Tomgram: Karen Greenberg, Barbarism Lite

According to the New Yorker's Paul Kramer, here's what A.F. Miller of the 32nd Volunteer Infantry Regiment wrote in a letter to the Omaha World-Herald in May 1900 from the Philippines about the treatment of a prisoner taken by his unit: "Now, this is the way we give them the water cure. Lay them on their backs, a man standing on each hand and each foot, then put a round stick in the mouth and pour a pail of water in the mouth and nose, and if they don't give up pour in another pail. They swell up like toads. I'll tell you it is a terrible torture."

One American was indeed finally brought to trial for the widespread use of "the water cure" in the Philippines at the turn of the previous century as the Filipino insurgency was suppressed. Captain Edwin Glenn, a judge advocate, supervised such a torture session. For this, he was convicted and sentenced to a "one-month suspension and a fifty-dollar fine." He retired from the Army in 1919 as a brigadier general.