At one time, European nations were like the USA is today, motivated to meddle all over the world, in other nations affairs. As the USA grew in power, they became potentially a threat to the European meddling.

The USA said to the European nations … we’ll make a deal with you … we will not intervene in Europe & in your affairs, if you stay out of the Americas.

This was called the Monroe Doctrine, named after President James Monroe who was in charge at the time that it got ratified by Congress http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/50.htm

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/MonroeDo

Most of the European nations agreed with this, and went along with it, until America was invited to get involved in WW I. Then America would have stayed out of WW II, except for some economic aid to some allies, had Japan not invited the USA to join that party, that the Axis probably would have won, had they not invited America via Pearl Harbor.

During WW II, America was party to some treaties with other nations of the world, that European powers broke, which effectively ended the Monroe Doctrine.

The Spanish American War got started after the Monroed Doctrine had been in effect for several gnerations.

You need to understand that at the time, many countries in the Americas were puppet states or colonies of various European powers that were forever at war with each other, and bringing their conflicts to our New World.

At the start of the Spanish American War, the Phillipines, Cuba, Guam, Carolina Islands, Puerto Rico were all colonies of Spain … had it not been for the conflict between the USA and Spain, these places would never have been invaded by USA.

The war got started because Cuba was having a revolution against Spain, and the revolutionaries called upon the USA for help. Now there were US business interests in Cuba who needed to be evacuated from the trouble, and the US sent a warship to Havana harbor to help with that effort. That ship was called the USS Maine. While in the harbor it got sunk.

If you look at the circumstances of the sinking, you will find that conspiracy theorists were alive and well in US politics back then, just over 100 years ago. Anyhow “Remember the Maine” was the spark that started the Spanish American War, with troops entering Cuba on the side of the Revolution, and the war expanding to the various territories of Spain, in a war that Spain lost, so all her territories in the New World became US territories instead.

There are some similarities to today. There’s a lot of questions over the justification to invade Iraq.

Well this stuff was like if we invaded Iraq 100 years ago. There were some politicians who wanted to do it, so they manipulated information to make it seem like it was the right thing to do.

http://www.spanamwar.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish-American_War