If Germany had stayed within its borders we wouldn’t have had WWII in the first place.

And Kim, if Saddam had stayed within his borders in 1990 then the first Gulf War wouldn’t have happened. And if he had abided by the terms of the cease fire (not a treaty, but a cease fire) which ended that war, then he would have had claims of sovereignty.

Personally I think that disputes will not be able to be solved without war until mankind evolves to the point that sovereignty includes a definition of minimal human rights and decent governance; there should be a standard by which the international community can reckon with tyrants. For example, by your definition Hitler could have kept within his own borders and still exterminated all of the German Jews, and the international community would not have been able to act.

I know when you first came here I called you a neocon and you got offended so I took it back. But lately I’ve been wondering if I should reevaluate that decision, because you are really sounding like a Dutch neocon on speed, lol. Barry Goldwater would be horrified!

LOL! Guess you haven’t read Conscience of a Conservative yet huh?

And no you should not take your apology back since I am not a neoconservative. Seemingly, you believe that people who are more hawkish are automatically neocons. That’s simply not true. Do some research.

You might call me a hawk, which I am, but that’s not the same as a neocon.

Let’s not rehash the 2000 election again, ok? The opinion that the election was “stolen” is just that – opinion.

President’s cannot be impeached simply for ignoring the “will of the people” even if one assumes that low opinion poll ratings is the “will of the people” in this regard. They can, however, fail to get reelected, which is what our system is all about. Don’t worry, the next 18 months will go by quicker than you think.

Jason,

The issue of treaties is quite complex. I dug through my bookmarks and found this on the topic. Suffice it to say that an argument could be made either way and historically it has been.

And if presidents ignore the will of the people they can be impeached. Of course the present day congress doesn’t have the cojones for it.

Your view is loony toons man, and extremely dangerous for my country to be your personal proxy to do this btw. When you gotta pony up then you get to rattle the sabre, and untill then you are playing chess with my ass, not yours safely tucked away in a country without a target on it’s ass. Your country have people actively trying to harm your citizens with terrorist attacks lately?

I take the use of this country as the point of the sword while you are somewhere around the end of the hilt to be extremely full of “kill em all and let god sort em out” T-shirt kind of bravado you don’t have the gonads to do personally by enlisting in this army….which can be arranged as an immigrant now ya know? And you get citizenship for doing it as well!

So come on over, and join up to go off and fight in your calling Michael, Bush is waiting for a few more good men to send to Iraq-Afghanistan….heck maybe Iran who knows now? No more talking tough like the talk tough tag lines on that T-shirt man join today!

Entropy- parliamentary democracies don’t have mob rule. Votes of no confidence can force a pm to step down if there’s sufficient pressure. Tony Blair stepped down due to lack of public support recently.

Yes, and last time I checked, we don’t use the parliamentary system here, so Bush’s approval ratings are meaningless, just as Congress’ are. That’s what regularly scheduled elections are for.

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

But you’re right that treaty obligations are very much open to interpretation.

A very good minimal definition of democracy is “a system of government where parties lose elections”. This is a good definition because it serves to separate states with sham elections from states with genuine electoral contest. It is also good because it does not import policy preferences into the definition of “democracy” and thus allows a wide range within democracies. In short, it doesn’t reduce “democracy” into “governments we like”.

Both Iran and Turkey are democracies under this definition.

As far as my democracy comments- they might be a little out of date. Now we call countries like S.A , Jordan and Egypt- moderate Arab countries. We did play politics with democracies during the CW. Still even now, in the ME we were unable to accept the results of truly democratic elections in Palestine,or support the original PM in Iraq (forgot his name- the one before Maliki) and pressured for a change in regime.

Turkey is not a dictatorship or a democracy but it is autocratic.

Of course, there exists a great deal of disagreement about the meaning of many treaty obligations, so simply waving a treaty around rarely objectively resolves any argument about policy.

Please quote any US official who has called an autocratic country a “democracy.” Turkey is not a perfect democracy, but it is not an autocracy either.

If the neocons push Bush/Cheney to invade Iran, regardless of the consequences then they are indeed “crazies”.

Assuming Congress would authorize an invasion, which I think is rather unlikely. The Congress can also prevent the President from having the authority to bomb Iran, but so far has chosen not to. Your “crazy” neocons would have some work to do in Congress before “pushing” Bush to do anything.

Autocratic countries that buck the US = vicious dictatorships. Opposition forces in those countries are freedom fighters, who should be aided at all cost by the US. If those countries are invaded- well they had no respect for the rule of law in the first place.

The difference is between a true democracy and a representative democracy. In a true democracy, the President would be out of office the minute polling dropped below 50%. True democracy is subject to all the bad elements of mob rule, which is why successful democracies, like ours, are representative. That’s why there are elections every four years and not everyday.