2004 Presidential Election

This administration failed to interpret the evidence properly or even give it enough time to be properly processed before putting our soldiers in front of Iraqi bullets. A pre-emptive strike is NEVER, I repeat for emphasis, NEVER an ethical option for self defense no matter what the circumstances or what century you live in. It is never right to be proactive in war! It is FATAL to use the logic of pre-emptive force in concerns this important! There is a not insignificant chance that sometime in the infinite future that China might attack us. Are we then justified in using force now to prevent that hypothesized attack? Don't you see how bad that logic is? You can stretch it very far and history tells us time and time again about how pre-emptive war is a terrible thing. By the logic based on pre-emptive force we should take over the world so that all future attacks on our country would be avoided. I am calling you out on this one . When is it right to be proactive in killing especially as a Christian? Please tell me!What I see is a president quoting scripture and then declaring entire nations as "Evil". What I would expect from a president coming from a Christian perspective is to reach out to nations that are lost. Should we be soft? No, we should be prepared to DEFEND ourselves at any cost. That does NOT give us the right to pre-emptivly attack a nation because we consider them a future threat. Even if Iraq had WMDs we would not have been justified in attacking them based on 200 years of military code of ethics concerning use of force. Bush threw out this established tradition that has been the basis of all our military action even when it has been for sketchy reasons. If you knew that your neighbor was unstable and that there was a chance that he might come over and punch you in the face are you justified in burning his house down? What if he beat his wife and children would you be justified then? When would you be justified in attacking your neighbor except in self-defense as a Christian and especially as a leader? Please, I really want an answer to that question.....

A pre-emptive strike is NEVER, I repeat for emphasis, NEVER an ethical option for self defense no matter what the circumstances or what century you live in.

Call me naive, misinformed, or even evil but I wish the US expressed a bit more enthusiasm towards the idea of international law.

But the standard must be one of clear and imminent danger and that there is no other viable option. If, for example, you had a valid reason to expect that another nation state was about to attack the US, if the time line was so short that other options were precluded, then pre-emptive attack is one reasonable answer.

There is another option which is applicable to Nation States which is massive and sure retaliation, as we practiced in MAD. Even then, the US never renounced the option of pre-emptive strikes. But is that any more moral?

jingoism n.Extreme nationalism characterized especially by a belligerent foreign policy; chauvinistic patriotism.jingoism n1: an appeal intended to arouse patriotic emotions [syn: flag waving]
2: fanatical patriotism