Water torture. Intrinsically evil a century ago, intrinsically evil evermore. The New Yorker has the non-scoop.
The public became inured to what had, only months earlier, been alarming revelations. As early as April 16, 1902, the New York World described the “American Public” sitting down to eat its breakfast with a newspaper full of Philippine atrocities:
It
sips its coffee and reads of its soldiers administering the “water
cure” to rebels; of how water with handfuls of salt thrown in to make
it more efficacious, is forced down the throats of the patients until
their bodies become distended to the point of bursting; of how our
soldiers then jump on the distended bodies to force the water out
quickly so that the “treatment” can begin all over again. The American
Public takes another sip of its coffee and remarks, “How very
unpleasant!”
“But where is that vast national outburst of astounded horror which an
old-fashioned America would have predicted at the reading of such
news?” the World asked. “Is it lost somewhere in the 8,000
miles that divide us from the scenes of these abominations? Is it led
astray by the darker skins of the alien race among which these
abominations are perpetrated? Or is it rotted away by that inevitable
demoralization which the wrong-doing of a great nation must inflict on
the consciences of the least of its citizens?”
Thanks to Eric for the tip.
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