Pre-Emptive Self Defense

"Are you saying we had no Islamic enemies before George Bush ? Are you going to tell me that there was no Jihad, or Fatwa against the U.S. before George Bush ?"

As previously explained, Saddam Hussein is an atheist and his Baathist regime was secular. They have nothing to do with Islam. Saddam and the Baathists waged war on Islamic militants for decades.

Please explain how removing the Middle East's only secular/atheist regime is going to COMBAT Islamic militants. Removing Saddam has greatly HELPED the Islamic militants.

"What about the U.S.S. Cole ? That wasn't an attack on our sailors ?"

There's not one shred of credible evidence to link Saddam/Iraq with the USS Cole attack, which occurred in the port of Aden, in Yemen.

Virtually all of the available evidence points to Bin Laden, who is a sworn enemy of Saddam/Iraq. Please explain how invading a country that has been shown to have NOTHING to do with the Cole attack, is going to prevent similar future attacks.

"What about the Iranian hostage crisis, that happened while a pacifist Democrat was in office ?"

The militant Islamic regime in Iran is a sworn enemy of Saddam/Iraq. Please explain how invading their sworn enemy is going to help fight them.

"Who was it that said you don't wait for a howling rattlesnake to strike before you chop it's head off ? Was he a democrat, republican ?"

You're obviously one of those many individuals who doesn't realize there's not a dime's worth of difference between the Republicrats and Demopublicans at the national leadership level.

And what do your questions have to do with the fact that removing a secular regime to combat Islamic militants, makes about as much sense as killing police officers in order to fight crime.

"Who was it that nuked Japan, democrat or republican ?"

Your question is irrelevant to the current line of discussion.

"Who escalated the war in Vietnam, democrat, or republican ?"

Please see my previous sentence.

 

The beautiful thing is... I don't have to. Sadaam hated the U.S., militant Islam hates the U.S., somebody killed sailors on the Cole, somebody knocked our buildings down and killed American civilians. I don't have a problem with what is happenning, on the contrary, I like what is happenning. Two terrorist nations brought down so far, and I hope they keep it up. You have a right to speak out against the war, I have a right to support it. The difference is, I don't assume you're stupid for disagreeing, rather, I would grab a gun and kill for your right to do so. Would you do the same for me ?

 

I'm laughing with you, not at you.

 

I am encouraged by this thread.

It is good to see that others question the rightness and the wisdom of our invasion of Iraq.

I wish more people would realize that the operation against Iraq is not rightly part of our war on terror.

Afghanistan (?sp) I think was justified as lives of our citizens had been lost and as an internation terrorist was basically condoned within national borders. If you can really call Afghanistan as it existed before 9/11 a "nation." It looks more like a chaotic set of warlordocracies. (I know that's not a word.)

If a nation harbored and condoned pirates which attacked on the high seas...I think that nation could legitimately be invaded and its government replaced by a democracy. I find terrorism to be similar to this situation. But it's only similar if the nation knows about and condones the practices.

Terrorists can be much more insidious. And if there are no terrorist training camps in your country which are obvious to anyone, how are you to find all the terrorists within your borders? I don't yet think terrorism has reached the stage that it is justifiable to invade nations which do not condone terrorism but don't have enough police resources to effectively track down most of the terrorists within their borders. I'm not even sure the US was able to do that before 9/11, and we are one of the richest nations on earth.

I do think Iraq sponsored terrorism, though. Against Israel, not against the US. Wasn't Saddam the one offering 20K plus to the families of those who died in suicide bombings?

 

According to what doctrine? Bush doctrine? Not Jesus's doctrine. Please explain.

I see nothing in Scripture that would prevent a governmnet from attacking another. In the case of Iraq the oppressed were helped, and that is an honorable and righteous thing to do.

In His love,
al soto

 

In bringing this back up to the top since December 2003, the last post; have any of the opinions changed?

What I see now is that we are fighting the same Kurds that Saddam Hussein was fighting when he was in control. Isn't it interesting that they are now rebelling against us and we are having to kill them. The only difference, Saddam used poison gas, we're using smart-bombs.

