Filipino-american War (1898-1902)

This was an absolutely pointless war that was not worth the thousands of lives that it cost. What’s amazing to me is that its hardly remembered by people today. The Filipino-American War was much like the Korean and Vietnamese Wars decades later. The U.S. was involved in a conflict that was pointless. Filipino resentment against U.S. rule over the Islands resulted in the rise of a rebellion. What followed was a guerrilla war that lasted for four years and left several thousands American troops dead. The Philippines were entirely entitled to their independence, and if you ask me, it was quite hypocritical for the U.S. to deny freedom to those who had never had it (The Spanish ruled the Islands prior and installed a ruthless regime there). Mr. Imperialist Teddy Roosevelt liked to joke about giving countries that stepped out of line a spanking. I lost a lot of respect for Roosevelt when I studied into this war and especially when I read about that line. Denying the Filipinos freedom of self-government was exactly the same thing that we were fighting for over a century and a quarter earlier in the American Revolution.