Money, oil, and greed are all often given as reasons for why the US entered the war in Iraq. Any mention of noble intentions is met with a pseudo-academic skepticism: "May be... it would be nice. But no, not this administration!"

Well, hold on a second. What is money? Money is access to resources. OK, you will say, "Bush, Cheney, they all want power! They want resources!" Fine, I'll answer, what are they going to do with them? And that's when people scratch their heads only to respond with "Well, they just want more power..."

But, suppose you are Bush... or Cheney... or any high-ranking official. You've given up work in the private sector for the public one. You've dedicated your life to politics. You are already rich, putting your kids through college is the least of your worries and no amount of Benjamins will grant you immortality. What do you need more money for? What do you live for? It seems to become more of a philosophical question.

It would be pretentious of me to suggest what exactly goes on in the minds of US leaders, but what I find highly unlikely is that they would be chasing resources to pimp out their cribs or deck out their cool new rides. In fact, I think it would be fair to assume that such people indeed become public servants interested in the general good listening carefully to advisers while juggling socio-economic and political interests.

So next time you want to call Cheney a money-grabbing capitalist only interested in oil, please come with more than just accusations. "When? How? How much? Why?" would be good start.