http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War

The Mexican-American war.  Illegal, immoral and unconstitutional, it was a land grab perpetrated upon a fellow American republic.  As shameful an act as has been perpetrated upon one nation by another, Hitler could have learned his foreign policy from Polk.

It was totally in line with the way the Native Americans were treated, and left the US without the moral high road except as hypocrisy.

The more I study US history the less proud I am of being American.  There are bright spots – the Marshall Plan, WWII even, though that was forced upon us.  And there are many, many black marks, such as the invasion of Iraq.  Vietnam.  Laos.  Cambodia.  Central America during the Reagan years.  (He should have been shot and he and Nancy hung upside down in MacArthur Park.  And that darling of the Right, Ollie North?  Tortured, and left to die on a rockpile.)

We are no different than the worst, I’m afraid, except in our own imaginations.  There, we talk about how great we are, noble, honorable, trustworthy.  Worthless words, talkin’ the talk.