amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> the u.s. has been conducting airstrikes in somalia since 2007 i believe. they have almost trump old -- tripled since donald trump took office. amy: the trump administration's rapidly escalating a secret air war in somalia. at least 50 people have been

killed by u.s. airstrikes so far this year. then we speak to a historian, author of the new book "how to hide an empire." >> what surprised me when i was looking at the history of the united states was all the land over which the united states has claimed jurisdiction. how many aspects of u.s. history that seemed familiar to me. the musicacal oklahoma, the peae symbol. and events i hadn't thought much about. a shooting in congress in 1954. the discovery of some uninhabited 10 islands -- juan oh islands -- guano islands. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the house judiciary committee launched a wide-ranging investigation monday into president trump, his businesses and his allies as lawmakers

probe possible obstruction of justice, corruption and other crimes and abuses of power. the committee requested documents from at least 81 people or groups, who now have a march 18 deadline to respond. the list includes his sons donald trump jr. and eric trump, his son-in-law and senior adviser jared kushner, wikileaks and julian assange, the department of justice, the fbi, trump's charities, and founder of private security firm blackwater, erik prince, who is also the brother of education secretary betsy devos. an explosive new piece in the new yorker details trump's long-standing and far-reaching relationship with fox news. among the revelations in the explosive report, investigative reporter jane mayer writes that in 2017, trump directed then-top economic adviser gary cohn to put pressure on the justice department to block at&t's $85 billion acquisition of time warner.

the move was reportedly due to trump's animosity towards cnn, which is owned by time warner. cohn, however, viewed trump's order asas "highly improper" and directed thehen-chief f of staff johnhn kelly not to follow throh on it. the trump administration handily approved disney's acquisition of for $71r 7 -- fox billion. roger ailes shared key questions from the 2015 fox news hosted republican primary debate with candidate trump beforehand, including a question by then fox host megyn kelly pressing him on past misogynistic comments. the report also confirms that fox news reporter diana falzone had evidence of trump's illegal hush money payments to stormy daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign, but that her story was censured and a fox executive told her, quote "good reporting, kiddo. but rupert wants donald trump to

win. so just let it go." rupert murdoch owns fox news and has long been an ally of trump. after suing and settling with fox, falzone signed a non-disclosure agreement, ensuring the network never released the story. in environmental news, a new report finds that coal waste from hundreds of coal-fired power plants around the country has contaminated groundwater in 39 states with unsafe amounts of toxic chemicals. in some cases, the dangerous toxic substances including arsenic, lithium and mercury, have leached into local drinking water supplies. the lead author of the report by the environmental integrity project and earthjustice said quote: "at a time when the trump epa, now being run by a former coal lobbyist, is trying to roll back federal regulations on coal ash, these new data provide convincing evidence that we should be moving in the opposite direction."

house speaker nancy pelosi and other top democrats will bring a resolution condemning anti-semitism to a house vote wednesday, in a direct rebuke to recent comments by minnesota congressmember ilhan omar questioning the u.s.'s relationship with israel. the draft resolution does not explicitly name the freshman congressmember but comes amid new accusations of anti-semitism after recent comments by omar at an event last week, in which she called out the quote "political influence in this country that says it is ok for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country," referring to israel. after several lawmakers publicly attacked omar over the weekend, the congressmember defended her comments on twitter sunday, writing, quote: "i am told every day that i am anti-american if i am not pro-israel. i find that to be problematic and i am not alone. i just happen to be willing to speak up on it and open myself to attacks."

while critical of the state policy toward palestinians, she has repeatedly condemned anti-semitism. meanwhile, the hashtag #istandwithilhan has been gaining steam on social media as progressive jewish groups and defenders of palestinian rights voice their support for the congressmember. palestinians have condemned the the shuttering of the u.s. consulate in jerusalem monday, which served as the main diplomatic liaison with the palestinian territories. its functions will now be merged into the new u.s. embassy in jerusalem and diplomatic relations will fall under the purview of u.s. ambassador to israel david friedman, who has supported illegal settlements and compared liberal american jews to nazi collaborators. last may, the trump administration drew international condemnation when it moved the u.s. emembassy from tel aviv to jerusalem, a city that palestinians want as part of a future state.

