Should the US issue an apology to Mexico for the Mexican-American War?

Since we are on the apology binge today.

fucking COOL! :D

an apology would still be nice. :P

it just saved a whole bunch of Mexicans from having to come across the border..they are already here legally.

the mexican government stole that land the same as the united states.....


apologize to the indigenous! not the thieves.

Should the genetic purebreds pay reparations to partial descendants of Neanderthals for pushing them out of Europe. Should surviving Indian tribes pay reparations to each other for the warfare that they engaged amongst themselves? Before western culture arrived in the new world the concept of ownership was hard to peg down. Does my land include only the area I regularly traverse? What is to stop from saying I own the world or the universe and why is my opinion of land boundaries any more valid than yours?

At least in relations between Mexico and the United States the concept of ownership was set by treaty and geographical boundaries. The United States had no other rationale besides grabbing land and resources in its decision to attack Mexico. Remember also that the South deeply wished to spread slavery further south and into the Caribbean, so I ask you who had the moral high ground?

I believe we could have justifiably annexed half of Texas, but the call of manifest destiny pushed us on to swallow California and the rest of the Southwest, much to the detriment of the indigenous peoples and Mexican settlers.

you want to frame pre-columbian society as precursors to the post-columbian cycle of warring and land grabbing, but it just wasn't always so.... so, you can't use arguments as such where you're only pretending there was some kind of perpetual cycle to even a similar degree, just for the sake of argument.

many native people have had their indigenous lands since time immemorial, and never had to push others off theirs for it.


-Before western culture arrived in the new world the concept of ownership was hard to peg down.

not amongst the people already here. who cares if it was 'hard to peg down' for foreigners trying to impose foreign concepts? you act as though western culture was some great savior for imposing their own ideals in place of what were to them vague definitions of what was what..... but i'll tell you again, it wasn't ambiguous in the least to those already here, so it wasn't difficult at all to peg, and that should've been all that mattered.


-At least in relations between Mexico and the United States the concept of ownership was set by treaty and geographical boundaries.

whadda ya mean "at least?" as if those foreign values are superior or something.....

as well, you ought to know the same could be said of the indian treaties. so what was your point?


-Remember also that the South deeply wished to spread slavery further south and into the Caribbean, so I ask you who had the moral high ground?

how 'bout neither

The United States and Mexico both believed in the European concept of defining land areas. When the United States attacked to grab land it knew exactly what it was doing. It essentially said I will kill your citizens to gain your riches. An apologist for stealing indigenous people's land might try to lessen the crime by claiming he did not know the land was in dispute or that the local population had died off from disease. With Mexico and the United States their is no false shield to hide behind.

but if you're saying that the united states and mexico (and preceding colonists) are just as culpable as each other, i'm right there with you.

defining land areas was a concept in action here as well. there was even cartography, but boundaries were defined and well understood by even other tribal nations (are we still on the same page here as well?)


i may have misconstrued other points of contention, but responded to them how i read them.

unless you think that they stole the land from the Spanish.

If you want to argue about who stole the "natives'"lands then it would have been the Spanish Government, and then later the people of Mexico had a revolution against Spain?

Do you think that Mexico should have given its land away and given out reperations to people without Spanish blood? Should it have given reparations to Spain? Should Spain give reparations?

all i'm saying is, follow the trail.....

i don't feel badly when one thief steals from another, who stole from someone else who stole the thing to begin with.


they all owe apologies to those whose land it really was, for insisting on taking and keeping it for themselves for any period of time with plans of holding on.