Infamy

Let’s celebrate Pearl Harbor – and why not? A pretext for a party? It’s terrific! It simply wouldn’t do if we forgot that evil bid to conquer the Pacific! There’s one aggressive nation, poised to strike: it has, somehow, to come up with a ruse: the victim is distracted, zombie-like: “we need to manufacture an excuse!” I’m talking not of Arizona, Shaw or Utah, but a stealth attack on Spain so slily undertaken years before: I’m talking of the sinking of the Maine. In February eighteen ninety-eight, Americans (the new kids on the block) were throwing round a bit of Yankee weight, and bombed a warship in Havana Dock. What’s wrong with that? Why, nothing – if you think that killing folks to start a war is fine. The vessel that the hawks picked out to sink was US Navy, stricken by “a mine”. The yellow press of Pulitzer and Hearst demanded Cuba and the Philippines, defied Don Juan to do his wimpish worst: he’d blown our mighty Maine to smithereens. A special corner is reserved in Hell for those who hate the truth, and help it vanish: for Pulitzer and Hearst knew very well the culprits were American, not Spanish. The “mine” account (excuse me) was exploded: investigators sent out from Madrid found nothing to support it. Dice were loaded. The Yankees yearned to start a fight – and did. The Sampson Board (American, of course) with comic opera characters in place (Commander Converse!) said the use of force was fully recommended in this case. Why can’t we be content with what we’ve got? Why pilfer from the other person’s plate? Two hundred US sailors died – for what? So Uncle Sam could steal some real estate.