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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: GST who wrote (47936)9/30/2002 5:20:41 AM
From: D. Long  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
The assumption seems to be that a preemptive self defense policy inevitably has to be some all or nothing affair. Either we have to wait until we're pummeled, or we go around attacking everyone in sight. That is an unreasonable, and even possibly slanderous, assumption. It's a false alternative.

No one would argue that your mother would be justified in gunning down every black man she felt threatened by. But if a wild eyed man with his hand in his coat pocket like he had a gun came walking at her on the street, throwing curses and profanities at her... should she wait for him to pull a gun out of his pocket, or wait for him to shoot her, to establish that he may indeed be a threat that should be met with force? In the State of Texas, at least, not many courts would at that point hold her without cause for gunning him down.

Al Qaeda, and Saddam Hussein, are the "wild eyed men with the mysterious hand in their pockets" of the world. We waited for Al Qaeda to leave us bleeding in the gutter.

Pre-empting a threat presumes a threat to preempt. It doesn't mean we just go about inventing threats. It means reversing the policy of containment which lulled us into thinking that if we can just keep the threat "over there" it won't bother us.

Derek
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