Saddleback Church Civil Forum - Obama & McCain 8 of 17

I have said we are guilty of committing the same crimes. The level of contempt with which we are regarded is subjective. There are many who would view contemporary American government as tyrannical. Our founders propagated a revolution for less significant transgressions than those endured by the current generation of Americans.

McCain is not right in his mind.
As we have seen through this whole
interview, he is obsessed with war.

You're right to say we should do more. But you underestimate the importance of crude oil. I'm not talking about profits. I'm talking about freeing it's control from dictators like saddam, but also preventing it from getting in the hands of other totalitarian scum that are fighting to take oppressive control of the region right now. Oil makes the region that much more dangerous. We aren't stealing oil. A federated Iraq will do business as they please. Saddams iraq killed and maimed the region.

We have maimed, and continue to maim, the Middle East at a level that Saddam could never have achieved. Speaking in moralistic terms, our sins cannot be forgiven because we're still committing them.  Even if we were to stop, the wounds are still fresh enough that we still won't be forgiven. Even if tomorrow we decided to pursue a policy with humanitarianism as a fundamental principle and stopped supporting despots and dictators, the rest of the world is going to be reluctant to play along.

I think we both want America to live up to its ideals and principles when developing foreign policy. My biggest problem is that moralistic arguments are entirely theoretical and have no application to real events and policies as they are not evenly applied. We're sinners when it is in our economic interests, and we're saints when it is within our economic interests. As a nation, our policies ignore morality.

Right On!