Still to date, no weapons of mass distruction whatsoever. What if Saddam has the last laugh in that he did not build weapons of mass destruction after the first gulf war.

Personally, I think President Bush had a vindeta against Saddam for trying to kill his father. The first question you have to ask is, did Saddam have a right to attempt to kill George Bush Senior. As Americans, we say no, but if we were attacked, as a country and the president of the big superpower tried to get you thrown out of office, my guess is that you might consider doing the same thing.

The war is far from being over and Iraq is still not a free nation. We still haven't even found the leader of the 911 attack bin Laden.

We must go back and ask---does America have the right to overthrow a government we do not like? If this is the case, why do we not worry about governments in Africa who kill thousands of civilians---the reason, there is no oil in those countries.

France did not want to join us in the war because they had a contract to buy oil at a reasonable rate from Iraq. By invading Iraq, we essentially broke that contract, costing France millions---and then we get mad because our allies do not want to support us in the war?

Everything has two sides.

If Britain won the war of independence in the United States we would today be bad mouthing those rebels who fought against the Mother Land. Since the Rebels won, we Americans were in the right. If the Spanish won the Spanish-American war, we would be speaking spanish and talking about how bad those American rebels were. History always seems to vindicate the side that wins. I'm not sure we are winning in Iraq.

 

Phillip, I think you're right about the vendetta.

Initially, the notion of pre-emptive self-defense as a doctrine was explained by analogy to the Six Day War.

I have since found some information that a few of you may not know about the Six Day War. This is taken from what was once on what appears to me to be the Israeli Defense Force's website:

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:TYwrBUiDm_EJ:www.idf.il/english/history/sixday.stm+Six+Day+War&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

According to this site, there was a massive buildup of troops on Israels borders and a blockade of Israel's shipping. The Egyptian government had even required UN peacekeepers to leave their posts separating Israel and Egypt. In this situation, with the numbers of forces faced by Israel, the threat seems to me to have been both dire and imminent. This is the sort of thing that justifies a decisive pre-emptive strike. But it does not really in my opinion describe the relationship of Iraq to the US prior to the Iraq invasion of 2003.

In short, I think Bush II's doctrine of pre-emptive self defense goes far beyond what Israel must claim to justify its actions in the Six Day War.

 

Interesting post. I agree.
Another interesting note that is not well known about the Israeli situation is the Yom Kippur war. Israel was apparently feeling good about their six-day win and they got sloppy. The war turned against them and it looked as if they were going to loose on two fronts (Egyptian and Golan Heights). Israel loaded planes with some of their tactical nukes (out of a quantity of 70 that they really don't have ) President Nixon used the "hotline" to talk to Bresnev for the first time since the early 60's. (It was a telegraph machine, not a phone) Bresnev agreed to move their tactical nukes guarding the Aswan dam up to the border of Israel. Then Bresnev and Nixon called Israel and told them that they had a stand-off and should not use their weapons, but the US would try to help them from losing the war (although help wasn't coming soon). Fortunately, the tide turned for Israel in the South first and then on the Golan Heights. Israel stood down their nukes and the USSR moved its tactical nukes (under USSR control) back into Egypt.

This was the closest time the Middle East came to outright nuclear war. It could have spread worldwide, but Nixon was working hard with Russia to keep this from happening.

 

What ever gave you that idea? Most of us tote Swords, LOL.

I'm with you, Bro. Curtis!

The thing that doesn't make sense for me is for our President to keep calling Islam a peaceful religion. And, BTW, the Barbary pirates were Muslims. There is nothing new under the sun.

Source

 

Lady Eagle,

Did we during the actions agains the Barbary Pirates attack nations from which the Barbary Pirates *were not* attacking us? There don't appear to be any recent attacks on the US (pre-invasion) which originated from Iraq.

 

Hi, Calvin, from the link:

Your take on the Iraq situation is somewhat correct. They did not directly attack us, though some believe there is an Iraqi connection with the OKC bombing. But Saddam was sending a lot of money ($25,000 US each) to the families of homicide bombers in Israel which, as you know, is the called "little satan" and we are called "big satan." Whenever you see mad frenzied crowds in news clips burning flags, it is usually the Israeli flag and US flag going up in flames, the two together, one and the same.

