Hi all; America's "Sucker punch" strategy, Pat Buchanan:
America's new "sucker punch" strategy
Pat Buchanan, September "25", 2002
Inherent in the Natural Law right of self-defense is the right to strike first if one's life is in peril. If a criminal demands your money at gunpoint, you have no moral obligation to inquire if he also intends to kill you before shooting him.
People have an innate sense of this right. ...
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What, then, is wrong with the White House strategy paper that asserts a right to launch pre-emptive wars against rogue regimes to keep them from acquiring weapons of mass destruction?
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America has never been a sucker-punch nation. ...
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Pre-emptive strikes have been the way of war for nations like Japan ...
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But why would a near-invincible nation like ours embrace a sucker-punch strategy? Through history, few nations (perhaps Mexico in 1846) wanted war with America. In 1812, the Brits had their hands full with Napoleon. The South did not want to fight Lincoln's Union, only to leave it. Spain was desperate to avoid war with America in 1898. Neither the Kaiser nor Hitler wished to fight the United States. Both sought to avoid any clashes at sea. Japan only lashed out in desperation. Saddam thought he had a green light to invade Kuwait.
While al-Qaida terrorists who have nothing to lose will attack and kill Americans at will, and must be run down and eradicated, a nation that attacks America courts its own annihilation. Why would any nation do it?
To justify a pre-emptive war, two conditions should first be met. The threat should be imminent and grave, and other avenues should have been exhausted. Have these conditions been met with Iraq? To be honest, no. Not only has Saddam neither threatened us nor attacked us – though we smashed his country, decimated his army and tried to kill him – there is no evidence he even plans an attack.
By broadcasting to the world this new imperial doctrine – i.e., we will allow no nation to acquire the power we possess, and we reserve the right to strike hostile nations that build the kind of weapons we possess – President Bush has drawn a line in the sand for every anti-American regime on earth and dared them to cross it. Either he is bluffing, or we are headed for endless confrontations and constant wars.
wnd.com
-- Carl |
