ABSTRACT
Few Americans are aware that at the turn of the century, US troops fighting an insurrection in the Philippines committed a series of genocidal atrocities that led to a whole sequence of court martials. The historical evidence of the great US experiment, however, shows clearly that a serious potential for genocidal destructiveness is present even in a great democratic society. Yet, history finds the US people playing not only the role of killer, but also the role of accomplice to other more vicious genociders. In the genesis of various revolutionary and dictatorial movements that are the breeding grounds of much later genocides, there are obviously ambition-ridden, power-mad personalities. The Holocaust convincingly brings home the truth that genocide is a complex of forces that can be set off in virtually any society of normal human beings. Human history is both a glorious epic of achievements and love and a dreadful blood-soaked nightmare of destuction.
