Pre-emptive strike could endanger U.S. security
BY MARK DAYTON
Guest Columnist
The St. Paul Pioneer Press
Posted on Fri, Feb. 14, 2003
twincities.com
During the last week, our country has been placed on the second highest level of national security alert. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I met for three hours on Wednesday with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, and other high-level intelligence officials.
Sen. Norm Coleman and I were among a group of senators who met with Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge on Thursday. These administration officials affirmed that the publicly stated reasons for the heightened alert status are based on very serious forewarnings. At another Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that we are in "the most dangerous security environment the world has ever known."
I hasten to add that, while nothing is inconceivable, Minnesota is one of the most unlikely sites for a terrorist attack. In the aftermath of 9/11, many Minnesotans commented to me that their distance from both coasts was one of the features they liked most about living in our state. Nevertheless, all Americans would somehow be affected, if attacks within our borders were to occur again.
Current events, while different in content, are similar in context to the threats our country has faced for the last 55 years. Both Republican and Democratic presidents have regularly confronted dangerous dictators in other countries hostile to the United States, who also possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Those presidents successfully protected us, our country and our world through skillful diplomacy, including international treaties and alliances; effective containment, including arms control agreements; and continuous surveillance, backed by unsurpassed military strength.
Their strategies were based upon the realization that those other nations had the military capabilities to inflict serious damage upon our country. They, too, possessed weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, which could wreak death and destruction upon our country, in retaliation to an attack on their countries. They also knew that the United States would inflict overwhelming destruction upon them, if they attacked us.
For half a century, that "mutually assured destruction" constrained leaders' options and contained nations' actions. Strangely, it helped preserve peace, because leaders and citizens knew that war would likely result in terrible destruction for the winners as well as the losers.
In recent months, however, the actions of the Bush administration have been very different from their predecessors' responses. This president has amassed a large military force next to Iraq. He has been preparing to do what no American president has done before: start a war.
There is no question that the United States would win a war against Iraq. However, there are many unanswered questions. How long would a military victory take, and how costly would it be? How many American soldiers would die, be maimed for life or suffer other injuries? How long and costly would occupying and rebuilding Iraq be? What would the war cost our relationships with other countries and our standing in the world?
What attacks would occur against our citizens, cities and country in retaliation by Iraq, al-Qaida or other terrorist organizations? How many deaths and how much destruction would they cause? What damage would they cause to our economy, our society, and our lives?
Would the military victory be worth those costs? Or would it be, as Winston Churchill said about World War I, that "the price of victory was so high as to be indistinguishable from the cost of defeat"?
Finally, what would be the future consequences of the United States, the world's most powerful nation, launching a pre-emptive attack against another country and eliminating its leader, because of what they might do to us in the future? We lead by our example. The proliferation of nuclear weapons, about which we are rightfully alarmed, shows how our own national security can be endangered when other countries follow down a path we have taken.
The ethical philosopher Immanuel Kant set forth "one categorical imperative" to guide fateful decisions. He said to act only in a way that you want to become a universal law.
By that maxim, this difficult decision should be clear. Previous presidents acted wisely to prevent wars and to not start them. They were right to renounce pre-emptive military attacks, yet also to assure our enemies that we would defend ourselves mightily and retaliate overwhelmingly against provocations. They were wise to build international alliances and working partnerships, rather than act unilaterally and demand acquiescence. Our leaders need their wisdom now.
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Mark Dayton, a Democrat, is the senior U.S. senator from Minnesota and a member of the Armed Services Committee. |