this is chief palestinian negotiator saeb erekat. >> this is a day of infamy forr amererican diplomacy. after 175 years of having american consulate in jerususal, in palestine, serving palestinians which was established in 1844 comes this decision to cancel ththe americn consulate and merge it with the embassy to o have more efficien. it has nothing to do with efficiency. amy: s saudi prosecucutors have indicted a group of jailed women activists, who will now head to trial, 10 months after their arrests lalast year as saudi arabia prepared to lift its ban on women drivers. over a dozen women were detained and accusesed of undermimining national sececurity. huhuman rights gupups ha saiaid the e women n faced sexual harassment, , assault and tortue while behind bars.

lalast month, a bibi-partisan resolution called on saudi arabiaia to "immediatetely and unconditionally" release the activiststs. this i is saudi women's righghts acactivist omaima al najjajar speaking at a u.n. panel monday. >> what we have seen the imprisonment of women. they were tortured until august. they were put in sololitary coconfinement to three mononths. tip of the iceberg of the human rights violations and international treaty violations that has been committed by the saudi government. a new documenta by y al jazeera arabic that aired over the weekend claims that murdered saudi journalist and washington post columnist jamal khashoggi was likely burned in a large outdoor furnace at the saudi consulate general's home in istanbul. the rnace was portedlylyuilt to withstand high heat, which would allow for the body to be destroyed without leaving any evidence. turkrkish authoritieies told al jazeera arabic that barbeque meat was prepared in the oven after khashoggi's body was

burned, to cover up any suspicious odors. jamal khashoggi was killed last october by saudi agents after entering the saudi consulate in istanbul. the cia, u.s. senators and others have found that the crown prince was directly responsiblbe for ordering the mururder but saudi offificials have denieieds involvement. in more news about saudi arabia, ththe new york times i is reporg that a dual u.s.-saudi citizen was tortured by saudi authorities. walid fitaihi, a harvard-trained doctor, was reportedly electro-shocked and whipped while detained at the ritz carlton in riyadh. fitaihi was arrested alongside hundreds of other prominent saudis in 2017 during a government crackdown ordered by crown prince mohammed bin salman. he is still in detention and it's unknown whether he has been charged with any crime. south korean president moon jae-in called on the u.s. and north korea to resume

denuclearization talks after the much anticipated second summit between the two leaders fell apart last week with no deal or substantial progress made. moon called for three-way talks between ththtwo koreasas and t u.s. this is moon speaking in s seoul monday. toi ask you to find ways improve the dialogue between north korea and the united states through the development of interest korean relations within the framework of sanctions. amy: on sundnday, presesident tp appeared to shift blame for the failure of last week's talks in vietnam, suggesting he walked away from the summit because of former lawyer michael cohen's congressional testimony. this, despite trump saying last week that he left the e talks because nonorth rea ininsisted n complelete sanctions relelief be moving ahead with denuclearization, something north korean officials refuted. on sunday, trump tweeted, quote: "for the democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important nuclear summit with north korea, is perhaps a new low in american politics and may have contributed to the "walk."

never done when a president is overseas. shame!" north carolina election officials announced new primaries for ththe open 9th congressional district seat will take place on may 14, with the general election to follow in september. the contested seat was never called after november's midterm elections after evidence of possible voter fraud started to emerge. republican operative leslie mccrae dowless, who worked for the campaign of republican candidate mark harris, was eventually charged last week with ordering workers to illegally fill out and mail in other people's absentee ballots. he also faces felony charges of obstruction of j justice. at a hearing over the voter fraud scandal last month, mark harris's son, an assistant u.s. attorney in north carolina, testified that he warned his father about mccrae dowless. mark harris said last month we would not run again in a new race. harris could still face criminal charges over the vote-rigging scandal. th democratic candidate, dan

mccready, confirmed he would run again. in orange county, california, local leaders and educators have condemned social media photos that circulated over the weekend, showing students at a party doing the nazi salute around red plastic cups arranged to look like a swastika. the local school district and law enforcement have launched investigations into the photos. 15 infants were released with their mothers from an immigration jail in dilley, texas on monday, days after legal advocates filed a complaint with the department of homeland security. one baby was as young as 5-months-old. usually children under the age of 1 are released at the border with their parents. all of the mothers with infants who were identified by the dilley probono project said their children were sick in some way. the jail is run by private prison company corecivic and has a history of allegations of medical neglect. at least two more infants are believed to still be held in what critics have long called a "baby jail." 21 states are suing the trump administration to block a new

