"I don't understand how poor people think,"

Well Bill,

So ends (nearly) your first day on a2k. I sincerely hope you have not felt intimidated or unjustly critcised by some of the regulars. You keep telling it as it is. Others, (perhaps including me) will soon tell you how it isn't!

I don't quite understand this notion that actions can somehow be divorced from motives. For instance, let's say that Attacker sees his arch-enemy, Victim, and decides to injure him, purely out of malice. Attacker sneaks up behind Victim and delivers a vicious punch to the back of Victim's head. Unbeknownst to Attacker, however, is that Victim was choking on a piece of food, and the force of Attacker's punch dislodged the food and, thus, saved Victim's life. Now, do we praise Attacker for his virtuous act? I think not. Attacker's motive, after all, was malicious, and the character of his act was formed on that motive. Although the result was laudable (indeed, Victim may have even consented to Attacker's punch if the opportunity had been offered), the motive was not. And the law would correctly treat Attacker's action as a battery.

In the same sense, we cannot separate the Bush administration's "bad" motives from its "good" actions. If the motives were bad, then good actions cannot serve as absolution (just as good motives cannot save bad actions). The actions of the Bush administration in Iraq are inextricably intertwined with the Bush administration's motives for acting: they cannot be treated as separate entities, the one regretted and the other praised.

Bush and his support group, including the people actually running the country and their global partners, first create the monsters by supplying them with the tools they need at a large profit, and then destroy the monsters they have created at the cost of the lives and future living standards of their own countries sons and daughters, in order to make a large profit.

There is nothing so disgusting and morally bankrupt, except perhaps accepting it through purposeful ignorance.

IMHO.

However for true disgust and horror, you can't beat table dance on amateur night at the Ospidillo Cafe.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! I'm not defending Bush. All I'm saying is his actions brought about a good thing. Prosecute him to the full extent of your morals; I won't defend him if called upon. His actions were the right ones, but for the wrong reasons. Throw him in jail or what have you, I don't care. But you have to admit that good came from his actions and that is all I am acknowledging.



I do, however, think that's an unfair comparison.

I agree with Yotto that World Peace is an illusion ...it will never be attained...how, when even the Gods we worship can't keep the peace are we to?

fyi - I never pray for world peace

Me neither, I leave that up to Miss America and Miss Universe.

If we had World Peace God couldn't come down and eventually throw Satan into the lake of fire so everyone could see how tough he is......God doesn't want world peace......

Just watching, for now ;-)

Wow, I guess I stepped in it here, LOL. Thank you for your welcomes and concern grotto, Steve and Frank. Worry not; I don't intimidate easy in person and never online. Those of you who've read the whole thread know I'm neither a conservative nor a Bush supporter.

Joe, my "notion that actions can somehow be divorced from motives" can be easily explained. The primary directive of my moral code is quite simple: Every human being deserves to be treated like a human being. Anyone who violates this code is exempted from its protections. Whoever beat Jeffery Dahmer to death did the world a favor, regardless of his own motives. Removing the monster Saddam did the world a favor, regardless of the motivation. Sometimes you have to kill the killer. Per my earlier example: could you, joefromchicago, stand by while a rape took place if you knew you were strong enough to prevent it? I seriously doubt it. If the victim was a complete stranger and therefore none of your business, would that matter? I hope not joe.

My belief is that Bush new this man had to go… and being a moron was happy to exaggerate claims to convince the public. I am ashamed that he should have to. The facts of Saddam's Regime's treatment of Iraqis should have been a call to arms in and of itself. His first, second or at least the third violation of his ceasefire should have been enough.

The idea that Bush picked on Saddam because he was weaker than Kim is preposterous. There is no groundwork laid like 17 straight resolutions ignored by North Korea. Nor are the conditions of that ceasefire as stringent as they were in Iraq. Tell me, does anyone think we should give diplomacy a chance for a decade in North Korea as well? Keep in mind, Kim is developing WMDs as we speak. I saw a cartoon last year of one UN delegate asking another "I forget; is this Saddam's last last last last chance or his last last last last last chance?" The UN simply cried Wolf for too many years. Laws mean nothing without Law enforcement. There is some very dirty work to do, but its work that needs to be done.

I further believe that the vast majority of the world's leaders, the guys in the know, agreed that something had to be done. But, since Bush made no secret of the fact he was going in regardless they figured; why spend our money, our troops, and our ammunition and risk a terrorist backlash, when that crazy American is going to get the job done anyway. If I'm Putin, I'd be a fool not to consider this considering his country is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Did it also escape everyone's notice that France and Russia, the two loudest dissenters, also had the two biggest oil contracts with Saddam? There are no pure innocents here.

