But, but, but...It's got to be true. Condi signed the note.

Are we sure Condi signed it? Or did Dick sign it for George before home room so he could go on the field trip?

Hey what are you going to do if Kerry actually wins and suddenly your preferred candidate is expected to do something about Iraq?????

We'll probably do what you Republicans did when you inherited Vietnam from us.

"Sovereignty is like virginity- you either have it or you don't. Having 150,000 US Troops stationed in your country charged with keeping the peace makes you a client state of ours."

It's rather simplistic to argue to sovereignty is a black or white attribute, when gray areas obviously exist. If the US has one soldier "keeping the peace", is Iraq still a client state of the US? What's the cutoff point where Iraq instantly goes from a client state to a sovereign country?

And I'm guessing that other states with high levels of US troops stationed there, such as Japan, Germany, and South Korea, maintain their sovereignty because the troops are not actually "keeping the peace"? How do you define "keeping the peace"? If Japan is only allowed to maintain a self-defense force, are they sovereign or not? What about other states, like Taiwan, that rely on US security guarantees for their defense but that don't have physical US bases on their soil?

Even the United States, global hegemon though it may be, has to bow to WTO rulings, and (theoretically at least) UN security council resolutions. Are you suggesting that the US should ignore the authority of these bodies because it is sovereign?

And there are other ways besides troop deployment for states to cede power to other states, such as foreign aid.

"Aid appears to have established as a priority the importance of influencing domestic policy in the recipient countries." - Benjamin F. Nelson, International Affairs Budget: Framework for Assessing Relevance, Priority and Efficiency, (Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, October 30, 1997)

Another problem is that virginity itself isn't exactly black and white if you think of ambiguous circumstances.

In short, don't let your rabid partisanship weaken your analysis.

Chris-

Perhaps for you virginity is a "gray area" but for most of us it is pretty simple. I suppose that for men there is some question as to what constitutes a loss of such but for our counterparts of the fairer sex, that distinction is a bit more concrete.

Furthermore, I think you could ask Byron, Karl-Thomas or Jim and they would all tell you that I am the least "rabidly partisan" of this whole bunch. I am pro-Social Security reform (including partial privatization), pro-free trade, pro-military (thought I believe Iraq was a mistake) with the added bonus of being pro-Missile Defense Program and a pretty insufferable deficit hawk. I get chided at work and elsewhere for being considerably more conservative than your run-of-the-mill Austin Democrat and so I take your words not in offense but in humor at your raging ignorance.

But to move on, sovereignty is pretty complex but the saying isn't mine- it belongs to an international relations professor my good friend recently quoted to me. I suppose that when the only security provided for your people is provided by another country that would be a pretty good test of sovereignty. Yes, we have many troops in Japan, Germany and elsewhere. But if tomorrow we pulled out all of our troops in Japan or Germany those countries would not likely collapse in a manner of weeks- Iraq almost certainly would. Furthermore, we don't have soldiers standing on virtually every streetcorner running the day to day lives of people in those countries- our soliders in Iraq do. Your drawing such a parallel is weak and no analagous relationship really exists.

Moving on, your example of Taiwan (another could be South Korea until recently) suggests that Taiwan isn't terribly sovereign and that is a source of much consternation over there.

Also, your paranthetical quip about the theoretical nature of US adherence to international strictures proves my point exactly. The US has the power and the independence to tell everyone else- including coalitions of pretty much the entire world- to go get bent. The US is truly sovereign but a country, such as Iraq, that can't even sneeze without the US Army catching a cold isn't.

So to conclude- virginity is a black and white (sorry to spoil your hopes on that one), Japan and Germany are in face sovereign because they do not require the US military to continue their existence while Iraq most certainly isn't because they do and the US is most certainly sovereign because it has the clout to make decisions without anyone's approval. Any further questions?

Sovereignty is like virginity- you either have it or you don't.

Actually, there is such a thing as "limited sovereignty" - each state of the Union enjoys such a thing. But your larger point is dead-on. Iraq is no more "sovereign" now than they were on June 27.

Good idea, since terrorists were surely planning on spoiling the photo op....

Avoid the Bushite linguistic trap of referring to the resistance as "terrorists." There is a difference. There are terrorists in Iraq (now, thanks to our invasion), but applying the term to the entire resistance is a Bushite sleight-of-hand designed to imply that the resistance is neither legitimate nor supported by the Iraqi people - both false.

I think of the Iraqi sovereignty as being more like a Bar Mitzvah . . . we say to the Iraqi government "today you are a man," though they will still live under our roof with our rules for the next eight years.

All I could think of was the scene in Blazing Saddles where the town welcomes the new Sherrif and the preacher says, "Son, you're on your own." And then gets the hell off the stage.

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