French and Russian Collaborations with Saddam Hussein Begin to Surface

[Ned]

And, then there was the Teller amendment:

"In April 1898 Senator Henry M. Teller (Colorado) proposed an amendment to the U.S. declaration of war against Spain which proclaimed that the United States would not establish permanent control over Cuba. It stated that the United States "hereby disclaims any disposition of intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island except for pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people." The Senate passed the amendment on April 19. True to the letter of the Teller Amendment, after Spanish troops left the island in 1898, the United States occupied Cuba until 1902."

[Ned]

Can anyone provide a decent explanation as to why a war of liberation has been turned on its head into an unjust war of conquest? It clearly has been. The question is

Why?

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Ned
Darius, but this war was in fact a popular war.

I didn't say it was unpopular.

Originally posted by Ned
Can anyone provide a decent explanation as to why a war of liberation has been turned on its head into an unjust war of conquest? It clearly has been. The question is

Why?

Never in my life have I heard the Spanish-American war referred to as a war of liberation, so what can I say? Even if it was called a war of liberation, it obviously wasn't, because the people of Cuba were given relative independence but not freedom, and the people of the Phillippines weren't given freedom nor independence.

Had the two territories been allowed completely free elections and the right to decide their own futures, then it would have been a 'war of liberation'. This is a pretty simple matter.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Darius871


I didn't say it was unpopular.



Never in my life have I heard the Spanish-American war referred to as a war of liberation, so what can I say? Even if it was called a war of liberation, it obviously wasn't, because the people of Cuba were given relative independence but not freedom, and the people of the Phillippines weren't given freedom nor independence.

Had the two territories been allowed completely free elections and the right to decide their own futures, then it would have been a 'war of liberation'. This is a pretty simple matter.

Message to Garcia.

[Ned]

When I went to school in the '50s and '60s, I learned that the Spanish had sunk the Maine and that our purpose was to liberate Cuba. We achieved those objectives. Teddy Roosevelt became extremely popular because of the war. His face adorns Mount Rushmore.

His face would not have adorned Mount Rushmore, I guarantee you, if the people of American thought that the war was an unjust war of conquest.

But clearly, history has been rewritten, particularly to defame America's foreign policy and most particularly to defame Republicans. Today, all America's actions are protrayed as evil. Iraq is about oil and imperialism, after all - at least according to one segment of the population.

It appears to me that anti-American and anti-Republican propaganda is being taught as history. The purpose, I submit, is to make good little Democrats out of American kids. But what it also does is inflame the world against us because they truly believe that America and in particular, Republicans, are evil. I have seen such sentiment often expressed here on Apolyton.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Ned

His face would not have adorned Mount Rushmore, I guarantee you, if the people of American thought that the war was an unjust war of conquest.

Sure. I never said the American people thought it was an unjust war of conquest, I just said that it was an unjust war of conquest.

I don't see how that is anti-Republican or anti-American, however.

[Ned]

darius, Check out this site. This is the kind of stuff I see posted here about Republicans all the time. I know this site is an extreme form of anti-Republicanism, but you can see the stereotypes that form the underlying basis of humor.

http://www.whitehouse.org

But back to the point at hand. Just how was the Spanish-American war unjust at the time it was declared and fought? What happened years later, where a corrupt "dictator" assumed power in 1950's, does not change the fact that Cuba was in fact liberated from Spain. From 1899-1902, we build roads, schools, hospitals, etc. and brought a lot of America to Cuba. We then held elections and turned the government over to an elected president in a functioning democracy.

Our plans for Iraq are substantially the same. Was the war against Saddam an unjust war of conquest? NO. And neither was our war of liberation of Cuba.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Ned
darius, Check out this site. This is the kind of stuff I see posted here about Republicans all the time. I know this site is an extreme form of anti-Republicanism, but you can see the stereotypes that form the underlying basis of humor.

http://www.whitehouse.org

I know that site, and it's a toilet. What does it have to do with anything?

Originally posted by Ned

What happened years later, where a corrupt "dictator" assumed power in 1950's, does not change the fact that Cuba was in fact liberated from Spain.

