Which is precisely the problem! We are now bound to defend these lands, and they will cost more than they islands are worth. Of course, since we've already killed over one-hundred thousand men for these islands, they already have quite a way to repay before becoming valuable, if we are going for material wealth over human lives.
The Philippines are absolutely no value to us, Cuba is important on only the most tenuous terms, and the rest are irrelevant. We paid for these lands in our blood, and now you wish to spill more of it on these wars of folly, expanding in the name of 'liberty,' akin to the Old Empires expansion in the name of 'civilization.'