rule issued last month, which bars abortion providers or groups that refer patients for abortions from federal funds known as t title x. planned parenthood would be one of the main groups affected by the new gag rule. title x covers non-abortion services like std prevention, cancer screenings and contraception, and provides over $280 million in funding for 4 million mostly low-income women every year. if implemented, the funds would be redirirected towards faith-based clinics. and in new york city, a judge has placed immigrant rights activist patricia okoumou under house arrest, and has ordered her to wear an ankle monitor and surrender her passport, after a hearing friday for allegedly violating the conditions of her release. okoumou was arrested last julyly after scaling the base of the state of liberty to protest president trump's family separation policy y d was charged with trespassingng, interference with government agency functions, and disorderly conduct. two weeks ago, okoumou was arrested in texas after climbing atop a southwest key building to

protest the jailing of migrant chchildren, leading to herer heg last week. she is due to be sentenced for the new york charges later this month. you can see our recent interview with okoumou, just hours before her friday hearing, at democracynow.org and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. juan: and i'm juan gonzalez. welcome to all of our viewers around the country and around the world. we begin today's show looking at somalia where the trumpp administration is rapidly escalating a a secretive a airw. according to the think tank new americ a at least t 252 peoplele have been killed in around two dozen u.s. airstrikes in somalia so far this year. the u.s. has already carried out more strikes in somalia in 2019 than in any single year under president obama.

the most recent reported strike occurred on thursday. according to the u.s. military, 26 fighters with the militant group al-shabaab were killed. just days earlier another strike killed 35. it is not known if any civilians were killed in the operations. amy: in addition to the airwar, the pentagon reportedly has about 500 u.s. troops on the ground in sosomalia, including many special operarations force. for years the u.s. has attempted to aid the somali government by targeting members of al-shabaab but the effort has increased dramatically under presidedent trump and d it has come with little conongressionalal oversit or media attention. we are joined now by a reporter who has closely followed the story. amanda sperber is a freelance journalist who reports from nairobi, kenya and mogadishu, somalia. her new article for the nation is titled, "inside the secretive u.s. air campaign in somalia." amanda sperber, welcome to democracy now.

it's great to have you with us. can you explain what's happening in somalia right now? >> it's difficult to completely know what's happening in somalia because so m much of the country is inaccessible because it is controlled by the militant group al-shabaab that declared allegiance to al qaeda. from my understanding speaking to more than two dozen people displaced in the area where the u.s. is certainly on the record conducting airstrikes, civilians are being killed in the campaign that the u.s. is carrying out there. and that campaign has tripled under the trump administration. there is acknowledgment by the united states of any civilians being killed. how were you able to access these people who had fled from the region that was under attack? >> basically i targeted two areas. lower and middle -- where the

u.s. releases regular press attacks.of successful and a lot of those people whose family members and friends have been killed, houses have been destroyed are currently displaced right on the outskirts of mogadishu. so i was able to speak to them pretty excessively just leveraging networks, nonprofit organizations. accessibly just leveraging networks, nonprofit organizations. it's pretty easy to find people impacted by american airstrikes. you write that africom's policy under both the obama andd trump administrations has been to only publicly acknowledge u.s. air strikes either through a press release or a policy called "responses to questions" or rtq. under the policy, africom will only verify a mission if they are asked about a specific date. you spoke with john manley, the africa command's media-relations chief, who said, quote: "we

acknowledge whatever we've done. if we say, 'no, it did not happen,' then no, it did not happen from u.s. africom." what does that mean? africom's claim and this is something i have no reason to dispute is that they under no circumstances would not lie. if i say did you construct a strike on xyz date, they would not say they did not. under the policy if i say did you conduct a strike on april 13 and it was conducted on aprill no they would be able to say we did not. that also doesn't take into time zones. could be talking about a five hourur difference.

