On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, James A. Donald wrote:
On 18 Dec 2003 at 19:09, J.A. Terranson wrote:
And all of this is meaningless: we simply had no right to invade a foreign, *sovereign* nation.
Although you probably do not know it, you are invoking the rules of the peace of Westphalia.
The Soviet Union never respected the peace of Westphalia.
Which was evil.
After the election of Ronald Reagan, neither did the US,
Living proof that you can become what you hate.
and the US has never resumed respecting it, so that stuff is ancient history now.
So what you are saying is that we have become the Soviet Union?
National Sovereignty, like the divine right of kings, just is not taken seriously any more, and the only people weeping big salt tears about its passing are those who enthusiastically hailed all the Soviet violations of it as wars of national liberation.
Spare me. I was no Soviet apologist. And until Reagan I was a dyed in the wool republican. Yet, I shed and continue to shed tears for a race of people that refuses to respect the rights of men and their nations. Like the Soviets. Or [now], the Americans...
--digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG MG21u2rXbbd8Gv6a0KI33gOfB0dq3Rj0+8QLf9Zu 475GB3UNm+fRK0Tmju1skiWzb5gB5QGgnIdyidhHM
-- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org "Unbridled nationalism, as distinguished from a sane and legitimate patriotism, must give way to a wider loyalty, to the love of humanity as a whole. Bah'u'llh's statement is: "The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens." The Promise of World Peace http://www.us.bahai.org/interactive/pdaFiles/pwp.htm