I agree with Mr. Santander, in his question re- where to draw the line on 'freedom' as an impetus for destruction of a nation.  I ask you: Which nation  is comprised of citizens (though their visions of it may differ in scope) who are against freedom?  Who, really, is against freedom, even on the awfully abstract level the current president has procured as his cause?  (And, how are preemptive strikes emblematic of freedom, apart from the dangerous view of negative freedom, freedom from any restrictions whatsoever?)

However, I must differ on one account: Truth is far from a mere ideal.  It is, definitionally, reality.  Ask a dismembered Iraqi next week if he/she doesn't believe in the truth of it all.  Or, ask the citizens of Los Angeles if they did not see the footage of Rodney King as true. (Filmed footage, no less, bundled up with all of our film theory and typical anxieties about perspectivism and relativism of the image that we 'theorists' hold too closely to our collective vest.)  In fact, it had to be true, true to the law, lest those wrongly pardoned remain 'innocent.'  One of the dangers of truth is that when distilled by its witnesses through a desire for relativism, it can avail itself of ethical judgement.  This is the sort of mode(s) of truth that we shall become ever more familiar with in the coming weeks.  This is a crude characterization of 'truth,' y! es, but the truth is nothing if not crude.