there are so many technicalities that could come into play with that. that also doesn't take into account covert or classified operations. nor does it take into account the fact that under trump, the cia is allowed to conduct airstrikes independently of africom. this was reported by the wall street journal in march 2017. juan: in addition to whatever strikes havave conducted and acknowledged by the u.s. military, the many other strikes that have not been reported at all. >> exactly. i came across strikes that were linksunted for, both from internal security reports from ngos that noted a strike happening in a certain place. i also came upon strikes that i a date, they would acknowledge they conducted a date andstrike on that

yet it would not match with internal reports. finding a strike that happened in one location on april 13. they would say, we did contact -- conduct a strike on april 13. when pushed on the location, and ngo would say one place and afr did do thatay, we strike but it happened somewhere else. juan: there has also been a new president in somalia. you talk about the internal dynamics in terms of how does the impact these strikes are having in general in the country. the current president of somalia who took office one month after trump took office in february 2017 is also somali-american. i believe he works for the u.s. government in albany or buffalo. he spent decades in america.

this is something that i think concerns a lot of somalis including his former close advisers. that he sort of is especially ground to basically cede to the americans. if they are in a meeting and the military or the cia says we want to do this, he is very likely to say ok. on top of that, the somali government is still quite fragile. and it's just lacking unfortunately. the same kind of expertise that the u.s. would be coming in with. in meetings the dynamic is going to necessarily be uncomfortably skewed so that people on the somali side are more likely to just say ok, if that works for you and you say you can get al-shabaab. ay: let me ask you about

statement issued on june 1 by the united states africa command, or africom. the statement came after a u.s. air strike in bariire, a village outside of mogadishu. you interviewed halimo mohamed abdi, a woman who had been injured in the strike. abdi says she saw three young boys die in the explosion. africom's statement on the strike reads, quote: "in coordination with the federal government of somalia, u.s. forces conducted an airstrike targeting al-shabaab militants approximately 30 miles southwest of mogadishu, somalia, on may 31, killing twelve terrorists. we currently assess no civilians were killed in this airstrike." do you know if this is the attack that abdi described, and if the boys were included in the number of terrorists killed? this woman is a somali nomad.

she doesn't have an exact western calendar. the way she described the strike was the e dates that she approximated in the location that she approximated made it extremely likely that what she was talking about matched almost wasrely with what africom describing. in terms of those three kids, to me what could have happened, i spoke to her one-month and then i spoke to her twice more weeks apart. wasy single time her story the same. i think that is something that also comes up a lot as people will say the allegations aren't credible.. down to the names and ages, everything she said matched. i don't think this woman is sitting in a displacement camp trying to remember. couldlly what i think have happened if the situation

like that either africa on count ofave a correct who they killed or they are just discounting everybody as terrorists or they don't know. juan: there are approximately 500 american troops on the ground in sosomalia. what kind of authorization to they have to be there? >> that i can't really speak to. presumably the pentagon has worked that out. the significance of the cia being invovolved in these aiairstrikes, , why this remaino secretive. can you repeat the question? >> can you talk about the significance of the cia bombing somalia. we don't know the cia is

conducting airstrikes in somalia. the cia could be operating anywhere and it seems given that there are these holes both from and peopleal ngos displaced by u.s. air strikes that there's more than one american actctor operating in te area. thank you for being with us and welcome back to the united states. we will link to her piece in the nation nine two -- nation. this is democracy now. when we come back, "how to hide an empire: a history of the greater united states."

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. with juan gonzalez. juan: "how to hide an empire: a history of the greater united states." that's the title of a stunning new book looking at a part of the u.s. that is often overlooked: the nation's overseas territories from puerto rico to guam, former territories like the philippines, and its hundreds of military bases scattered across the globe. amy: historian daniel immerwahr writes in his new book quote "at various times, the inhabitants of the u.s. empire have been shot, shelled, starved, interned, dispossessed, tortured and experimented on. what they haven't been, by and large, is seen." daniel immerwahr is associate professor of history at northwestern university. he joins us from chicago. welcome to democracy now.

why don't you start with the title? how do you define an empire? >> when a lot of people think , theythe united states think of the continuous block it's a familiar shape. thohose aren't the borders of the country and they have only been the borders for three years of u.s. history. what i tried to write is a history of the greater united states. what i found is how frequently people on the mainland and often political leaders had an inaccurate view of their own country's borders. the contiguous part of thehe united statates was the part tht mattered in the territories were peripheral -- and the territorieies were peripheral ad left to dwindle and sacrifice. places that could be used for medical experiments and that kind of thing. my goal is to try to tell u.s.

