Unfortunately, those driven by fear, hatred and power don’t care about truth or logic. They are driven by their emotions and view those opposed as traitors.

They wouldn’t listen when veterans (like me) stood up and opposed the war. They wouldn’t listen when flag officers stood up and called for a withdrawal.

They aren’t going to listen now. They don’t care.

Of course, I’m a little jaded and cynical these days…

The problem with preemption is that it’s a guess. Sometimes people get it wrong. But one of the roles of a government is to protect its own citizens–and usually to value its own citizens most highly–so I’m unwilling to believe that preemption is never acceptable.

The problem with preemption is that if Iraq had had WMD, it would have been perfectly entitled to use them against the United States - under the preemption theory. Similarly, NK could legitimately attempt a first strike at US assets.

Premption is legitimate when someone is preparing to attack you, and you know who it is, where they are, and what they are doing. Anything else is a bunch of cowboys shooting up the town.

You may not have to imagine it for long. As you, of course, know, the NK probably do have nukes and have apparently discussed selling them to, among others, Iran. Perhaps if the US hadn’t been so busy pursuing non-existent WMD in Iraq, it might have been able to prevent this. Or not. Beloved Leader’s craziness aside, NK had strong incentive to seek nuclear weapons. What else could they do to protect themselves? Truthfully, if I were the leader, democratic or dictatorial, of a small third world country, I’d do everything I could to get my hands on a nuke or two, preferably with an ICBM. Why? Because its the only thing that will keep the Americans from screwing with you. Whatever conclusion one can draw from that.

At the least, I hope the people who supported this war might go against virtually all their impulses up to this moment and learn from their errors. Learn enough so that they won’t support the US starting yet another needless war, this time with Iran. Learn enough to condemn the evil, sick policy of “pre-emptive war,” which is just an Orwellian way of saying “let’s start a war because we damn well want to.” The Nuremberg judges knew more about war than Bush and the war boosters ever will, because they were actually willing to learn from reality. The main result of invading Iraq - hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths - should be enough to let us say “never again.”

“never again” is usually a phrase used for the Holocaust. Which begs the question, really, of whether (for example) a “war of aggression” might have been appropriate against Germany if they had “just” been slaughterin Jews rather than attacking other countries. I think it would have been justified; do you…?

Anyway.

There is a difference between premptive action and aggression.

Aggression is motivated in essence by a desire to take something. Saddam’s attack on Kuwait could properly be termed an aggressive war. Hitler’s attempted conquest was an act of aggression. Aggressive wars usually have conquest and/or acquisition of resources as their goal

Premptive action is a realization that not all weaknesses are ongoing; that not all people are trustworthy; that not all allies are steadfast. Israel’s attack against the massed troops on its border was a preemptive war. War against Iran or NK could be a preemptive war.

Preemptive wars are always a gamble. But in theory, they have the goal of protecting the citizens of the initiating country from longer-term damage.

The problem with preemption is that it’s a guess. Sometimes people get it wrong. But one of the roles of a government is to protect its own citizens–and usually to value its own citizens most highly–so I’m unwilling to believe that preemption is never acceptable.

A nuclear north korea would be an excellent example. I can only imagine what havoc would be wreaked if north korea were to sell a nuke to someone willing to use it. Most people believe they’d sell one if they had one. And we can all probably agree there are people who would use a nuclear weapon if they had one in their possession.

So, Amp: picture yourself as a government official. You’ve sworn to protect the country and its inhabitants. You have an obligation to your consituents and country which exceeds your obligation to others.

Your advisors know NK has a nuclear weapon. They figure, as best they can, there’s a 50% chance they’ll sell it without us finding out. They figure there’s an overall 20% chance it’ll be sold, and used, somewhere in the world. maybe here.

Now, it’s your call: is there NO justification for going to war with NK? Would there be no justification of the projected casualties were low?

Arguing that all wars are evil is a bit like arguing that all prisons are bad. it ignores the reality that not all people, nations, or governments are equal in their desires and the manner by which they would enforce them. Some people should be imprisoned; some governments should probably not exist.

The problem isn’t that “military action is bad”. The problem is that this particular administration appears to lack the ability to properly weigh the criteria for entiering a preemptive war.

That said, I recognize the sincerity of your emotional response. But I think it moral nonsense to say that starting a war is always evil. War is evil; a necessary evil, in the universe as we find it. Starting a war can be a moral monstrosity of the highest order, or it can be the picking up of a blackjack when a man in a bar sees a thug advancing on him with murder in his eye and a knife in his hand. Would it have been wrong for the United States to launch a surprise assault on the Japanese carrier task forces steaming toward Pearl Harbor?

And THAT said, was starting THIS war morally wrong? Although I must admit that the outcome of the war to date is an ongoing train wreck, I can’t quite see that it was. The quantity of doomsday risk the world faces isn’t infinite; it’s something that can be reduced. The assessment was made that an unencumbered Saddam, and probably someday a nuclear Iraq, represented a big chunk of that risk, and a chunk that could be knocked off. Would you be more or less happy about the North Korean nuclear situation if Kim Jong Il had enormous oil reserves? I know my answer. Even Iran is a more tolerable nuclear power, because it isn’t a one-man state. If Ahmadinejad decided to start playing Lets Make Pretty Glass, there’s good odds the council of clerics would stop him. I’m not so sure Saddam’s generals would have.

You can certainly argue, and I’m sure will, that those risks were all potential and that the Iraqis and others who are dying now matter more. Perhaps. I’m glad not to have to make those decisions, frankly. Collegiate moral dilemnas (”if you could cure cancer by throwing your mom onto the railroad tracks…”) don’t have the added nightmare factor of probability. It’s one thing to say that the Russkies nuked a city and we have to decide how to respond; it’s a more horrible analysis to do if it starts out “there’s a 20% chance the Russians will nuke a city tomorrow…” And even more horrible when instead of 20%, it’s “some chance greater than zero but interestingly less than one”.

I thought you were going on vacation. How can I play practical jokes at your site if you won’t LEAVE?