I wonder if Ben is telling the whole truth about Charles's intentions...I do beleive that Charles has some fondness of Desmond and is also trying to find him for Penny...

while i understand he is a multimilionaire...he is also a "father"

Ben's a liar. the best liars have lies grounded in semi-truth.

which is why I would still stick to my thought that Ben is lieing to Locke about Widmores reason for finding the island...

i found that whole explanation of "widmore the exploiter" to be a waste of time. we already knew the chances of him being the ultimate benefactor, was a big probability, and it didnt even give us anything new.

but i dont think he has any good intentions regarding his daughter or des. hes evil.

agreed, there has to be more to it than a big ol' tourist attraction... but maybe ben just isnt sure what his intentions are for the island.
But if these people were sent by old man widmore... who appears to be on the outs with Penny... how did he know Desmond was on the island????

Yeah, John should know better by now than to believe anything Ben tells him.

I believe Dan and Charlotte were not going to kill everyone, they were trying to stop Ben from killing everyone. I think Ben has somehow tapped into Jacob's power and has been keeping Jacob confined in that cabin and under his control, and that the ash around the cabin has something to do with that. Ben has been using the secrets of the island for his own personal gain, to create some twisted Utopia on the island with himself as God. Ben is the mad man behind the curtain.

I think that Widmore will turn out to be a good guy, out to stop Ben. Ben has to convince John and everyone else that Widmore is the enemy, to enlist their help to stop him.

Widmore wanting the island doesn't make sense if you think about what has previously happened. Why would Miles try to bribe Ben, telling everyone he was dead for $3.2m? If Widmore only wants the island because of it's "powers" or advertising, why would Ben being dead be important? Widmore finally knows where the island is located and could easily go there and kill Ben himself now. I definitly think there is something more to it than property.

Plus if we can conclude in Sayid's flashforward, that he was sent to kill Widmore, then it obviously has more to do with something personal rather than the island, as he was still trying to kill him off the island.

I really hope Ben is lying. Otherwise this totally bummed me. I was so fascinated by the story line but if you're telling me that this whole thing is all about some guy trying to get richer than that's totally lame!

It was a little too neatly tied-up for me to have it be believable. Ben was coming on SO strong with the "we're really philanthropists, you just can't see that because we tried to kill you for so long."

I don't believe that Widmore is an angel...and I do believe that it's his freighter off the island...but I don't believe that his motives are QUITE what Ben is saying they are.

just a thought....could desmond in 2007? go back to Penny in 2001 and tell her about the island?