USS Maine



On Feb. 15, 1898 USS Maine suffered explosion killing 260 men - evidence
for explosion was inconclusive and contradictory yet US newspapers
demanded war with, "Remember the Maine, To Hell with Spain!" The
mud-slinging, yellow journalism is considered to have been a strong
impetus for the Spanish-American War. However, the Navy had just
expanded and had plans drawn up a year prior to attack the Spanish in
the Philippines. Commodore Dewey had also been given general orders to
attack the Spanish in the Philippines in December of 1897. Specific
orders were not ordered until after the USS Maine explosion. Congress
declared war on Spain in April 1898.
The theory of manifest destiny is also considered to have influence on
the Spanish American War. In 1845 John O'Sullivan coined the term
writting, "it was the nation's manifest destiny to overspread and to
possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the
development of the great experiment of liberty and federated
self-government entrusted to us."
In 1976, under a new investigation by Admiral H. G. Rickbover, it was
concluded that the USS Maine's explosion was an internal 'accident'
caused by a coal fire opposing the 1898 finding by U.S. Naval Court of
Inquiry that a mine blew up the Maine. This is also interesting given a
coal mine explosion occurred in China today killing 206 people.
The parallels between the events leading up to the Spanish American War
and the current 'War on Terrorism' and the War in Iraq are quite
interesting. In 1998 the PNAC already having plans to attack Iraq wrote
to Clinton trying to persuade him to do so, the events of 9/11,
patroitic slogans such as 'Never Forget', corruption of US and world
journalism, Bush's Inauguration speech of spreading freedom and liberty
to the world - these all have seemingly interesting parallels with plans
to attack the Spanish a year before any hostilities occurred, the USS
Maine explosion, patriotic slogans such as 'Remember the Maine',
corruption of US media through yellow journalism, and manifest destiny.