Cuba wasn't candyland up until Battista. While Cuba was supposedly independent, the Platt Amendment allowed us to meddle in its affairs whenever we chose (in other words, whenever the new government would threaten the security of American businesses). We occupied until 1902, but when Gomez came to power we occupied again from 1906 to 1909. We tried returning Cuba to independence, only to return again in 1912 to put down revolts. From then on the only reason we didn't intervene in Cuban politics is because our businesses there were kept safe all the way up to Castro.

I'll agree with you wholeheartedly that for the most part the Cubans were better off under U.S. occupation and under pro-U.S. governments than under Spanish control. However, that does not make a war 'just'. Again, look up the generally accepted definitions of 'just war'; liberation in and of itself wasn't enough. There had to be some sort of wrong suffered by the U.S. as well, and now knowing that the Maine was not attacked by the Spaniards, there was no such wrong.

Finally, what does this have to do with Iraq now? When did I say this war was unjust? This war is just because we have actually been wronged (attack on our Kuwaiti ally, violation of 1991 ceasefire, 1993 WTC attack), whether we 'liberated' the Iraqi people or not. The fact that Saddam wronged us while Spain did not is the main difference (among others) between the Spanish-American war and the war in Iraq.

[Ned]

Ah, but then Kosovo was an unjust war.

Somehow, I think the definition of a just war has to be broadened to "police actions" designed to remove oppressive regimes that are actively killing people, as was the case in 1898 in Cuba.

I do not know how one can distinguish Kosovo from Cuba.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Ned

Somehow, I think the definition of a just war has to be broadened to "police actions" designed to remove oppressive regimes that are actively killing people, as was the case in 1898 in Cuba.

Wouldn't bother me, but the only problem is that it would give us justification to go to war with around 2/3 of the world's countries at any time of our choosing. What's more dangerous is that other countries could adopt this standard and do the same thing.

A country must be wronged in some significant way in order to start a war. Having liberation alone being a justification is dangerous because everyone has a different definition of liberation.

Originally posted by Ned

I do not know how one can distinguish Kosovo from Cuba.

a) The Spanish only killed political dissidents, while Milosevic killed many people because of their ethnicity alone.
b) America has nothing to economically gain from Kosovo, while it did from Cuba. Hence, it's a lot easier to say Kosovo was justified.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Darius871
b) America has nothing to economically gain from Kosovo, while it did from Cuba. Hence, it's a lot easier to say Kosovo was justified.

It's the reverse for me.

[Darius871]

What do we have to gain from Kosovo? (you might be right, I'm interested)

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Darius871
What do we have to gain from Kosovo?

We don't have to gain economically from a war. It's just a nice bonus. We can gain in areas such as national security.

[Ned]

BTW, Do you think that we should have a deal with the new Iraq along the lines of the Platt amendment. That Amendment allowed us to intervene if Cuban democracy was threatened, or they if they were subverted by a foreign power. It also gave us a permanent base on the Island.

We may want to have similar rights in Iraq, at least for a while. I can see us intervening if, let us say, the legitimate government of Iraq is overthrown by a coup or if the government refuses to hold elections or to give power to an election winner.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
We don't have to gain economically from a war. It's just a nice bonus. We can gain in areas such as national security.

Well I didn't say we have to, I only saying that the lack of economic gain from the war in Kosovo is a distinct difference from the Spanish-American war, in response to Ned's post. You're absolutely correct that it could also be national security.

For that matter, what major effect did Milosevic's antics have on American national security? The only thing that comes close is that it could ignite a larger conflict as Clinton said, but that's not really a direct threat.

Originally posted by Ned
BTW, Do you think that we should have a deal with the new Iraq along the lines of the Platt amendment.

No, but that doesn't mean we should just leave either. We should stay and stabilize until we know that a free election would not result in a theocracy or secular dictatorship. If the Iraqis freely elect a theocracy or a secular dictatorship ten years from now, then yes we should leave them be. If the legitimate government in Iraq is overthrown by an armed minority, then we should intervene. Deal with any individual situations on their own.

Originally posted by Ned
Amendment allowed us to intervene if Cuban democracy was threatened, or they if they were subverted by a foreign power.

Replace 'Cuban democracy' with 'American businesses'. I have NO problem whatsoever with us having defended our economic interests in Cuba, but I'm still not going to lie that the Platt Amendment was meant to protect democracy in Cuba alone.