“Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!” That was the rallying cry after the USS Maine blew apart in Havana harbour on February 15th 1898, with the tragedy in which over two hundred and fifty sailors perished being blamed upon a Spanish mine.
This event acted as a catalyst for the coming war between the USA and Spain, a war in which the US gained control of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. It happened at a point in history when the United States had expanded as far as it could upon the North American continent, with the Native population having been finally killed off or subdued. Unlike his predecessor, President William McKinley thought the time was right for the United States to embrace imperialism and set about acquiring an overseas empire, an increasingly popular sentiment in the States at that time.
How convenient then, that right on cue an American war ship blows up in a location that meant it was possible to place the blame upon the Spanish. Subsequent investigations revealed the explosion to have most likely been internal, perhaps resulting from the coal bunker setting alight the ammunition, perhaps something else. The imperialists in the media of the day were however quick to point the finger of blame at the Spanish in the hope of getting the war they wanted. There's a parallel here to the way today's media attempted to draw a connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, where none existed.
Was this an accident or an act of false flag terrorism? Perhaps we'll never know for sure. It is however yet another example of an imperial power looking for an excuse to go to war and finding one in a highly dubious act of terrorism.
In the video below Abby Martin talks about the Maine as well as two other firmly established incidents of US false flag terrorism, the Gulf of Tonkin incident and Operation Northwoods.
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