The United States of America has a history of war crimes. The government hides behind excuses on why America has done the things that it has to move forward as a country, and their excuses go far.
One of the first documented instances of American war crimes is the Sullivan Expedition, 3, Americans sought to wipe out the Haudeosaunee people. They wanted to clear parts of Pennsylvania and New York from its indigenous peoples, and would do anything to reach that aim. They villages, and killed women and children scorched-earth mindset. [1] Only two years later, on March 8, 1782, the Gnadenhutten massacre which 96 pacifist Lenape and Mohican people were murdered by the Pennsylvania Militia.
During the Philippine-American War, from 1899 to 1913, indiscriminately shot, g thousands of women and children. Brutal dehumanization took place, in which Americans compared Filipinos to animals. This was the American justification for committing the war crime of killing citizens. The American military formed concentration camps for Filipino civilians across the Philippines, mainly in the Batangas and Laguna provinces, in which many more were starved and killed via various illnesses. [2] [3]
In the American occupation of Haiti, lasting nineteen years from 1915 to 1934, the occupation forces brought their racist views with them to the Black Haitian population, bringing back corvée–a form of forced, unpaid labor. Under corvée, poorer civilians could be forced to work on American projects. Anyone who tried to escape the corvée was murdered. [4]
A Filipino man sick with Beriberi contracted from an American concentration camp, 1902 (Wikipedia)
During World War II, starting in 1942, per President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, 120,000 Japanese Americans, 11,00 German Americans and 3,000 Italian Americans inside the country were rounded up and put in internment camps. The conditions in these camps were harsh and cramped with minimal privacy, where they were subjected to forced labor. [5] [6] In North Korea, the U.S. bombed without distinction and killed almost 20% of the population, destroying civilian livelihoods, In Vietnam, the My Lai Massacre, where U.S. soldiers killed and raped hundreds of civilians. [7] [8]
Lastly, during the War on Terror, from 2001 to as recently as 2021, the U.S. committed abuses towards Middle Eastern and Southern Asian people. One of the infamous examples Abu Ghraib prison, in which prisoners were tortured and degraded by American soldiers. It wasn’t solely prisoners who were degraded and killed,– the most saddening example was the rape and murder of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, a fourteen year old Iraqi girl, The U.S. soldiers also murdered her mother, father and sister. [9]
A dog owned by the US Military used to abuse a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison, 2003 (NBC News).
America covers up these crimes because the current administration does not want change. If this was public knowledge, it would show the truth of America, and how we could move forward as a country. It would also make sure that predatory people could not prey on ignorance to gain popular favor. It is never too late to move forward– but only if the people work together to overcome biases and acknowledge the U.S’s misdeeds instead of covering them up. Knowledge is strength.
Written By: Francesca Canterino