah let's carry your revolver, fuck it. So, yeah, it just wasn't working. It was really, really underpowered. Which brings us to the development of a historic weapon of war and fetish for the tactical boomers everywhere to the current

day. Really? Colt 1911 45! Oh, goddammit. Yep, a gun you cannot scroll through Facebook without seeing your stupid friend buying for a1,000. Now, this new handgun would drop people with pretty much a single shot, assuming the person had a good aim. Which, you know, that meant that these suicide charges stopped working effectively. They still totally happened.

But the Americans who were getting slashed up pretty severely would not lose per se we're not talking about squads getting overran on the regular here it didn't really happen it was a rarity I don't think it was the Urim and Tad was goal

maybe it was in some cases but they were just trying to do as much damage as they can yeah honestly that's fucking terrifying Maybe it was in some cases, but they were just trying to do as much damage as they can. Yeah. Honestly, that's fucking terrifying. Yeah, that's scary. I would hate to see that shit. Imagine, like, I would much rather square up with a guy with a rifle at, you know.

Oh, yeah. Even with an eye shot. Because I would hate to get fucking slashed by a machete. Yeah, that shit would fucking suck. And you know it's coming for your hands first. Yeah. Because it has a gun in it. Yep. That's not happening.

And I mean, I think you could feasibly call the urban titles, a terror weapon. And I don't mean that in like an Islamophobic way. I mean that in like, when you look at other weapons that didn't do as much damage as you think they did, but just they sweep terror throughout the ranks,

like a sniper or a kamikaze. I don't even think they meant meant that to be a terror weapon. That's just what they had. Yeah. And it just fucking blows if you're on the other side of it. Yeah. And they did what they had to do. Yeah.

Like we have farm equipment. Fuck you. What do we have laying around? I got these bands for my dick and I got this machete. All right, let's do this. So take our cock piece out and slam them with it slam on our holy religious cock ring and start slashing motherfuckers um now this kind of worked and the tide of the war i mean the title war is never on the moro side um like emilio

agonado had um feasibly had a chance to make the Americans not want to fight him anymore. Moro never really had that. They were never winning. But they kept fighting. They rarely attempted to engage a large group of American soldiers, knowing that it wasn't really their strong suit, and instead stuck to ambushing them. This led to the Americans chasing ghosts and attempting to corner Moros and force them to fight.

If this rings any bells, yeah, you're not wrong. If the posts were there back then, come out, fight, you fucking cowards. If they just stand up and fought me like a man, why the fuck would they do that? Yeah, why would I? Why don't you grab a machete and try to fight like

one of them? See how that goes? Yeah. This finally, so the Americans finally found a way to corner these guys at the battle of bud dujao now i have to call it the battle of bud dujao because that is generally what is known as but it's not widely accepted to be a battle uh bud dujao was a secluded area settled into the crater of an extinct volcano which is pretty fucking metal right yeah like if you were gonna set up a secret base you set it up in a volcano oh yeah dude good choice uh i was chosen as a place to flee by the locals because it was incredibly hard to get to uh there's only a few

main roads uh into the area but the but it was just like it was kind of like a spider web of countless small trails that led up to that but but only the locals knew about those trails. So there's really easy escape routes. American patrols had been making people's lives a living hell. They've been poisoning wells, like we talked about, killing livestock, destroying crops. Just the simple act of surviving kind of became a chore. Bud DeJao had enough fresh water to change all that,

and they even could grow crops. So they could kind of just start their weird refugee commune away from American soldiers. For a while, anyway. Eventually, several hundred people, some of whom were fighters, moved into the area. The Americans had heard about it and sent someone to man they returned to their homes. To which they obviously refused. The crater was a traditional place for the local community to gather when they were threatened to the American authorities. This is considered a challenge because remember their,

their way of winning this war so far had been trying to separate fighters from the civilians and putting those civilians in concentration camps. Um, this was a direct challenge to that for very obvious reason. That was when General Leonard Wood. Yes, that Leonard Wood, the same one who has a military base named after him, ordered Colonel J.W. Duncan to attack Bud DeJou. Duncan brought with him a battery of artillery, a gunboat, machine guns, and around 750 men.