history with all the territories as part of the story. juan: raise the question of the creation of an empire did not really begin when most histories talk about it with the spanish-american war of 1898. you go earlier into the colonization across the west. note that the constitution doesn't have e a whole lot to sy about what happens to territories that are not states. but that the northwest ordinance played a big role in shaping how the united states would expand. can you talk about that? >> the name of the country from the get-go o is the united stats of america. but from the first day of the when the history united states received its independence from britain, it wasn't a union of states. it was an amalgamation of states and territories. there wasn't a lot of guidance

in the constitution about what was to be done with the territories. ultimately there under the power of congress. northwest ordinance set a pattern whereby territories could be upgraded to states. two things were notable about that pattern. in order to be upgraded to states had to be populated by white people. if thehey had nonwhite populatis living in them they wouldn't really count. it wasn't until they werer sufficiently populated by white people that they would be considered as states prevents just the guidance. congress can do whatever it wants and it has done whatever it wants. it has held territories back from statehood oftenen for decades. oklahoma took more than a century before it became a state and it has promoted others quickly usually as a way of curating the borders of the country. deciding who is in and who is out. juan: there was an attempt in the 1900s to create a state called sequoia and parts of what is now oklahoma. >> that's right.

be calledsed to indian country or indian territory. that was its legal name. that territory used to be enormous. it was fairly quickly whittled down into the borders of present-day oklahoma. aeat the end of this process compressed group of various indian polities tried to create a state of what was then eastern oklahoma called sequoia. it would be mixed. their hope was at least they would have a sufficient population to have a governing majority within it. they werere rejected for statehd and sequoia was absorbed into the white majority state of oklahoma. amy: talk about whwhy you begin with the bombing of pearl harbor what are nowhrough called various things.

let's start with pearl harbor. >> it's one of the most familiar moments in u.s. history. and when most people in the united states think about pearl harbor, what they think about is japan attacked the united states by bombing pearl harbor and that through the united states into the war and that was the only time that the united states was directly attacked in the war. of course what actually happened is it wasn't just a way -- hawaii that japan was attacking. japan was launching attacks on specific territories as well as britain's specific territories in thailand. japan attacked the philippines, guam, wake island in hawaii. the attack on the philippines militarily was just as bad as the attack on hawaii and for that reason it was unclear to reporters initially how to say what happened.

theearly newspapers say japanese attacked the philippines and guam. others say philippines and hawaii. thenotion that hawaii was important target to emphasize appears in eleanoror roosevelt's speech. that's how it appeared in fdr's own first draft of the speech, emphasizing both targets. hawaii and the philippines. thinking through the implications of trying to explain to the country that the philippines had been attacked and this was causese for the states to go to war. it seems to me that he's quite clearly uncomfortable with that implication, worrying whether an attackck on the philippines woud really count as an attack on the united states. have a lot of opinion polls from the time that suggest most people living in the u.s. mainland didn't want to see the u.s. military come to the

defense of the far western territories of the united states let the philippines and guam. fdr crossed out prominent references to the philippines and just focused in on white. -- hawaii. it has significantly larger white population and it was closer to the mainland. evenen then it seemed like h het a little nervous about whether hawaii would count as the unitid states for the purposes of rallying the nation toward -- to war. thought of the country the u.s. military should defend the territory of hawaii in the case of war. so he inserted the word american in his descriptor so it's not just the japanese bomb. oahu.erican island of you can see he is trying to round hawaii up to american in the philippines and guam he kind ofof regards is too far gone and takes them out frorom prominent references and sucks them in the

back. i think k that has to do with wy a lot of peoeople in the united states don't reaealize that that attack was not just on hawaii alone and it's a real pity that they don't realize it because the attack on pearl harbor was just that. it was an attack the japanese never came back. it was militarily damaging. it did not result in hawaii being invaded. that's not true of the philippipines, warm or wake isld all of which were attacked and concord. populations were interned. the occupation of the philippines by japan was an absolutely brutal affair. conquestation and the of the philippinines we think killed maybe a million and a half people. two times the number of people killed in the civil war. that's the bloodidiest event in u.s. soil and that's barely in u.s. history text books. it became independent in

