Not Atheist in the slightest.
The reason why i have no sympathy is because the soldiers would have developed the land even better that in the end would have provided a better result.
Like in Star Trek, the peoples just keep expanding and developing the planets toward that end. The result would be eventually integration like the Vulcans, who serve with distinction on those space ships. But first they needed to be trained and shown that interstellar progress is coming for their own betterment.
Otherwise on their own they might become prey to a really belligerent civilization that wants them gone ( cylons). In that case the humans would not be around to protect them and they would perish an even worse fate.
The humans just wanted to exploit the planet and in a universe of billions of planets, plenty of even better places conceivably exist that don’t stand above an oil field. In the end casinos might be built and the blues could make their world the next Las Vegas, allowing them to enjoy plenty of large hot dogs and watch football.
Also, it would only be a matter of time before the planet would get hit by a giant rock, now the humans could protect them with technology the blue people don’t have. So they made a trade to survive.