The moros of Bud DeJou knew that this was coming and set up blockades in the road to try to slow them down. But they were forced to launch attacks on the advancing soldiers with not really much. They fought with machetes, swords, spears, and seashells full of gunpowder that they would light and throw like hand

grenades, which is fucking awesome. Just seashells trapped? Yeah. Fucking Ariel blew me up! grenades which is fucking awesome just seashell shrapnel yeah fucking ariel blew me up i imagine looking this is some like fucking uh god i can't think of the show anymore

um macgyver macgyver like a more a moral fighters like looking around like i have all this gunpowder no gun and rock no pine cone no seashell you know they had to experiment someone definitely blew their hand off trying to make this work we need to get the right timing oh fuck somebody attach a sword to his other hand he'll be okay oh machete hand machete hands yes i sacrificed my hands for the glory of the people yeah dude eventually uh and unfortunately for the fighters uh they were

eventually become surrounded um and they had nowhere to go because they were fighting with the backs against the wall there were civilians there they didn't want to abandon the volcano wasn't gonna help yeah i mean if the volcano gods could kick this motherfucker around right quick and just Pompeii this entire area, that'd be great. Nobody wins. I might not win, but I'll take all of you down with me. Eventually,

they had to withdraw into the center of the crater. Soldiers advanced machine guns and cannons onto the ridge of that crater and began firing indiscriminately into the crater, which is home to hundreds of civilians. Of the 1,000 Moro who moved into

the crater, only six survived the assault. What? In the days after the attack, President Teddy Roosevelt wrote to Wood saying, quote, I congratulate you and the officers and the men of your command upon their brilliant feet of arms. We're in.

And you shall uphold the honor of the American flag. Now, this is where a number of people are like, whoa, Joe, you're being awfully reactionary. It's 1906. It's not like he knew that there's hundreds of dead civilians. This information takes a long time to come stateside. And that's where I tell you you're fucking wrong because there's newspapers involved. He not only had the information provided to him from the military,

he knew the civilian cost of the battle because everybody else did too. This is now widely accepted to be a mass slaughter and was known almost immediately on March 11th 1906, edition of the New York Times times which was seven days after

the massacre and about the same time roosevelt made his statement ran a headline that said quote women and children killed in the morrow battle mingled with warriors felled by shot four days of fighting 900 persons killed president weir's congratulations to the troops jesus fucking christ now he's a jolly good fellow rough riders teddy roosevelt has never seen a dead brown person he did not be like perfect fucking asshole now did you ever hear about teddy roosevelt so he wasn't president anymore when world war one started and he like demanded to raise a regiment of volunteers to lead to the Did you ever hear about Teddy Roosevelt? So he wasn't president anymore when World War I started. And he demanded to raise a regiment of volunteers to lead to the Western Front. And the president's like, bro, you're like 70.

No. Go fuck yourself. He never saw an opportunity to kill someone that he wanted to pass by. I think the best thing I've ever seen him in was Night at the Museum. When Robin Williams was actually him. It's much better to think of Teddy Roosevelt as a coked up Robin Williams than actually Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah.

And this is like one of those times where white people just be fucked up. And that's true. But there's a lot of people in America who immediately said there's something fucking wrong here. Including our buddy Mark Twain again. Mark Twain is the shit. I love Mark Twain.

He called US soldiers Christian butchers and uniformed assassins. Mark Twain, welcome to Antifa. Come on the podcast whenever you'd like. When the Secretary of War Taft demanded an explanation from general

wood dude wood said that women and children had dressed as warriors picked up weapons and attacked yourself now some of this is true really there's firsthand accounts of women because why the fuck wouldn't they they probably knew they were all gonna die into a corner yeah yeah okay yeah their kids are there man they're They're going to fight. That makes sense. J.W. Duncan, the man who's actually in command that day, remember, Leonard Wood gave the orders and then sat back on, you know, wherever his orders came from, hundreds of miles away.

J.W. Duncan was actually there. Directly contradicted General Wood. He said, the high level of civilian casualties are because he used machine guns and artillery directed directly at them. Like, well, that'll do it. This is another episode with a pit

where people die. Yeah, like, uh, Colonel Duncan, why do you believe that, uh, oh, the civilian said, oh, because we pointed machine guns at him. Like, oh, okay, okay. But what if, like, no, no, no, it was the artillery too. Like, they just killed so many people.

You didn't see a problem with it, mind you, but yeah. Several American soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for the mass slaughter of Moro civilians. The fuck did they do? Making it shockingly similar to the Wounded Knee Massacre. If you're not aware, like, 20 Medals of Honor were given out for that.

Jesus Christ. I didn't know there was 20 given out for it. There's a lot. I don't know if it's 20. medals of honor were given out for that. Jesus Christ. I didn't know there was 20 given out for it. There's a lot. I don't know if it's 20. Someone's going to prove me wrong on that. But it's a lot. But it does have to bear in mind the medal of honor is not the same award that it is today. Oh, no, it's not. But it's still an award for slaughtering civilians.

