A large standing army is repugnant to republican institutions and a menace to the liberty of our own people. If we annex the Philippines, we shall have to conquer the Filipinos by force of arms, and thereby deny to them what we claim to ourselves – the right to self-government."
We hold that the policy known as imperialism is hostile to liberty and tends toward militarism, an evil from which it has been our glory to be free. We regret that it has become necessary in the land of Washington and Lincoln to reaffirm that all men, of whatever race or color, are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We maintain that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. We insist that the subjugation of any people is 'criminal aggression' and open disloyalty to the distinctive principles of our Government...
We deplore the sacrifice of our soldiers and sailors, whose bravery deserves admiration even in an unjust war. We denounce the slaughter of the Filipinos as a needless horror. We protest against the extension of American sovereignty by Spanish methods...
We urge that Congress be promptly convened to announce to the Filipinos our purpose to concede to them the independence for which they have so long fought and which of right is theirs...
A self-governing state cannot accept sovereignty over an unwilling people. The United States cannot act upon the ancient heresy that might makes right...
The real firing line is not in the suburbs of Manila. The foe is of our own household...
When the white man governs himself, that is self-government, but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government – that is despotism...
Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it...
Then, as now, the argument justifying war started as a matter of self-defense, then morphed into a war for "freedom," and finally stood naked as a political and economic power grab...
Jay Garner, the first proconsul of Iraq, made explicit the parallels. He said Iraq would serve the same purpose as the Philippines in that it would be an outpost for American troops and a place where resources could be exploited, just as the Philippines were a vital "coaling station.
Admittedly, for present-day critics of Empire, the legacy of the Cold War has made conjuring from history a convincing vision (or memory) of a non-interventionist America dramatically more difficult...
Critics of the "War on Terror" then should spend at least as much time arguing that the neocon drive for Empire will actually encourage and expand the threat of terrorism as they do pointing out its all too tragic moral costs...
those who repeat the "support our troops" line may simply be expressing the hope that their friends and relatives don't get killed "over there." Parents, friends, and relatives who "support the troops" aren't necessarily uncritically swallowing the rah-rah propaganda. Rhetoric that continually makes no distinction between state policy and the country, between individual Americans and their leaders, and between democracy and Empire, will almost certainly fall flat...
The sending of hundreds of thousands of young men and women off to kill and be killed – in order to occupy a country that did not threaten us – was based on a pack of lies perhaps unique in the unsavory history of the American government's justifications for war...
But the war didn't end with the fall of Baghdad, as we know all too well. A look back at the Anti-Imperialist League offers a guide to moving forward today – if we're prepared to work together.
Recalling the Anti-Imperialist League by Stephen Bender
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