WHO
BLEW UP BATTLESHIP MAINE IN HAVANA? By Manuel E. Yepe In the final years of the 19th Century the U.S. military took advantage of the situation of Spain, exhausted by the belligerence of the armed Cuban insurgents and the overall decline of their empire to launch the first imperialistic war in the history of the United States. Some scholars believe that the essential geopolitical goal of that war was to seize the Philippines, since Cuba was not a priority. Because of its geographical proximity, the island would inevitably fall "like a ripe fruit" into their hands and then be attached to other Union territories that had previously been Spanish colonies. But the explosion of the battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor on the night of February 15, 1898, which killed 266 sailors out of a total crew of 354, was conveniently blamed on Madrid and served as the pretext for declaring war on the Spanish Crown. At the request of the U.S. consular representation, the battleship had arrived at the port of Havana the previous January 24th with the justification of protecting American residents in the city and safeguarding their property in view of the serious situation created by the advance of the independence forces on the island's capital and the predictable outcome of the internal conflict favorable to the Cubans. Immediately, the big U.S. media flexed its muscles and showed its total lack of scruples to present the Spanish colonial authorities as the authors of the attack against the Maine. The full power of the Hearst and Pulitzer consortia, among other giants of media manipulation, busied themselves with creating an angry willingness among the American people to go to war against Spain. Amply-manipulated slogans called for retaliation against the aggressor: Remember the Maine! Many versions circulated about the causes of the explosion in addition to the one that the government and the U.S. media promoted blaming the Spanish government. The purpose was to create a favorable public awareness for the war against Spain that was declared shortly afterwards. There were also distortions such as the one that placed the blame on the Cuban patriots, but there were no few theories that right away posited that the event had all the characteristics of a U.S. self-aggression. In support of the latter version was the fact that practically all the officers of the battleship were on leave ashore at the time of the explosion and therefore the higher echelons of the ship had had very few fatal casualties. To exonerate Spain and its representatives in the colony of any wrong doing, the possibility was presented that the explosion occurred accidentally near the fuel tanks of the ship -where ammunition was also stored- and exploded after the fire spread. This version tends to exonerate Spain from the crime without pointing the finger at the US authorities. But this is not consistent with the American record of resorting to justifications for the aggression that the US has carried out since the Maine, all through the twentieth century and to this day. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the recent story of chemical weapons in Syria and repeatedly in Latin America, the U.S. regime has resorted to false pretexts rather than seeking peaceful solutions whenever it deems that imposing its military might without negotiation is feasible. The outcome of the Cuban-Spanish-American war turned the United States into an imperialist power. The U.S. achieved its goal of confronting the moribund Spanish army, crushing it and taking over the remnants of its colonial empire. Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam became subjects of the newly born U.S. imperialism. It has been said that the sinking of the Maine did not create the emotional forces that led to the rise of imperialism in the United States, but simply unleashed the forces already present in that nation. The explosion and sinking of the battleship Maine thwarted the victory of the Cubans who had been fighting and dying for the independence of their country since 1868, attaining a high level of awareness as a sovereign nation. Ninety years later sovereignty would be achieved in reality at the cost of additional sacrifices imposed by the rising empire. November 23, 2013. |
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Quién voló al acorazado Maine en
La Habana.
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