POWs found and firefights; talk of giving up some Israeli settlements; marines working with Iraqi policemen. The closing in on Saddam's hometown and the slow and patient readjustment of the Middle East's direction. Maybe Wolfowitz and the others are right; maybe only by instilling a true democracy in the region can we cause true changes that will result in a more peaceful---in the long run---Middle East.

It's a gamble, but perhaps the bigger gamble is doing nothing in the long run....and letting ourselves be the targets of terrorists forever, fostered by nondemocracies that let loose a antiAmericanism and antiSemitism to keep themselves from being resented.

Have we hurt international law and the United Nations forever in the process?

Perhaps.

And perhaps it needs to be.

All the nations objecting to this war rant about how we are not respecting the individual sovreignty of nations, which must be inviolate. Putin said that, exactly. Chirac and my namesake Schroeder also talked about it...

But think about what that is saying.

We must excuse any abuse by any tyrant, as long as they don't cross national borders.

If Hitler had never invaded Poland, international law as it stands would have never tolerated us interfering with his internal affairs...

Even if the death camps were running, and he were gassing the Jews of Germany---as long as they were just the Jews of Germany, not of Poland or other countries.

Is that a tolerable thought?

It isn't for me....

Of course, if we instead disregard that stricture, then the US's record is horrible indeed;

We didn't interfere with South Africa's oppression of decades with the majority of its citizens; or North Korea's oppression , economically, of its citizens. Or any number of cruel and despotic regimes.

We can't claim human rights violations as an excuse to invade Iraq. We can only do it under two very marginal cases....

A follow-up to Iraq's clear invasion of other lands in the Gulf War, as not complying with the strictures imposed...

Or harboring organizations clearly out to get us by crossing international barriers, like Al-Qaeda.

The crumbling of the World Trade Centers also crumbled the idea that it is countries we must look out for....

But don't you find it...odd...that no matter how you claw your way to the top of a particular country...by military coup, or assasination, or what-have-you....that as far as the international community is concerned, you're a Prince of a Fellow...

Unless you cross a country's borders?

That Hitler or Nero might be the head of your country...but as long as you don't invade anyone else, you're fine.

There is something odd about that thought....

Something intolerable.

Will international law need to be rewritten?

Probably. Like all laws, it must change with the times, and reflect the reality around us.

Will there ever come a time when tyrants and despots will be held accountable for the actions to their own people, not just by their people...but by the international community at large?

I hope so.

Because as it stands, they have a free pass, to gloat like Idi Amin and do the worst atrocities...and if they can succeed in oppressing their people, and stay within their borders....no matter what.

It's like saying a man has a right to abuse his own family, as long as he doesn't abuse anyone else's.

That the Holocaust was okay....as long as it didn't pass international borders.

I have a lot of doubts about our current policy, but it doesn't dampen my contempt for that idea...

Here's to the evolution of international law.