On Fri, 19 Dec 2003, Sunder wrote:

That all depends on your definition of sovereign. After all, "we" put, or at least helped, that monster into power. No different an action than we the many times before putting tyrants into control of small, but important nations under the guise of "protecting democracy."

<huge snip> Whether we put the mofo into power or not is not relevent: the "nation" is a sovereign, regardless of the current figurehead who purports to represent it. Note: I don't *think* that anyone here is arging that Saddam was a nice guy - we're all just arguing at cross purposes. Camp A (me) seems to be arguing from a meta [societal] position, while Camp J is arguing from a personal-dislike position. Neither camp is likely to deter the other, since our frames of reference can never intersect :-( -- 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