usertron2020
Donor
America got the Philippines mainly because the USN was the one who actually went out and beat the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay (mismatch though it was)... Germany, Japan, and Britain didn't help with that. Also, the USA went in with the (rather arrogant) notion of 'uplifting and educating' the Philippinos and eventually granting them independence, rather than a simple colonization plan. Of course, this didn't work out so well, and the US ended up killing thousands of the natives in the process, and then WW2 interferred with everything. One has to wonder just what the other powers would have done if they'd gotten the Philippines with the idea of nothing but colonizing them...
Also, the Spanish-American War had considerable effect on US domestic politics, being the first national war since the ACW. It produced an explosion of US nationalism bringing in the Old South as seeing themselves as Americans first, Southerners second, for the first time since Fort Sumter. This mentality led to a sense of not only greater national pride but bellicosity as well. Greed was not the prime motivator, but prideful imperialism and nationalism. Though I'm not denying greed was a factor. But the Philippines was not Iraq.