My comments to a Newsmax article

[Thomas Pritchard]

Rove to Vet: I won't apologize for Iraq War.

Neocon whackos.  No WMDs, the votes of support were based on lies, B.O. oversaw the killing of Osama bin Laden, 100's of thousands of innocents have been killed through our efforts and listed as collateral damage, we have turned on people we used to support, we have lost the respect of many nations, we have no moral high ground left worth defending, we now murder combatants and innocents by remote control, we are not now and never should have imagined that we are exceptional and that it was our obligation and responsibility to be the world's police force.  When will y'all ever get a grip on reality?

Under the moniker of Truthoutnow

Tom

http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/karl-rove-vet-ryan-henowitz-iraq/2015/04/06/id/636571/?ns_mail_uid=95503509&ns_mail_job=1615658_04062015&s=al&dkt_nbr=puw2lfgr#CommentSection

[Thomas Pritchard]

Michael,

It is my belief that Manifest Destiny was founded upon "God" 's covenant with Abram/Abraham:

Genesis 17:5-10a (NRSV) particularly verse 8:

⁵ No longer shall your name be Abram,^[a] but your name shall be Abraham;^[b] for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. ⁶ I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. ⁷ I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring^[c] after you. ⁸ And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.”

⁹ God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. ¹⁰ This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you...
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Essentially "Go west young man, until you reach water with no visible land on the opposite side, and subdue anyone or anything which gets in your way."  That included genocide of the First Nations peoples.  The foundation was established in Genesis 1_26-30:

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²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make humankind^[a] in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,^[b] and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

²⁷ So God created humankind^[c] in his image,
    in the image of God he created them;^[d]
    male and female he created them.

²⁸ God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” ²⁹ God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰ And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

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Every wave of immigrants was looked down upon and discriminated against and, in turn, looked down upon and discriminated against their successors from other countries and cultures.  Mankind has chronically rationalized and excused their actions, discrimination, and inhumanity toward others who sounded or were otherwise perceived to be "different."  Racism and prejudice seem to have been incurable failings of our species however future generations may prove to evolve to be kinder and more tolerant, which in no way excuses our failings and sins as well as those of our predecessors.

Andrew Bacevich, frequently interviewed by Bill Moyers, wrote the book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.  He is a retired Army Colonel and was Director of Boston University's Center for International Relations from 1998 to 2005.  He has written many other related books.  I commend it to any who might care to read it.  I believe that he based this particular work on the writings of Karl Paul Rheinhold Niebuhr.

My father started his teaching career as a Social Studies teacher and when I reflect on the curricula which I was taught, it reflected the reality that history is writ by the "winners."

Tom

On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 6:08 PM, Michael Rice <ris...@gmail.com> wrote:

Tom, you raise important points, but tell me, how did that illusion of exceptionalness survive the Indian wars that went on well past the end of the Civil War (and the genocide of Original Americans starting with Columbus long before that), not to mention slavery.  You don't have to be a neo-con to hang on to the illusion.  No liberal U.S . Administration and Congress has ever bothered to take half the responsibility for genocidal and non-virtuous past (except in the sole case sixty years after the fact of the internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry) or paid any compensation -- half the responsibility (as I was saying) that post-WWII Germany has taken (and paid) for the crimes of the Nazi period.  And to make the matter worse, we Americans, we have exported "manifest destiny" to the Middle East and are proudly enabling a long succession of Israeli governments to treat Palestinians in just the way we treated Original Americans: uncompensated dispossession, expulsion, treating the "other" as less-than-human.  Not a pretty picture.  We used to have a welcome mat out for immigrants (well, a narrow one, with signs such as NINA -- "No Irish Need Apply") and even when there was a "quota" for example for Jews fleeing Hitler, anti-Semites managed to keep immigration Visas at a fraction of the quota; nevertheless I made it here in 1941 after applying in 1938.  So, yes, I'm grateful, because I got lucky,  but not all that respectful, because so many didn't.

Michael

 

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Posted by: Thomas Pritchard <toma...@gmail.com>

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[Thomas Pritchard]

It most certainly was "their" fault because God gave man "free will."  That is, if you believe there really is a creator deity.  I have come to contend that the creator deity who "spoke" to Abram was a creation of his imagination and we have lived under that mistaken impression ever since, with all of its trappings. 

On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 11:03 PM, Michael Rice <ris...@gmail.com> wrote:

Tom,

by their invention of "God's covenant" the Hebrews proved that they had a conscience: their genocide of the Canaanites wasn't THEIR fault, it was "ordained" of "God"!  The Bible frees us of sin, responsibility, and accountability. And the Christians -- well if only they "believe", they're scot-free by Jesus's sacrifice.  Happy Easter!

Michael