Now I don't know precisely what the catalyst for Bush was. And I'm certainly not going to try to defend all his actions. I will not try to portrait the US as the world's noble protector either. I mean damn; we haven't even paid our dept to the poor people of Bikini Atol whose Island we blew up, allowed their children to play in H-Bomb fallout and nearly starved to death after abandoning them on the foreign Island we forced them onto. But the result remains the same. A brutal monster has been removed from power. This my friends, is a good thing.

Bi-Polar makes an excellent point. Most of the worlds powers, and especially the US, have made a tremendous amount of money arming jerk-offs. I think we all participated in witch hunts in the not so distant past as well. But isn't it high time we put that behavior behind us? It matters little who's to blame. What matters is that we eliminate this cancer before it spreads any further. Whose with me? Bill

Personally, I can't understand the lack of morality of wealthy multinationals, the US government in international affairs, & often, just people in power ... <sigh> It's depressing!

My point, though, is that you can't claim his actions are right if they were taken for the wrong reasons. Actions cannot be considered in isolation from motivations: if the motives are wrong, and the actions are premised on the motives, then the actions are wrong.

Given the enormity of the actions, I would be quite surprised if some good didn't come out them, even if just by accident. Still doesn't make 'em right.

That's odd. I thought it was directly on target. You just misunderstood it.

"Violates the code"? What does that mean? Are you saying that someone can be "inhuman," and thus exempted from a code that protects only humans? And if so, who gets to make that decision?

I would have no problem intervening to save a rape victim, Bill, but I'm not sure why you raise the point, since it has nothing whatsoever to do with my position.

I contend that motives and actions cannot be viewed in isolation: a good action, taken for bad motives, cannot be considered to be "good." Your rape hypothetical has no bearing on my position -- indeed, it has no bearing on your position, Bill, since you seem to be claiming that the ends excuse the motives, even if the motives are reprehensible. I can't agree with that, and I sincerely doubt that you would either, if you gave it the least bit of thought.

Come on now joe, I'm not suggesting there are subhumans running around out there (though Kim is a little bit suspect). By violate, I mean those that choose to not treat humans as humans. Those who put your whole family in a death camp to be tortured to death for meerly demonstrating (why do you think the starving people of North Korea haven't demonstrated in decades?)
The rape comparison is extremely relevant as rape would be a huge upgrade in treatment for millions of Kim and Saddam's victims. I dare not describe the horrors suffered at their hands for fear the wrong age person might pick up the thread. Do a little research and you'll see what I mean. As I mentioned at the beginning of this thread, there is an illegally shot video tape called "the children of the secret state" playing on either discovery or TLC pretty frequently. Did you know that mere possesion of a video camera will get you sent to a death camp in the DPRK? Horrors joe... much worse than rape. And the world has chosen to turn the blind eye to it, while litterally tens of millions of "human beings" are dying.
If anyone has an email address they'd like to share with me I have an audio file of an American, ex Iraqi women who called in on a radio show and left me and thousands of others with tears in our eyes. I pestered the radio station until they posted it on their website and I would like nothing better than to share it with everyone. No one I know who's heard it has failed to shift their beliefs yet.

The Topic ?
It WAS GW's incapacity to feel empathy with the poor. I am guessing that no one read the article.

He did the right thang but lied about the reasons for his actions is a bit convoluted in my not so humble view. We can overlook the guy's murder of Jeffry and not bring any charges because, well...he did the right thang. He executed someone that was bad. Hey, that makes perfect sense. Let's just let all the murderers go execute all the other ones. Problem solved.

A brutal dictator is no longer in power? Uh...not quite correct. Maybe he isn't runnin' the whole show anymore but it seems that he is still runnin' somewhat of a show.

Now back to the GW and the poor. He doesn't see them, so they don't exist. Maybe God hasn't mentioned the poor to GW?

I'm glad Saddam is gone -- he was a scumbagh.

The price for his departure was way too high -- and will probably not be paid for some time to come.

No...not the monetary anvil we've strapped to our kids shoulders -- but the presedent we have set which will, in my opinion, come back to haunt us in ways I cringe to imagine.

What we have done here can only be called a "good thing" by ignoring this cost.

We'll see.

I may be wrong.

I was wrong just last year once.

But my bet is that I'm not.

Brutal Dictators
That is such a lame argument. If the moral reason was to get rid of a brutal dictator why did the USA supply this brutal Dictator with weapons and support his actions in the 1980s and not voice any concern about the gassing of the Kurds and Iranians or the brutality of this dictator toward his own people?

Why did the USA support Sukarno,perhaps even more brutal than Saddam? I could list a whole lot of other brutal dictators that the USA supported militarily and financially over the past 80 years. As long as those were an advantage to the USA they were supported. When they became a liablity they were attacked and suddenly became the "bad guys".

The argument is fallacious as well as highly dishonest.

Well I guess you can look after yourself Bill, happy arguing