Lebell

Ah, I see.

So you are not with the anti-war crowd or you do not condone (or at least minimalize the importance of) this high level political bribery?

And to further explain, it distresses me when any group who claims moral highground dismisses immoral practices because it is hypocritical.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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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).

filtherton

It is distressing me that so many are now suddenly outraged by politics as usual because it gives them an excuse to talk shit about the antiwar croud. C'mon, let's not be so naive, how many of you who are outraged at france and russia over this would be outraged if somehow the u.s. had bribed australia or one of the other members of the coalition of the willing with favorable trade status or international aid?

You are aware that the u.s. attempts to claim moral high ground with our every action? Are you one of those, "our support of murderous regimes like uzbekistan is okay because that is what it will take to win this moral war on terrorism" types? If so you must be really distressed. I'm not trying to claim that it is morally right for france and russia to accept bribes. I don't think a moral high ground really exists in politics. I think anyone claiming the moral high ground in a political situation needs to be introduced to the word irony. In any case i still think that peace was the moral answer, and i wasn't getting any money from saddam's oil.

Lebell

That’s good to know. Sometimes it is hard to figure out exactly what you stand for and don’t stand for.

Trap?

There’s no trap.

What I’m looking for is consistency in your arguments.

I can at least respect another person’s position, although I may disagree with it, if it is consistent.

Why not righteous indignation?

Certainly the left has not hesitated to praise those same leaders when it is convenient? Certainly protesters in this country have castigated Blair? If you have ever done this, I would expect you to express indignation at this latest news.

If you have not, then at least you are consistent.

I could be mistaken, but in reading this article, all of these contracts were made under the table, without disclosure to the public.

THAT is what makes it bribery.

If I am wrong about the disclosure, then I’ll gladly admit it.

I’m pretty sure I have my facts straight.

The protesting was against the United States and Britain going to “war over Oil”. I also recall the protestors (not you, necessarily) praising the peace loving governments of France, Germany, Russia, etc. for not going to war over oil, the premise being that they were doing so altruistically.

The hypocrisy being that they were NOT going to war, because of Oil.

Presumably, they would still not go to war even if there had in fact been WMD’s (French and Russian having been caught helping Saddam break the UN embargo, not withstanding) again, because of Oil.

Hmmm, nice assumption (incorrect) about my attention span.

And if I’ve been telling you what you’ve been saying, it’s because sometimes that is hard to figure out.

But as to oil interests, why should we not be securing our interests? As you’ve pointed out, you have no problem that foreign governments have their own interests at heart. Why then is it ok for others to work for their interests while we don’t work for ours?

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Lebell

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I personally would be outraged. As it is, I am none to happy about how our intelligence community let us down and would have preferred it if Bush had gone to war to get rid of Saddam rather than base it on less than 100% reliable information.
Yes, and I believe that we do try for the most part to be in the moral right with our foreign policy. But I disagree with the strategy of “the enemy of our enemy is our friend” and I would like to see that change. So, to answer the question, yes, I am also distressed about that.

But I’m curious why you don’t think a moral high ground exists in politics?

Politics like any other human endeavor has only the qualities human beings bring to it. If we bring morality to it, it will have it. Conversely, if we leave morality out of it, there will be none.

Also, are you an absolute pacifist or were you just against this particular war?

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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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."

filtherton

I'm not an absolute pacifist, i believe in self defense. At this point i need to qualify self defense because depending on who's spinning it, self defense can range anywhere from defending my person from direct assault to shooting somebody i deemed threatening on the subway because i thought that they might have ill intent and the means to act upon it. I think the former is justified but not the latter. There is a point where the rights(i'm talking about god-given rights, not codified rights) of each individual outweigh my desire to put my mind at ease. At this point i think it fairly misleading to paint our actions in iraq as self defense any more than our friend on the subway.

As for politics, there is a phrase that comes to mind. "The good guy always finishes last." Anyone who claims to have the moral high ground is selling something. I know that there is still morality in politics on the very local level, but the higher up you get the more beholden you are to special interests and political games- the more people you owe favors to. What is moral about that?

Lebell

Thank you for a great example of the kind of strawman argument I’ve come to expect from you.

In otherwords, argue with the definition of a word instead of the intent. And you still didn’t answer my question about whether or not you also passed moral judgement on Blair, Chiraq, et al.

Your opinion, not fact.

What is closer to the fact is that Bush and Blair probably told the truth as they understood it from the intelligence community. Or should I dig out the quotes from the Clintons, Gore, etc. saying the exact same thing, that Saddam was a very real threat to the U.S.?

Again, your opinion.

If you are accusing me of watching too much CNN, perhaps you better check your own viewing habits.

I continue to maintain that Iraq is better off and that vast strides have been made to restore the country. Religious freedom is a reality, power levels are up beyond pre-war levels, schools and hospitals are being rebuilt as is the rest of the country’s infrastructure. And it is very likely that the US will turn over control of the government to the Iraqis sometime this year.

All this less than a year after the war started.

Now I know this is hard for our 30 second sound bite society to understand, but this is actually happening very fast.

It took us something like 20 years or more to turn over control to Japan and Germany (sorry, don’t remember the exact numbers). Heck, we are STILL in Germany.

So, yes, I think things are better right now for Iraq.

As to corporations profiting, Fina-Total was set to make several billion dollars profit so long as Saddam stayed in power, as were German and Russian firms. So to argue that corporations are profiting, strikes me as non-sensical.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Lebell

As I said to smooth above, everyone thought Saddam was a real threat, not just Bush and Blair. Personally, I’m still not convinced he wasn’t.

As long as people continue to believe this, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I personally am trying to hold politicians to a higher standard, instead of the lowest common denominator.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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filtherton

Let me first just say that i think that the words morality and ethics are interchangable in this instance so i use them that way.

I look at morality/ethics in politics like i look at world peace. Just like there is always going to be somebody who will resort to violence as a viable means to solve problems, somebody will always resort to immoral/unethical actions to achieve their goals.

Like you said before, politics, as they apply to humanity, are a human creation. While we might create such things with the best intentions we are all only human and the qualities of selfishness and shortsightedness are just as inherent in the human condition as compassion and integrity. We can just as easily inject any human creation with reprehensible behavior as we can inject it with virtuous behavior.
Th reason i think morality/ethics generally don't exist in any meaningful form in politics is this: When there are no rules governing conduct between two competing forces, the side that is willing to resort to tactics that the other won't will be the victorious one. I realize that politics are heavily regulated, but in light of restrictions placed on regulations due to the first amendment they don't amount to much in terms of putting morality back in the mix. The gop can still unethically read electronic communications between members of the democratic party discussing unethical political battle strategies against the gop.