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n the TexacoChevron lawsuit, I believe the plaintiff's motivations speak to the fact that the environment -- Pacha mama, our life support system -- has a monetary worth or value for humans. So the critique is right -- it is about money.

The motivation behind Bush's Iraqi adventure -- if indeed it is about "freedom"-- is analogous to that of an ideology farmer where the US military is the hoe, the Iraqi people the soil, "freedom" the seed and propaganda the fertilizer. The crop to be harvested is an expanding Western dominated corporate marketplace. The motivation is of course money through the neoliberal ideology of "free markets." The problem is that humans are not blank slates and rivers of blood do not always make good fertilizer for ideas...unless of course you are pursuing totalitarian ideologies such as Mao's or Stalin's.

Both examples bring to the surface interesting and complex questions of international law, jurisdiction and ultimate legitimacy. Further, they address questions of value and worth.