It's unreal how this thread exploded. The emotions it has brought out, the information; I think it's one of the best on RCU in a long time. I, for one, appreciate the moderators keeping it on track and allowing the discourse and not shutting it down

Every government has been the bad guy at some point in recent history, both to their own and foreign peoples. I've heard talk about atrocities on all sides, really, except ours; let's never forget that we (USA) are the only military power to use nuclear weapons against another, so far. I won't get into whether that was the right or wrong thing to do at the time, but you can bet that that act has colored a lot of the world's opinion of our government to this day, and I'm sure that from the other side of the fence it looks as atrocious as Hitler's acts against Judaism or Stalin's purges of his own people (which, by the way, is a larger number than what Hitler did). I do have to admire the restraint that they(nukes) haven't been used since, although we've been too close a couple of times.

What saddens me about ALL of this is that over the ages, noone has seemed to learn that all these ideologies must learn to co-exist. We are all alone together on this great big rock spinning through the cosmos, and all this squabbling over who owns the oil, or who can dominate who, or which God is the TRUE one, just diverts our focus from what it should be, which is the long-term survival of the human race.