preemptive war and why no one anwered these questions

[Fern]

Originally posted by: DerekWilson

Originally posted by: Fern
Iraq is now fact, and no WMD were found. If they were found, would that change your mind about the justification for preemptive/preventative war?

is it not clear from my previous posts that my answer would be no?

Yes, I thought it was, but I wanted to be sure. I think if Iraq had WMD few would have objected to invading them (probably still complain about how the *rebuilding part was executed- but that's another matter).

Also, I think most if asked now would have approved of a preemptive attack on Afganistan if it would have resulted in the prevention of 911.

Philosophically - what is the definition of "aggression" that you require before acting?

You seem to imply that it requires actual action. Is not conspiracy to commit murder a crime under our laws? Does the planning and intent itself constitute "aggression"?

I would find it hard to object to a preemptive attack, and instead call for waiting until something catastrphic happened (such as in my hypothetical about Fernistan).

even when the UN has made resolutions to try and ascertain the status of WMD programs and to eliminate the same, not even the UN supported the idea of an attack to enforce this resolution.

Just my opiniom, but I don't forsee the U.N. in this modern era ever approving of or advocating war.

In terms of preventing nuclear non-proliferation, the U.N. is fairly ineffective. E.g., Iran ceased cooperating and kicked them out in 2006 (in spite of many here who claim that the IAEA is "up their butts"). Iran's current position is that it will only comply with the old nuclear treaty (forgetting the name ATM). Under that treaty, inspections when and/or where are very limited, and *surprise inspections* are not allowed at all.

I think decisions are far easier, and more clearly seen with hindsight. They are far more difficult when pressure is applied and perfect info not available.

another reason not to allow anything but a response to aggression (and a congressional declaration) to initiate war.

And if something devastating happens that, with hindsight, looks like it should of been handled with preemptive war, the failure to use that option will will cause a huge outcry and the other polical party will use their willingness to consider it as a policy platform to win the next election cycle. I predict we come circle after another 911 type event.

I ask that you indulge me a hypothetical, make a decision and explain it in the context of your current position against preemptive/preventative war.

okay

Let's say there is an aggressive terrorist-supporting regime in the ME. We'll call it Fernistan.
-snip-

I'll answer this in a second ... but first ...

If you always stick with #2, odds say you will eventually attack a nation that was bluffing - i.e., didn't really have the WMD (e.g., Iraq). However, I would say your diplomatic hand is strengthend. You will not be perceived as bluffing, and this could be a great deterent.

Iraq was actually not bluffing when it said emphatically that it did NOT have WMDs. I was refering to the US bluffing. Saddam did not think we would actually invade until too late. To chalk this up to a bad response to a bluff is really giving our government more credit than it deserves. War is also not diplomatic but the complete breakdown and failure of diplomacy.

It is better to deter people with a strong national defense -- not to let them know that we'll fuck them up if they step out of line, but that no matter how hard they try an attack on our soil would not succeed and our response would be the utter destruction of their nation. Isn't this more logical? isn't that more justifiable? isn't that easier to implement with less loss of life?

That level of national security is not possible IMO. Particularly in an environment of a *free society* with "civil rights" etc. Even more totalitarian type like Russia have not been able to prevent terrorist attacks on it's soil.

Many military buffs here claim the missle defense shield won't work. So, if somebody has nukes and a delivery system, we're exposed.

Then there's shiping containers, ships themselves, airplanes, suitcases - all with nukes. We can't stop & inspect everything; and we can't seal our borders.
...

okay so ... as for Fernistan ...

#3 ... something else ...

I pull all my foreign aid to all other countries -snip-

I bring home all US soldiers from all bases outside the US and employ them to secure our borders -snip-

I open diplomatic relations with all governments of all nations, I lift all trade restrictions and embargoes and withdraw from the UN, NATO, and the WTO and I end NAFTA and all other "free trade" agreements that really aren't. -snip-

I relax travel restrictions while requiring payment for tax funded services for all foreign nationals or illegal immigrants. I enforce immigration laws -snip-

I endorse a strong position of non-interventionism with no entangling alliances -snip-

encourage private organizations and religious groups to take on the task of helping the needy around the world -snip-

-snip- engaging military and private resources to properly respond to attacks by non-government entities that engage us in guerilla warfare tactics.

Yep, sounds like RP; and I have no objection to following this. It's *Founding Father* like and I myself have argued for that elsewhere.

BUT, theoretically this is more a policy to prevent antagonizing others from being motivated to plan against us and/or attack us. While if successful, it doesn't address what to do when confronted by a foe who may be planning to attack us - when the preemtive war option comes into consideration.

Try as hard as we might, we ultimately cannot control others. We may *lay low* and not antagonize them, but ultimately we cannot control them or their idiology. In other words, *disengagement* is limited in it's effectiveness to prevent the type of situations where preemptive war might be considered an option.

Edit: To clarify: RP's policies and the concept of preemptive war are not mutualy exclusive, they are complimentary. While his type policy may reduce animosity towards us, and limit the need to consider preemptive war, it cannot wholey prevent it.


... ...

you know what ... just read Ron Paul's "A Foreign Policy of Freedom" and that'll about sum it up for you

But basically -- no, preemptive/preventative war should never be an option. ever. period.

Preemptive war by definition is a defensive policy. Accordingly, I don't think it should ever be completely taken off the table and removed from consideration.

But we also need to take our national security seriously and not disregard the safety of our own people in order to push our agenda on the rest of the world.

See bolded, and:

In terms of the *Big Picture* I think the whole Iraq thing has unfairly given the concept of preemptive war a bad rap.

Like the aftermath of 911 clouded our jugdement and led to Iraq, the aftermath of Iraq may cloud our view of preemptive war.