And even now we recognize it as a high level, obviously. Yeah. So back then, the way we look at it a high level, obviously. Yeah. So back then, when we look at it, so fuck that. This is widely recognized by historians say to be a massacre to the point that admitted giant piece of shit. Uh, Filipino leader,

Rodrigo Duterte continues to drag it, to use it, to drag Americans, which like, this is like the moment where like that, the worst part of the person who hate the most is right about something you're like fuck mr turtley is a piece of shit but yeah smith you reloaded that machine gun so fast medal of honor way to kill those civilians rupert medal of honor yep

yep like most things nobody's ever punished for this. Though General Wood was fired from his position. What'd he do? He was... I'm trying to figure out a good way to explain this. He was fired, which is never a good look, though he was relieved of command. He made up for this

by taking full responsibility for the actions at Bandejao. This is considered a very officerly and gentlemanly thing to do. And only a man with honor would do such a thing. And he was applauded for it. He was not demoted. Oh, okay.

Yep. Yep. He kind of read it, read it, uh, wrote a desk during world war one. Um, and then he became,

wait for it, wait for it. The governor general of the Philippines in 1921. What a good guy. Yeah, he committed a mass, he ordered a mass slaughter and then became in charge of the whole operation. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. I hope, uh, uh, uh, fucking,

it's like making Hitler the Prime Minister of Israel. Oh, man. Like, what the fuck? Now, I'm not saying the two are equal, but it's the same ballpark. I mean, you pulled the ball there. Yes, yeah. Now, if you thought Blackjack Pershing, the guy who replaced Wood,

maybe learned a lesson at Bud DeJount, you'd be new to our show. And also, you're very, very, very wrong. Pershing conducting the same kind of attack in a different crater. This one named Bud Budzak. What craters are on this island? Oh, there's a lot of volcanoes. Jesus Christ. I mean, islands are formed by volcanoes, there's a lot of volcanoes. There are islands. I mean, islands are formed by volcanoes.

There's a lot of volcanoes. Don't volcano shame people, Nick. I just want to know how many craters there are. We we stay in the volcanoes here. I would just stay away from craters at that point. Yeah, well, I mean, there's still it's still solid. Like the Americans probably won't come into your volcano. Volcano.

Yeah, they'll just sit at the ridge and kill everybody you love. solid like the Americans probably won't come into your volcano volcano crater. They'll just sit at the ridge and kill everybody you love. Now this time instead of using all American soldiers he used American trained Filipino soldiers. Oh yeah. Set them on their own countrymen. Though it should be noted that there's a very good chance they didn't see them like that. They didn't see them as Filipinos.

Right. So you know if I if I'm Conker type shit. This time, the Moro forced her civilian population of around 10,000 to flee, knowing what would happen to them. Though some refused to leave, like people's wives, kids. They're like, fuck you, now I'm staying. That type stuff. In the end, about 500 fighters held the crater and fought the incoming soldiers until they were all dead. of pershing aides wrote quote one of our old-time sergeants shouted to his men be alert

they're going to charge they've gotten themselves all dressed up to die which means like the white clothes they rushed up the slope in staggered waves but our men stood firm and fired long rolling volleys that dropped the gaily decked figures like broken dolls they charged their charge ended as quickly as it began. Not one managed to reach our trenches, such as the do or die bravery of the Moro. Yep. Yep.

Though, like before the Americans ordered them to disarm and they refused, uh, no quarter would be given, um, to anyone that meant women and children to which Pershing's AIDS had about 5% of the dead were women or children. So you could assume it was probably a little higher.

It's kind of a weird kind of math to do. And this was in June 1913. Just a little bit more than a year before the outbreak of World War I. Wow. Yep. Which Pershing would go on to kind of become a hero in for doing mostly nothing.

But yeah. That's how you do it. Yep. It was finally around this time that the U.S. military decided the Moro lands should be placed under a civilian government, thinking it no longer needed a general to run it. Now, I know what you're thinking.

Finally, the Moro would be able to rule themselves in a larger colony, at least bringing the war to an end. Nope, nope. The first civilian governor was a white guy named Frank. Yeah, white guys have to run it.

It's just some guy named Frank that Pershing picked. You think brown people can run themselves? Don't be silly. Yeah. Hmm. Harumph. Smug bastards. I just spontaneously developed a walrus mustache, as we said that.

Oh, yeah. And a monocle just flew nowhere under your eye. I just look like the Monopoly guy, but somehow more evil. The Monopoly guy would totally be down with colonialism. He's a racist, fuck. You know it. The Monopoly guy says the N-word all the time. You ever go down his fucking streets?

