It's equally interesting that many of the same people who mightily decry "moral relativism" use the very relativistic reasoning they rail against when judging our country's behavior on the world stage.

Present company always excepted...

Saddam's ethics, or lack thereof, are not germane to the question as I posed it. The matter at hand is not 'situational' - it goes to the root of what America says it stands for vs what it does. I find a strong resemblance to the debate on capital punishment.

Insofar as the actions of the current administration, on behalf of all of us, are very much like disciplining recalcitrant children, the ethical dilemma is the very same one encounters in parenting; to wit - Which is the better course: teaching by example, or "Do as I say, not as I do"? [While you're at it, compare your ruminations to those on the question of 'pot-smoking parents' elsewhere on this page.]

Fox