No Honey, I never cheated on you...

America has been good and evil in parts. To say we, as Americans, were some binary attribute at any point in time is not logical. It has nothing to do with serving an agenda. It has everything to do with being honest with ourselves of our nation's history. Some parts we should repeat and strive to emulate. Other parts we should be critical of and expose for general consumption.

Should the Japanese avoid the topic of the rape of Nanking? Not in my opinion as that risks that this bit of history could occur again. Are we any different? Should we avoid unpleasant topics from our past because someone has an "agenda" or to defer criticism from our great nation? Absolutely not.

We should recognize those moments, analyze them, and learn from them so that they are not repeated. No matter how unpleasant or how they potray America. This applies to both positive and negative actions.

My hope would be that those with an agenda would get over it already and move on...But NOooo, they keep dredging up stuff that can be used either for self-flagellation or instruction, and choose to use it as punishment. The rest of the world picks up on it and goes nuts with the 'Let's kill America!' schtick.

And completely forgets that people unwelcome in their own country would still rather be here in the US than most places. East Berzerkistan? Yeah, right! The country formerly known as Burma? Get real!

It's not "dredging up stuff" when you uncover unknown historical events. I would like to learn from history rather than ignore it, even if publicizing it is bad for our reputations. There are lessons here, and it behooves us to learn them. Especially in a world where our relative influence is going to decrease.

America doesn't get a pass on bad stuff because of good stuff. The whole idea is that we hold ourselves to a higher standard than the rest of the world. At least that's what I was told. Lots of countries do just as much good as we do. Saudis give almost twice as much per capita as us. Does that mean they're even less deserving of criticism than us?

The article failed to mention that we did similar (if not worse) things to our own citizens, all in the name of science. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreated_Syphilis_in_the_Negro_Male

It also fails to mention the strict controls that were put in place to make sure that incidents like this never happen again, no matter how sincere the motives... there is still a lot of "the end justifies the means" thinking out there... in both politics and science.

The best way to predict future performance is by past performance.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: I think a look back at the entire past history of civilization is good enough evidence that all governments, organizations and bands of men are capable of unspeakable atrocities in the name of some thing or other. God, Money, Empire... To think that ours is past that sort of nonsense is naive.

That.

Governments are coercive by design. Even our government in the so-called land of the free is rooted in theft and domination. There is a reason why man's inhumanity to man is and has been a recurring theme in literature - it is an inescapable fact. So, I file this story under "sad, but not surprising".

The moral of the story is the next time the gov't screws you be glad you didn't wake up with syphilis

The thing is, it was not unknown. I remember reading about that years ago. I think the History Channel even included it in a show once. So you have to wonder about the motive of the article.

What you have to realize is that human nature is human nature, no matter what government is in power, no matter what conditions you live in, etc. There is always going to be people that will do horrible things to other people. It has been that way throughout time, and always will be that way, no matter what. People themselves really do not change. The technology in which they operate change, but emotions, thoughts, etc. are a relative constant.

The U.S. has been guilty of poor behavior in the past, and I'm certain in the future as well, but that doesn't make it bad or evil. On the whole we've probably committed less of these atrocities than most other nations, maybe combined. We've also done more for the good of the world than any other nation. That doesn't excuse these behaviors. They need to be a source of learning so that they don't happen again, but most likely, they will be used as this article does, to promote an agenda.