You crossed go. Oh, what? What's your name? Nick Casanova? Ah, go to jail. Go directly to jail. Slightly Hispanic, huh? Hmm, broken windows. The Philippines would function as a colony of the U.S. until they were given independence after World War II. Though the U.S. retained a lot of power within governmental institutions.

So much so, you could rightly consider it a puppet regime for decades. I wish I could write that this is where the war was over. But a low, simmering moral uncertainty continues to this very day, and varying degrees of violence with fractious groups of militias, some of whom have sworn allegiance to ISIS, others are more political rather than religious. Studying that too long is like staring into a madness room. I'm not going to get too far into that. But a lot of this is due to colonial practices put in place by the United States and various brutal Filipino dictators like Fernan Marcos, who we supported.

All done with the moral and material support of the United States. During the reign of Marcos, thousands were killed and tens of thousands were jailed. Many more were simply disappeared, never to be heard from again. When Marcos was forced from power, he was led to come to the U.S. for exile, where he died in peace. Oh, okay. Happy endings. Today, Rodrigo Duterte, a man who once

ran death squads and said he wished he could have raped a woman before she was killed by one of them, is in charge. He has favorably compared himself to Hitler as attempting to murder his way out of a drug problem. the number of dead is somewhere around 30 000 and rising rapidly we support him too uh we have a ton of military bases there yep this brutality has been visited on political enemies and dissidents our researcher robert chang recently had a friend who was nearly killed by an off-duty cop in a suspected assassination for daring to speak up for environmental

rights. His friend, Brandon Lee, survived, but it cost him and his family pretty much everything. I think he said north of $200,000 has been spent on medical treatment and effectively exiled because he had to run for his life.

If you'd like to support Brandon's recovery and his resettlement here in the United States, you can find the GoFundMe exile because he had to run for his life yeah um if you'd like to support brandon's uh recovery and his resettlement here in the united states you can find the gofundme in our show notes or search save brandon lee and gofundme and uh give to a good cause that isn't getting us drunk and killing our livers um solid choice yeah uh in in in robert our our, pointed out that a lot of things left behind by the Americans still exist. Like his parents were taught or had to go to school only in English. Yeah, stuff like that. All the colonial institutions that normally pop up were built.

That kind of propped up that kind of colonial institution. And it still is largely existing. I mean, that kind of stuff doesn't go away in a generation or two. It takes forever. And it is hilarious watching him try to tell people about this on Twitter. He had a guy say, some guy said, we rapidly gave them independence. He's like, it took 60 years a guy say, uh, uh, some guy said like, we rapidly gave them independence. Like,

he's like, it took 60 years. Like, what about all the concentration camps? He's like, those are resettlement camps. Oh, fucking Christ.

Um, yeah. Yeah. Um, so if, if you want to support the show, support the show, we'll be giving a lot of money to,

uh, to Brandon Lee and his family as much as we can. It's not really a lot in the grand scheme of things, but as much as we can. It's not really a lot in the grand scheme of things, but as much as we can as a thank you to Robert and so Brandon maybe be able to recover and have something that resembles a normal life after having a

government try to kill him. If you would like to support the show, share us around, review us. And before we go, and because this got incredibly depressing uh because history always is uh question from the legion yeah we forgot to do that the last two weeks because we were too drunk oh yeah uh i think um so this question is uh do you know the people that you do interviews with um or like have you met them in person? Have we ever brought them in and interviewed them?

No. I've pretty much met everybody through Twitter. Though at one point, Tom got the double header because I knew him on Twitter and then he did our German Armor episode. And then he moved here and came and recorded in person for the NRX series. So yes, I invited a stranger from the internet into my home.

Awesome. I have not been kidnapped yet. I don't think they want to kidnap you. What do you have to give them? Nothing. They'd probably just kidnap my dog. At least she's worth something. Yeah.

And people actually like her. She's adorable. So if you would like to ask a question you can dm the twitter account at lions underscore by or ask us on the patreon page uh where one dollar gets you access to asking questions that gets you access to the discord gets you access to one bonus episode a month and more gets you more than that. Sweet deal. Yep. Yep. So before we go, I'd just like to say thank you again to Robert Chang for everything he did

for this series. This is outstanding, great research. I can't wait to work with him again. Awesome. For everybody else that just tuned in, thank you for taking this incredibly depressing journey through. Yeah,

none of it ended well. Through Spanish colony to drug Hitler. God, the people of the Philippines. If you're listening to us, please don't. I'm pretty sure this is probably illegal now. Uh,

good luck guys. Later.