 

What ever gave you that idea? Most of us tote Swords, LOL.

I'm with you, Bro. Curtis!

The thing that doesn't make sense for me is for our President to keep calling Islam a peaceful religion. [/URL] </font>[/QUOTE]Actually, remember when Peter used his sword to cut the ear off of the guard. Peter was "packin' heat". ...and he was not doing it to kill lions in down-town Jerusalem.

The second thing about Islam is the President's way of trying to allow the peaceful factions of Islam (the less radical) to step forward and claim the right that many are actually peaceful; especially the least fundamentalists. This is his way of keeping a coalition together among the Arab countries without attacking Islam as a whole. Although, this is walking a thin line, it is strictly a political maneuver to maintain our Arab allies, such a Jordan and other less agressive countries.

 

Lady Eagle,

First of all, it's a bit different to send money to the family of a terrorist after the fact than it is to fund terrorism before the fact. If someone believes that the uprising in Israel is a war (and I for one don't but I understand that some Arabs do), then this would in some way be the equivalent of the death benefit received by widows of US soldiers killed in time of war. I don't see it that way. But folks in the Arab world might. Providing a death benefit promotes terrorism if at all only in an indirect, after-the-fact way. It isn't equivalent to planning terrorist operations and providing the bombs that suicide bombers strap to their bodies.

Second, an indirect, after-the-fact attack on Israel isn't something that the US should regard as an attack on the US. It certainly doesn't rise to the level of invasion and occupation of another nation. Moreover, any right of self-defense or right to act in reprisal for this action is Israel's. And last I checked Israel seemed perfectly capable of vindicating itself against Iraq whenever it chose. Israel has not asked the US to act in its defense (for the payments) by attacking Iraq in this way. To my knowledge, Bush II never used Iraq's payments as part of his list of justifications for pre-emptive action against Iraq (at least not routinely) before the war. (Might anger the Arabs, you know. I think he routinely called Islam a "Great Religion" instead.) I don't think in this circumstance it is reasonable to claim "Defense of Others" in a post hoc way as moral justification for the invasion of Iraq.

 

America is very powerful economically and in
fire power,

May I ask what are you afraid of.....
Why are you so afraid ......

 

Sez you.

"Look daisy" Open your own eyes, curtis.

"it is obvious you know nothing about history,"
it's obvious you've drawn conclusions that either I have not or that I outright reject as false and unwarranted.

"and I don't want to waste time here,"

"other minds greater than mine are fully in support of this war,"
and others far greater than yours do not - so what?

"and think dubya is one of the more honorable men we have had in the White House in a long time."
Which great mind specifically thinks that? And is that a high standard by which to judge anyone?

You would have no problem with sanctions first, except that you do have problems with them? Well, there's some mighty fine logic!

The good that has done in the past was that there was relative peace and stability in the region compared to post Bush's invasion.

Which countries? Who in these countries - some radicals, the government itself, opponents of the government? All you "know" may not be real.

"Why wait" Because Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and it's wrong to attack & invade solely because a country's majority population happens to be Moslem.

My mind isn't set; it's open to evidence.

 

Okay, let's do this scenario. Suppose we learned from intelligence that North Korea was planning to launch a nuclear attack on the U.S., say Hawaii. (This is a scenario.)

Should the US do a pre-emptive strike? Or wait & see what happens?

Or, should the US done a pre-emptive strike on the training camps in Afghanistan instead of waiting for 09/11 to occur. We knew for years OBL was planning to hit us in this country and he had been hitting our interests outside the country. Wouldn't it have been better to pre-emptively strike Afghanistan and drive out OBL and the Taliban instead of waiting for the horror of 09/11?

 

That depends on what stage the planning is in. If they have the missles armed and ready to launch in 45 mins., then we'd better do something fast, such as take out their missle sites.

Don't forget that much of their training took place here, in the US. Should we bomb our own flight schools?