smooth

This will be my last post in this thread, I've got midterms to deal with and you are just arguing in circles without intent to listen to my actual words.

Here's an example of how you create a false archtype in your head of my belief system, then later argue I'm not being consistent when I don't abide by the construct you created:

I state that I'm not going to express righteous indignation at anyone because foreign leaders aren't beholden to me and, regardless, righteousness is a relgious term.

Somehow this bounces around in your head and comes out like this:

Based on that twist of my statement, you ask me this:
So now I have to reiterate myself or risk being labeled as inconsistent. Here goes:

I didn't say I condoned the behavior of leaders in foreign nations--just that I'm not going to take a religious/moral highground stance against them.

They don't share my belief system and aren't even supposed to representative of it--unlike the leaders in my country.

I also didn't say my country's leaders shouldn't persue the interest of my nation. What I did say is that the people weren't told the truth so they could deduce whether our current actions really are in the best interest of our nation. Many people who follow geopolitics closely realize that our current course of action isn't in our long term interest.

Whatever else may happen in the long term, it ought to be fairly obvious that neither the Iraqis nor the US public is benefitting in the short term. Corporations, in contrast, are benefitting from what is going on. So if you are the CEO of a major corporation, I'm confused how you can construe the current activities as being in your "best interest."