I said "hey, what's going on?"

I sat there, really thinking about why we are wanting to fight yet another losing war.  The US hasn't really emerged "victorious" in a war in, oh, say, 60 years. 

So I think about oil and money and blah blah blah blah.  But I just don't understand. Why would anyone want that much money? On an individual level, what are you going to do as CEO of, say, Halliburton? Smoke Cuban cigars with the Bushes and drink really expensive brandy in the boardroom?

Sure.  Money = power. At what point does it become just not necessary?  When you already have a gabazillion dollars, why do you possibly need anymore?  Pull a Scrooge McDuck and swim in gold coins? Buy another Hummer?

My point is, at some juncture, when does money stop being a motivating factor to be corrupt?  Let's take the example of a bird bath. Let's say it fulfills it's purpose: it fills up with water.  Completely.  You are happy that the birds have that bird bath.  Why would you possibly need it to rain more?  It's full of water, is serving it's purpose, that's that.  The bird bath may become cleaner with each pouring of rain, but that's just a bonus. Men become dirtier with each exchange of money, but that's just a fact.

Does corruption and greed and all of that garbage become internalized somewhere? Or is that an institutionalized value that is not personally held?  Somewhere, the collective is corrupt and greedy, but in the end perhaps each individual just wants his/her own.  Don't cultures (even corrupt ones) build upon shared individual values and goals? What's going on here?

We're supposed to be democraticized and advanced and civil and we just go over into someone else's country and start shooting things.

How can I be proud to be an American?