The Spanish-American War, Just Or Unjust?

Vocabulary: Just- meaning war must be the last resort if all means have failed,must be declared to correct violated rights, must be legally and openly declared by legal governments; means used in war must be in proportion to their ending goals and the war must not be fought to satisfy national pride or to further economic and territorial gain.

On April 21, 1898 America declared war on Spain. this war is known as the Spanish-American War. The question i will be trying to persuasively answer is "was the Spanish-American war a 'just' or 'unjust' war?" Although this question does not only qualify to be answered about during the war, but as well as before the war, suggesting to America's decision to go to war and after the war also suggesting to what America decided to do.

The Spanish-American war was not just. We, America has made many bad choices in the past and still do, but in 1898 it was cool to be an Imperialist, to dictate weaker countries and gain the most territory. News papers in America were competing to sell the most papers and at the time yellow journalism was running high with juicy topics. The most talked about topic was the U.S.S. Maine.

A ship sent straight from America the beautiful to aid Cuba in their revolution. The Maine, a ship loaded with 260 Anglo-Saxon American men suddenly exploded near the Cuban shore line; a island that was dictated by Spain, a enemy of the U.S. Back on the mainland American news papers caught wind of what was happening in Cuba.

Just as suspected America blamed Spain. Americans were told an exaggerated lie of Spain blowing their ship up. I would have been confused because all Spain did was help and try to befriend us, especially after our loss. God bless America, we work in mysterious ways.

There are many ways to view this war if we are deciding whether its just or not, but first we have to know what triggered the decision to go to war. A conflict between Cuba and Spain, that was not involved with the U.S. in any way, was what started the decision of consideration to get involved with Cuba's rebellion. America believed that Spain's dictatorship over Cuba will ruin their rich trade with Cuba's natural resources, such as sugar and tobacco. America also believed that it was their duty to protect other countries being dictated against their will and to relieve countries of European manpower. America especially wanted Europeans to clear out of 'American' hemisphere. We as a country made up many excuses to go to war with Spain. America was angry at Spain for blowing their ship up, why wouldn't we be? Or was this another excuse to get American citizens upset and begging to go to war, because in reality Spain did not blow us up, we accidentally blew ourselves up. We wanted to be a powerful dictating country.

There were two very different sides of the Spanish-American War in America, the Imperialist and the Anti-Imperialist. Personally I side with the Anti-Imperialist. They believed imperialist were like thieves who directed their hits to those who are weak. They also believed our country has a duty that entitles us to follow certain morals such as liberty and freedom of speech.

How America began the Spanish-American war was some what just, except for the minor detail of the Maine. Although after they won they began to turn their victory unjust. They went back on their main goal which was to help Cuba gain independence, going against what just means. Briefly summarizing my post the Spanish-American war was unjust and I disagree with the whole concept of America's decision during the war.