1946. >> i would talk to people with phd's in u.s. history and iff they didn't study the colonies i would say, do youu know w what e largestt colony the united stats hahas held and what deca i it became independent? it's not emphasizize we talalk t u.s. history. we talk about empire in a broader and more diffuse sense. a lot of u.s. historians don't have a lot of knowledge about the actual colonies themselves. in terms of the independence of the philippines in 1946 the school issue of which territories became states versus which were held as territories became independent really pivoted around a group of supreme court decisions that are rarely studied these days. earlysular cases in the 1900s that determined which were

incorporated versus unincorporated territories. could you talk about the significance of those decisions for justifying an american empire? after the united states in a sort of imperial shopping spree acquired a number of large populated colonies. the philippines, puerto rico, hawaii, guam. the supreme court had to figure out where these places stood within the fabric of the nation. their part of the united states. does that mean f filipinos can vote for the president? does that mean they are covered by the constitution? it wasn't clear and there were a lot of arguments about it. the supreme court ultimately came down with this. the constitution applies to the united states. it's the law of the land. but some of the territories, namely the ones of art from spain, puerto rico, guam, philippines and american samoa and the u.s. virgin islands. that those were not part of the land.

so the constitution applies to the land but these are not part of the united states in the constitutional sense and therefore they are possessed by the united states. the united states encompasses them within its borders but it's constitution doesn't fully extend to them. some of the territories hawaii and alaska which had larger white settler populations were deemed to be incorporated, meaning the constitution would extend to them. and that seemed to make them more eligible for statehood. even in those cases it wasn't entirely clear that hawaii or alaska would ever become states. there was a lot of racist resistance in the u.s. mainland to the notion that people from hawaii might get to vote on federal laws. you show twobook maps of the united states. one of just the mainland states. the other with all of the territories included. the captions read, they told you it was this. but it's this.

explain the significance of this the mapthis fits into of u.s. military bases around the world. the u.s. has something like 800 overseas military bases. russia has nine. most countries have none. >> that's right. i found that in writing this book, first of all i had to learn n how to make maps bececai wanted to see the united states differently than i had it presented to me. i grew up in pennsylvania. at no point in my education did i see a map of the united states and puerto rico on it. pupuerto rico has been part of e united s states since 1899. i wanted too try to imagine the country differently. one thing i did was an equal area projection showing all of the territory of the ad states. -- united states. what's remarkable is how much

physical landmass of the united point ins at that overseas territories. alaska, hawaii, the philippines. you can do a similar map today. the parts of the united states that are not states don't take up as much land area today but the united states controls hundreds of specks of land on islands in foreign countries and it's really easy not to think about that. it probably adds up to less than the area of connecticut. but boy is that land area important both for the u.s. military and for all the countries and people who live around that land and have to deal with outposts of the united states that are peppered throughout the world. we are going to break and come back to this discussion.

daniel immerwahr, associate professor of history at northwestern university. his new book is titled "how to hide an empire: a history of the greater united states."

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. with juan gonzalez. we continue with daniel immerwahr, associate professor of history at northwestern university. speaking from chicago. his new book "how to hide an empire: a history of the greater united states." juan: i wanted to ask you about a chapter in your book titled language is a virus. conquery when countries other peoples who speak different languages there's an issue of what happens to the language and the culture of these, of the concord were absorbed populations. books much onur the issue of the english absorptiond how the

for the french speakers and louisiana of the native peoples of the puerto ricans and the philippines. how the language issue began to be built with. it's an important thing to recognizize that empires tryry o enforce homogeneity. they try to export the standards of the motherland onto the colonies. often that's a violent and difficult process. certainly that has been true in the net states and its territories. one of the more dramatic instances of this is on guam. we have accounts of a naval officer who went around burning all english dictionaries as a way to extricate the local language and enforce english. there's all kinds of accounts of various colonial subjects being forcibly moved on to english language only schools, being

physically punished if they speak their native language rarather than englisish. it's really interesting about that is not only the way the united states has done as many empires have done to try to enforce its language and its colonies. has beend states remarkably successful in enforcing its language outside of its colonies, too. the history of the last 50 years or so has given rise to a remarkable spread of the english language. not just in places they had states has physically controlled. about oneted to talk of the people you focus on in your book as a way to talk about colonialism. cornelius rhoads, a doctor and cancer researcher, went to san juan, puerto rico to study anemia in the 1930s. tell us what happened. >> that's right. he was working for the rockefeller institute and he went to san juan in the 1930's to research anemia. a lot of puerto ricans were

