"American exceptionalism was never more clearly expressed than by Secretary of War Elihu Root, who in 1899 declaired, ‘The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the world began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace of happiness.’ At the time he was saying this, American soldiers in the Philippines were starting a bloodbath which would take the lives of 600,000 Filippinos." (from Howard Zinn, "The Power and the Glory: Myths of American Exceptionalism")