Bell Curve The Law Talking Guy Raised by Republicans U.S. West
Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Iraqi Sovereignty

I am waiting for the President of the Navajo nation or the Cherokee to say to the new Iraqi regime, "Well, we're 'sovereign' too."

No country on earth uses the term "sovereignty" more loosely than the United States. States are sovereign. Tribes are sovereign. We're lucky that "sovereignty" is not applied to wildlife refuges or community college districts. In American jurisprudence, "sovereignty" really just means certain rights that were traditionally ascribed to sovereigns, but that is all. Perhaps the Bush legal team just does not understand what the rest of the world means by "sovereign" - not a mere legal fiction, but a real bundle of rights.

But the Navajo may have more advice to give yet. Come to think of it, are we planning to build a casino in Baghdad?

2 comments:

Alex said...

Yeah, we're going to put the casino where Abu Ghraib was. Didn't you watch Bush's speech the other night?

Dr. Strangelove said...

From Reuters UK: "The final political control (over foreign troops) remains with the Iraqi government. That's what the transfer of sovereignty means," Blair told reporters in London.

(Apparently, the Bush Administration has a different view of what the transfer of "sovereignty" means.)