suffering from anemia as a result of bookworm. hookworm. he became a different kikind of doctor. he took his location as being licensed to do whatever he wanted however he wanted it. first of all he refused to treat some of his patients just to see what would happen. he tried to induce disease in others to see what would happen by restricting their diets. he referred to his patients to his colleagues as experimental animals. and then he wrote a letter. he sat down and he wrote a letter in which he said to a colleague in bososton, puerto ro is beautiful. the weather is incredible. i love the island. however, the problem is with the puerto ricans. they're awful, ththey steal, thr filthy -- they are fililthy. the only thing to do is totally

exterminate the population. and then he said, and i started that. i have killed eight of my patients and i have sought to transplant cancer into 13 more. hope you are doing well in boston. yours sincerely. and just signed off. we know that because he then left the letter out. it was discovered by the puerto rican staff of the hospipital wherere he was workingng. and it became a national scandal understandably. theto ricans had heard scorn of mainlanders. they had h hrd talk of the problem ofof puerto rican overpopulation and how mainlanders disapproved of it. here they saw what they interpreted to be the racist homicidal intent from a doctor who had actually killed eight people. islandus rhoads fled the hoping presumamably that what happens in san juan stays in san juan. did anernment investigation and d uncoverered another letter which the governor dean and worse than the first. but the governor was a

mainlanders who had been appointed and not elected. he suppressed that letter. we don't have it. no researcher has ever seen it or found it and concluded after having suppressed evidence that didn'tus rhoads probably kill eight of his patients. he was probably just joking or something like that. cornelius rhoads never faced a hearing. not only that come he didn't even get fired. he returned to new york. he continued h his job. he quickly became the vice president of the new york academy of medicine. he then during world war ii became a colonel in the army and became a chief medical officer in the chemical warfare service. so that's not only a promotion. just think about what that allows him to do because the chemical warfare service is preparing the united states to enter a gas or if it comes to that. in order to do that it tests out all kinds of poison gas first on animals. goats are preferred.

but ultimately on human suspects. on uniniformed men who without a lot of informed consent are eitherer having mustard agents applied to their skin to see how their skin blisters, are put in gas chambers with gas masks to see how long they can stay in. there is anof cases island that the united states uses off of panama, san jose island. men are put in the field and asked to stage mock battles. while they do that, they are gassed from overhead. this is to see how they are affected. , there werestingly many puerto ricans who served in world war ii who ended up stationed in panama and being subjected to some of the mustard that werements conducted at that time. i know because one of my uncles who served in the 65th infantry was in panama and was subjected to those experiments.

the interesting thing is that cornelius rhoads remained a major figure in the medical world. years has there been an attempt to sort of revised for reform the image of him in the medical community. >> that's exactly right. seeing these medical experience with gas in which 60,000 uniformed men, a lot of them puerto rican were subjected without informed consent to chemical weapons and many of them suffered debilitating effects as a result of this. emphysema, i damage, genital scarring, psychological damage. some of these men were really harmed by this. didn'teless, that also impede him. work with chemical agents alerted him as well as some other doctors to the possibility that mustard agents could be used to treat cancer.

cornelius rhoads took some of the surplus stock of u.s. chemical weapons after the war and became the first director of the sloan-kettering institute and used his position to sort of launch the, turned to chemotherapy and try chemical after chemical after chemical out on fighting cancer. the incredible thing is that within the u.s. medicall cocommunity that's s what he was remembered for. he appeared on the cover of time magazine. there was an award given by the american association of cancer research after cornelius rhoads and that award was given for more than 20 years before a puerto rican cancer researcher pointed out to the acr, you know the guy after whom this award is named, the hero cornelius rhoads, you know what he did in puerto rico? the informational segregation had and so extraordinary that it can 23 years before the mainland but community realized a guy they had been enthusiastically celebrating had killed eight of

his patients. and the statue of cornelius rhoads at 100 third and 5th avenue. -- was removed. >> the medical community has gotten the memo. he award has been changed and now there's an understanding of his dual legacy. me is extraordinarary to just how long he got away with it. and how many puerto ricans he was able to experiment on in some of the worst ways imaginable without facing the consequences of that. as we talk about puerto rico, let's talk about this issue of the language. moving the language from colonies to territories and even went donald trump is speaking. how he refers to those in these territories.

