Is it justified to make "pre-emptive" war on nations that may threaten us in the future?

(a question posed on msn's slate online magaizine. )

A very good question that could be very well directed at the current United States attack on Iraq.



Is it justified?

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Of course, pre-emptive attacks are not justified. If it were, I'd go around with an M16 and shoot everyone because they might shoot me. But of couse, that'd make me (and other Asians*) a terrorist. Also, attacking pre-emptively is sort of a paradox. If we have to attack Iraq first because they might attack us, doesn't that give Iraq a reason to attack us before we attack them as well? Since we already attacked Iraq, according to our rules, Iraq should've attacked us before we attacked them.

No offence to you, merc, but the question isn't very good. The answer should be completely obvious; pre-emptive attacks are no good. It just ceases to amaze me how ignorant these pro-war fucks are.

OT
It seems that only Americans, mostly white (suprise?), are pro-war. It seems to me that we might need a full out war on American soil to teach us stupid Americans how shitty war is, no matter how good the intentions are; war just plain sucks.

*If you're not white, you're a stereotype.

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Living under a dictatorship that murders its enemies, gasses its population to test its weapons, and uses rape and torture as punishment sucks too.

That's probably not the reason we went to war. (To free the Iraqis.)

Good outcome anyway. No more Saddam.


Preemptive War? Just call it war. Just say its for oil and on the side we're helping the civs. We don't want no terrorists spilling out from hea'. Trying to justify it by saying that they will attack us is stupid.

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The United States has a pretty good track record.. From the first world war up until the Yugoslavian conflict, the United States never initated a conflict, yet entered into a war because it felt the world's collective security was in danger. While mistakes have been made to what areas actually endangered collective security (i.e. the line in Southeast asia could have been through Malaya, not Vietnam), nonetheless the United States never entered a war out of selfish territorial/commercial gains.

Along that same vein, the recent conflicts and Afghanistan would never have happened if it weren't for 9/11. For the majority of American voters, that WAS the pre-emptive attack.. As such, nobody nowhere no how complained that Enduring Freedom was 'pre-emptive.' What did Afghanistan do to us? What did Iraq do to us? The issue isn't aggressive action against nation-states, it's action against those who willingly seek to disrupt the current world order. The Taliban willingly gave harbor to Al-Qaeda, while Saddam Hussein has a notorious history of offenses, any of which make him a perfect target for American aggression.

For me, the 'blood for oil' argument seems archaic and pedantic. The United States 'buys' a good chunk of Iraq's oil output, all of which can be easily replaced by either domestic (I do NOT include Alaska wildlife refuges) or international sources. At the same time, I don't think that the United States entered into this conflict to uphold UN resolutions passed a decade ago, especially when it chose to foregoe any current UN support.

I, for one, do not support entering into a pre-emptive strike. Unfortunately, 'diplomacy,' as a blanket term, has a very, very poor record of dealing with aggressive despots. The carnage would not have ended with Saddam, nor could it have been amerliorated in an acceptable time frame using non-aggressive tactics. Those fighting a gorilla (yes I know that's not the right word) war will prevail as long as they don't suffer a loss, and Al-Qaeda will be unbeatable as long as it has the opportunity (whether it be state-endorsed or due to the lax ability of a state to enforce its authority, such as Iraq) to establish power bases.

The war has been waged. I therefore ask, what should we do now?

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