smooth

OK, let me "further explain"

I am with the anti-war crowd, but I don't condone "high level political bribery."

The first thing I'll point out is that I've consistently said that access to oil has driven our politics, as well as the foreign policies of all industrialized nations. So, no, this doesn't surprise me that politicians in foreign nations were involved in lucrative oil contracts. I don't understand what trap you're trying to lay for me--my position has been consistent on this from the first post I ever typed on this board.

I don't have any "righteous" indignation for any leaders. Foregin leaders aren't answerable to me and, in regards to my own leaders, such verbage is usually reserved for the religious right, not classical rational thinkers (often labeled "lefties").

Lastly, I don't know how this turned into a "bribery" accusation. It appears people had lucrative contracts with a foreign government--not something that falls in the purvue of our domestic legal codes, if the accusation is even a legalistic one versus a moral one.

Furthermore, the OP linked political bribery (granting for the sake of discussion that it is such) to anti-war demonstrations. We were demonstrating against control for oil by world powers in all nations--get your facts straight. People around the world demonstrated against their leaders as well as Bush and Blaire, who were leading the charge. It wasn't until millions of people scared the shit out of those minor players that they listened (for the most part) to their citizens and grew a spine and stood up to what was going on. It's absurd to couple anti-war demonstrators with corrupt politicians, since that's what we were protesting. The crowd that is maligning us now is the same crowd that maligned us then--namely, that we were merely protesting Bush because we hated him personally.

If you set up a ridiculous premise, you're going to keep coming up with ridiculous conclusions. Listen to what people are saying instead of telling them what they are saying and you'd learn a bit more about what and why we believe the way we do. Evidently, it turns out we were pretty damn accurate, control over oil was an underlying root of this fiasco.

"No blood for oil" was an indictment about going to war over oil interests, it's also an indictment of those supporting dictators for decades. This side has been making the claim that we ought not be meddling in foreign nations' affairs to secure oil interests for the past 30 years, it's not my fault you only paid attention when CNN showed you pictures of protesters holding signs of Bush (who happened to be the focus of current protests because he's the one in power).