I'm not someone who has really studied anything about the Banana Wars in Latin America, but I can comment a little on the nature of the Filipino-American War, which lasted arguably from 1899-1912. One of the biggest characteristics was that the war began because the US desired to make the Philippines into a colonial possession. The US had initially been an ally of the Filipinos, cutting off the seaway escape of the Spanish after the Filipinos had defeated them. However, rather than helping to defiinitively defeat the Spanish, the Americans accepted the Spanish's deal of selling the islands to the US. The Americans came to colonize and the Filipinos did not accept this. Then the war happened. President McKinley referred to the colonization of the Philippines as "benevolent assimilation". This philosophy was based around the idea of colonization as a moral imperative. The Americans were going to help the wayward Filipinos develop, like a father would. In reality this served as a justification for violence, oppression, and exploitation, but I think that ultimately this changes the feel of the war. The war was about colonization, about the US desiring a strategic foothold in Asia, one that they directly controlled.

Vicente Rafael has written a lot about American colonization of the Philippines. A good place to start is White Love, and Other Events in Filipino History.