There were a number of reasons to lay the smack-down on Saddam, too bad the Adinisration choose the WMD as *THE* reason. I suspect if all the other negative factors (attacking Kuwait, breaking the Gulf War treaty, shooting at US airplanes and gassing the Kurds etc) unique to Saddam were removed suspected WMD alone would not have precipitated a preemptive war. I note no preemptive war directed at North Korea or Iran.

Basically, I'm saying it's a mighty tough call and I don't think absolutes work well. I wouldn't dump the whole concept of preemptive war just because this one was bungled.

Fern

 

[wwswimming]

Originally posted by: DerekWilson

Originally posted by: wwswimming

Originally posted by: DerekWilson
if someone called it like it was before hand -- preemtive war -- I would have been PISSED and got off my ass to do something about it.

but what ?

millions of people have written letters opposing the war;
millions have taken to the streets.

no apparent effect.

getting involved in the republican party (the dems may have vocally opposed the war but haven't done much to stop it -- changing the direction of the party that vocally supports the war is imperative), getting involved in the republican liberty caucus, blogging, networking, supporting candidates that oppose the war and oppose an interventionist foreign policy in general, and preparing to run for congress (possibly by going back to school to earn degrees in history and political science).

since i pulled my head out of the sand, I have begun to do all of these things.

i can support that.

i thought this editorial by Justin Raimondo seemed related.

entitled, "Reclaiming the American Right"

"In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, former secretary of state Alexander Haig averred that the Iraq war, which he judges to have been a disaster, was "driven by the so-called neocons that hijacked my party, the Republican Party." Blitzer demanded that he "name names," because " a lot of our viewers hear the word 'neocon' and they don't know what you're talking about."

 

[OrByte]

And further related to the blunder in Iraq. Another Congressional Report comes out stating AGAIN that the Bush Administration pitched for a war with Iraq under false premises....ie lies.

Those dissenting republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee claim it was the intelligence that was "faulty"

The report clearly states that some of the assertions that the Bush Administration made during the build-up for the war were "wrong and unsupported by the intelligence." To me that means that the assertions made were contradictory to the intelligence on hand....meaning that the intel was either cherry-picked or ignored in some cases. So you can't blame the intelligence for the claims made by the Administration...can you?

SO was it faulty intell or lies? Why can't we find out? dont we owe it to our future generations to understand the right things and wrong things that occurred in the run up to war? an ELECTIVE war??

Read below:

article

Bush misused Iraq intelligence: Senate report By Randall Mikkelsen
Thu Jun 5, 1:23 PM ET



President George W. Bush and his top policymakers misstated Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism and ignored doubts among intelligence agencies about Iraq's arms programs as they made a case for war, the Senate intelligence committee reported on Thursday.

The report shows an administration that "led the nation to war on false premises," said the committee's Democratic Chairman, Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia. Several Republicans on the committee protested its findings as a "partisan exercise."

The committee studied major speeches by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials in advance of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and compared key assertions with intelligence available at the time.

Statements that Iraq had a partnership with al Qaeda were wrong and unsupported by intelligence, the report said.

It said that Bush's and Cheney's assertions that Saddam was prepared to arm terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction for attacks on the United States contradicted available intelligence.

Such assertions had a strong resonance with a U.S. public, still reeling after al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Polls showed that many Americans believed Iraq played a role in the attacks, even long after Bush acknowledged in September 2003 that there was no evidence Saddam was involved.

The report also said administration prewar statements on Iraq's weapons programs were backed up in most cases by available U.S. intelligence, but officials failed to reflect internal debate over those findings, which proved wrong.

PUBLIC CAMPAIGN

The long-delayed Senate study supported previous reports and findings that the administration's main cases for war -- that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was spreading them to terrorists -- were inaccurate and deeply flawed.

"The president and his advisors undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the (September 11) attacks to use the war against al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein," Rockefeller said in written commentary on the report.

"Representing to the American people that the two had an operational partnership and posed a single, indistinguishable threat was fundamentally misleading and led the nation to war on false premises."

A statement to Congress by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the Iraqi government hid weapons of mass destruction in facilities underground was not backed up by intelligence information, the report said. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said Rumsfeld's comments should be investigated further, but he stopped short of urging a criminal probe.

The committee voted 10-5 to approve the report, with two Republican lawmakers supporting it. Sen. Christopher Bond of Missouri and three other Republican panel members denounced the study in an attached dissent.

"The committee finds itself once again consumed with political gamesmanship," the Republicans said. The effort to produce the report "has indeed resulted in a partisan exercise." They said, however, that the report demonstrated that Bush administration statements were backed by intelligence and "it was the intelligence that was faulty."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said: "We had the intelligence that we had, fully vetted, but it was wrong. We certainly regret that and we've taken measures to fix it."

PUBLIC SUPPORT

U.S. public opinion on the war, supportive at first, has soured, contributing to a dive in Bush's popularity.

The conflict is likely to be a key issue in the November presidential election between Republican John McCain, who supports the war, and Democrat Barack Obama, who opposed the war from the start and says he would aim to pull U.S. troops out within 16 months of taking office in January 2009.

Rockefeller has announced his support for Obama.

The administration's record in making its case for Iraq has also been cited by critics of Bush's get-tough policy on Iran. They accuse Bush of overstating the potential threat of Iran's nuclear program in order to justify the possible use of force.

A second report by the committee faulted the administration's handling of December 2001 Rome meetings between defense officials and Iranian informants, which dealt with the Iran issue. It said department officials failed to share intelligence from the meeting, which Rockefeller said demonstrated a "fundamental disdain" for other intelligence agencies.

(Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan, Donna Smith)

(Editing by Frances Kerry)