places like puerto rico when you talk about the constitution or guantanamo and cuba. being outside the constitution. in your book you're talking about is is clearly something one has known all of his life. you don't even have trial by jury in puerto rico. >> the constitutional right to trial by jury doesn't apply y to puerto rico. i'm from pennsylvania but if i were t to travel to stand on i would lose that right upon arriving in puerto rico. amy: and that issue of the change in language from colonies to talking about them as territorories, the leadership of what the understanding language meant and then president trump referring to for example puerto rico and some astounding quotes about puerto rico. about that.k whenen the united states and acquires the bulk of i its overseas territorieses, those territories are referred to the leaders of the united states. people like teddy roosevelt, woodrow wilson in a really

forthright way. they are called colonies because of course that's what they are. men are forthright defenders of empire and they are very proud and happy to call the overseas possessions of the united states colonies. but that doesn't last very long. so you see10 or government officials becoming veryry nervous aboutut this c-wd and seeking to replace it with euphemisms. territories as a gentler term. legally there is not a distinction. consonant with the fabric of the red states. kansas had been a territory. montana has been a territory. they are states. the practice i in the united states has been since the early overseasy refer to the parts of the united states as territories rather than as colonies. is still as there clear sense from the leaders of the united states that such places don't really fit in the country.

trump isn't the first person to enunciate that. after the hurricanes damaged puerto rico and trump had to sort of speak about this come he does this remarkable thing where when he addresses puerto rico he refers to it in the second person. i hate to tell you, puerto rico, but have thrown our budget out of whack. is part ofuerto rico the red states. readings have been citizens for over a century. nevertheless in trump's mind it's very clear that there is a homeland, the kind of place you can build a wall around. then there are these other parts of the nine states which seemed to him to be foreign. another good example of this is after a federal judge in hawaii blocked trump's muslim travel ban, jeff sessions expressed amazement that a judge sitting

by pacific island could block the president. do withe that has to the notion that hawaii isn't really part of the united states. juan: talking about pacific islands, talk about these specs of land in these islands and territories were sometimes there are not even people but they are critical or important to the united states, have strategic value, a are considered terrrritories of the united states. >> i think it's important to remember. the united states has inhabited territorories. it alslso has a lolot of other d including uninhabited islands. that is in facact the first u.s. entry into overseas empire. familiar borders of the united states. the ones you picture in your mind when you take the country. 1854 were filled out in with against and purchase. three yeyears later the nine states start claiming overseas territory in the form of

uninhabited islands. in this case they were called guano islanands because they are islands that birds landed onn ad and it was ans incredibly useful source of fertilizer. nearlyted states claimed o o islands.ds -- guan in the 20th century there turned out that the same teachers of those islands that make them attractive to birds, small island in the middle of an oceanic desert, good place to land made them also really useful for planes. selena states has repurposed some of those islandnds as -- so the united states has repupurpod some o of those e islands as pls to land planes. it was o on her way to one of those islands that amelia earhart's plane went down and that makes sense. beyond the seemingly next to nothing, a remote island in the

pacific but if you're trying to fly a plane across the pacific, having helen island is really important. juan: we hear a lot about china ining to build, landing airstrip in small islands off the coast of china but the united states has been doing this around the world for decades and decades. hasn't it? >> yes. if you were to characterize the united statetes's territorial empire today you could call it a -- it consistsre of islands and bases, small specs were the united states can move, stage things, store things. and china is taking a page from that book. china doesn't have the same territorial extent that the united states s has. itit doesn't have the same kindf history of getting to claim all these islands so china is doing something really interesting which is it's mamaking its own

islands. it's actually creating artificial islands that can be asd as little points military bases as a way for china to extend its influence by having these little specks of land. from the bebeatles to the peacace symbol, explain its connections to colonies. turns out that these specs of land don't just matter for the u.s. ella terry. they -- military. peace symbol and the beatles are artifacts of the u.s. basing system. the peace symbol is the reaction to the fear of u.s. military bases and the beatles as a band that grew up in the shadow of the largest u.s. air force base in europe. amy: thank you so much for daniel immerwahr, associate professor of history at northwestern university. his new book is titled "how to hide an empire: a history of the greater united states."

that does it for our show. democracy now is produced by mike burke, deena guzder, nermeen shaikh, carla wills, tami woronoff, sam alcoff, john hamilton, robby karran, hany massoud, charina nadura, tey-marie astudillo and libby rainey. mike di fillippo and miguel nogueira are our engineers. special thanks to becca staley, julie crosby, hugh gran, david prude, ishmael daro,