A long time ago, and far away, the U.S. invaded and occupied the
Philippines. There are parallels to recent U.S. military
campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, down to torturing the enemy.
Journalist Gregg Jones has written Honor in the Dust: Theodore
Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of
America’s Imperial Dream, in part, to remind us that those who
cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Battleland
conducted an e-mail chat with him earlier this week: What is the
most surprising thing you learned in researching and writing
Honor in the Dust? There were so many surprises, which made this
project a wonderful voyage of discovery for me. But here are two
of the biggest: — I knew that Theodore Roosevelt was central to
my story when I began my research, but I was astonished by the
extent to which the Philippines dominated his thoughts from
1898–1903. Roosevelt wrote incessantly about the Philippines in
his private letters and spoke about the islands in countless
public speeches. He