Using religion to justify aggression

Here is a quote from a book on the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902. The President at that time was William McKinley.

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By late fall of 1898, McKinley believed the American people and the Republican Party favored annexation of all the Philippine Islands, and directed America’s peace commissioners to secure them.

McKinley explained to a group of clergy his decision to keep the Philippines. After “prayer,” he concluded that Filipinos “were unfit for self-government [and] would soon have anarchy and misrule.” So, the United States would keep the islands “to educate the Filipinos and uplift and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could for them, as our fellow men for whom Christ died.”