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Listening and Talking to God About Invading Other Countries
I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me:

(1) That we could not give them [the Philippines] back to Spain-that would be cowardly and dishonorable;

(2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany-our commercial rivals in the Orient-that would be bad business and discreditable;

(3) that we could not leave them to themselves-they were unfit for self-government-and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and

(4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the ..War Department map-maker, and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States (pointing to a large wall map), and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President!
-- General James Rusling, "Interview with President William McKinley," The Christian Advocate 22 January 1903, 17. Reprinted in Daniel Schirmer and Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, eds., The Philippines Reader

...One critical citizen satirized McKinley's war:

G is for guns
That McKinley has sent
To teach Filipinos
What Jesus Christ meant.

The bible thumpers of the time praised McKinley's will in overcoming Satan (Filipinos, not Arabs) with military force. Now, 106 years later, as scientists map the human genetic structure and discover secrets of the galaxy that date back thousands of centuries, the descendents of the religious zealots that counseled McKinley win court battles to validate creationism and push Armageddon and Rapture as themes of US Middle East policy....

...In October, Robertson, the aging Baptist Maharishi, told some 4,000 plus pilgrims in Jerusalem's convention center that devious Muslims intended to foil "God's plan" to let Israel hold on to its lands. (Ha'aratz Oct 4)

Robertson interpreted Islam's intention "to destroy Israel and take the land from the Jews and give East Jerusalem to Yasser Arafat, [the Palestinian Authority Chairman who died in November] as Satan's plan to prevent the return of Jesus Christ the Lord."...