Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream

Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream By Gregg Jones New York: New American Library, 2012 430 pages $26.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] America went to war in 1898 for a noble cause--to lift the yoke of Spanish colonial oppression from the peoples of Cuba and the Philippines. Although ill-equipped for expeditionary warfare, the United States Army, Navy, and fledgling Marine Corps, managed in short order to deploy forces sufficiently capable of securing victories in both the Caribbean island and distant archipelago in the Pacific. Flush with the spoils of its easy victories, the United States quickly installed a compliant government in the Philippines, with the objective of developing the former Spanish colony into a distant outpost from where parochial national interests could be looked after. Filipino nationalists, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, objected to the replacement of one colonial power with another, sparking an insurgency that spread throughout the islands. Years of counterinsurgency warfare followed, during which time American values were sorely tested as allegations of torture and brutality toward enemy soldiers and the civilian population who supported them became a daily staple of reporting in the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. American honor, so highly trumpeted at the onset of the war, became mired in the dust of discouragement and disappointment as victory in the war against the insurgents proved elusive. Gregg Jones's account of America's well-intentioned, but ill-fated, experiment with colonialism is told in a narrative style that reminds the reader of the author's roots as a journalist. There is much in the story that appeals to these sometimes prurient instincts, such as the prologue, which begins with a vivid description of US troops using a form of interrogation euphemistically referred to as "the water cure" on a suspected insurgent. From the outset it is clear that Jones finds many parallels between the War in the Philippines and America's experiences in later wars in general, and the Global War on Terror in particular. For many readers this will be an introduction to a forgotten chapter in our nation's history. The book begins with an overview of events leading to the outbreak of war; fighting in Cuba, to include an account of Roosevelt's Rough Riders and Kettle Hill; and Dewey's defeat of the Spanish navy in Manila Bay. With the onset of a counterinsurgency campaign, the narrative gathers a momentum that carries through the rest of the book. How American values fell victim to the charges that would tarnish the nation's honor is the question Jones finds morbidly interesting. In short, at the tactical level of war, the answer lies with badly trained and poorly led troops confronting an unfamiliar style of warfare and resorting to brutal tactics, including torture, in their efforts to defeat the insurgents. At the strategic level, the explanations are far more complex, involving a moral struggle over American values and interests. The fighting in the Philippines leads to a war of ideas and values, where factions within Congress, the press, and interest groups collectively known as Imperialists and Anti-Imperialists, debate the wisdom, legitimacy, and morality of a minor war in a distant land. Jones finds all this fascinating and his enthusiasm for the subject infuses the narrative. His accounts of soldiers and marines burning villages, shooting unarmed insurgents, and torturing suspects for information crackle with an energy common to investigative journalism. Is he, the reader is given to wonder from time to time, commenting on some aspect of the counterinsurgency effort in the Philippines, or none too subtly inviting us to consider our recent experiences in the Global War on Terror, with its allegations of water boarding, civilian casualties and collateral damages, and the untidy and seemingly open-ended commitment to an endeavor of an uncertain and perhaps unwise outcome? …