What makes a conquest more legitimate than the ones that follow it?

Good Read

The daily news is pregnant with inspiration for stories. The photo below that appeared recently proved especially inspirational, at least to me.

Click to read "Conquest"

Obviously, it is an excellent example of a "Straw Man Argument", a form of propaganda wherein these people are arguing against those who contend that all Mexicans are "illegals". We must surmise that "they" are those who oppose amnesty for all Mexican immigrants. Personally, I don't know of any such people, do you?

That being as it may, the last part of their diatribe caused me to wonder, "What makes any conquest more legitimate than any other?" That became the theme of my short story, Conquest.

None may argue with the fact that much of the American Southwest was wrested forcibly from the Spanish who had wrested it forcibly from the natives. Looking back further, we find those natives occupying the land by right of conquest from earlier natives. Indeed, even the first human inhabitants wrested it by dint of conquest. They fought the extant flora and fauna as well as the weather and countless other adversities before they could claim stewardship of the land. 

Species became extinct. The land was defiled, yes, even by those paragons of nature worshipers. There is plenty of evidence that early natives had to move their abodes periodically when they could no longer abide their own accumulated refuse.

Ultimately, my short story doesn't answer these issues. It merely poses the question. Enjoy