As for Iraq being a naked land grab, do you REALLY believe that Bush wants to keep Iraq as colony as McKinley kept Cuba and the Phillipines? Get real!
Is he keeping permanant military installations there? Is he allowing private companies to get a hold of all the goodies there such as lucrative oil and government contracts? Will the government of Iraq(if it holds) be allowed the luxury of independent thought and perhaps not wholeheartedly concur with the government of our country one day? May not be a "naked land grab," but I think it's awefully close.
By the way, I was under the impression that Mckinley's justification for war with Spain was because they violated our "hands off west" policy instituted earlier in the 1800's. This is the firs I've ever heard of "harsh treatment of Cubans."
No, that policy, the Monroe Doctrine, dealt with
new colonialization. Spain had Cuba, for the most part, for 400 years prior to Spanish American War.
Much of the public support for the war was for the liberation, because of Spanish oppession. The level of oppression was largely exagerated in the Press.
