Kerry supports Bush Doctrine of Pre-emption. NOT!

[troublemaker]

There's a dangerous RW meme being taken up by a lot of Democrats here who may not realize that it's part of a RW propaganda campaign. The lie has two parts:

1) The Bush doctrine is pre-emption.
2) Kerry supports the Bush doctrine.


Bush claims his policy is pre-emption because pre-emption is not controversial. Pre-emption is a good thing and always has been. Bush's policy is prevention.

Just because Bush calls his social policies compassionate doesn't make it so, so why do we accept his insane characterization of the Iraq war as pre-emptive?

Pre-emption is attacking someone who is in the process of mounting an attack on you. Prevention is attacking someone who is NOT planning to attack you, but who you fear may someday decide to attack you.

The WH spin is designed to blur the lines between sane people like Kerry and insane people like Bush, and it seems to be working.

Kerry cannot "support Bush's doctrine of pre-emption" because Bush has no such doctrine. There is no "Bush doctrine of pre-emption". Period. None whatsoever.

Reporters often say "bush's doctrine of pre-emption" because they are stupid and/or RW shills. Don't fall for it.

Of course Kerry supports America's doctrine of pre-emption because it's been our national policy as long as we have had a nation. Every nation in the world supports pre-emption. The UN supports it. The Vatican supports it. Desmond Tutu and Dennis Kucinich support it.

It's a right of all nations. Pre-emption is a legitimate form of self-defense and is permitted in the UN charter as such.

Review:

1) Pre-emptive war is legal.
2) The Iraq war was NOT pre-emptive.
3) That's why it was illegal.

[merh]

1. Thank you for this post.

I have been annoyed at those who twist these issues and run wild fearing that K = *.

You worded this so well and I thank you for that.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. This point has been made before and can't be made often enough

Bush's doctrine makes Orwellian use of the word preemption.

From a piece that ran on Democratic Underground's home page following the capture of Saddam:

Mr. Bush had declared that the United States would take preemptive action against any country deemed to be a threat to the United States. Under international law, the term "preemptive strike" means that an immanent threat exists to a state and the threatened state strikes first. However, an examination of Mr. Bush's words show that he was talking of something else. Bush was clearly speaking of a threat that had not yet materialized, but may become a real threat at some time in the indefinite future. This is not a preemptive strike but a preventive strike, which is a violation of international law.
What Mr. Bush was declaring was that the United States had the right to make war at any time against any state for any reason or no reason at all. Of course, that would satisfy a justification to invade Iraq. In fact, it pretty well covers all contingencies.

If Saddam actually had some WMDs, then had he used them against American and British troops while they were massed on the Kuwaiti frontier with Iraq just prior to the invasion, that would have been a preemptive strike. Under the UN Charter, Saddam would have been within his rights.

As it was, there were no weapons, only vague "programs" and other plans to construct them at some future time. The invasion was carried out to prevent Saddam from becoming a threat, although no one could really say whether he would have ever become one or whether means short of war would have sufficed to remove the threat. The action was preventive and not sanctioned under the UN Charter without approval of the UN Security Council. Since an enabling resolution before the Security Council was withdrawn when it faced certain defeat, there was no such approval and the invasion was illegal.

[troublemaker]

3. well said!

[kiahzero]

4. Well, I wouldn't go that far

If Saddam actually had some WMDs, then had he used them against American and British troops while they were massed on the Kuwaiti frontier with Iraq just prior to the invasion, that would have been a preemptive strike. Under the UN Charter, Saddam would have been within his rights.

I'm pretty sure that the use of WMDs is more regulated than conventional weapons. If, instead of firing some sort of WMD at the massed troops, he had just launched a missile strike, it would have been a preemptive strike.

You're right on the principle of the thing, but I think the above analogy eliminates some confusion and simplifies the analogy.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Perhaps

Of course, if Saddam had WMDs in the quantities the Bushies said he had them, the UN weapons inspectors would have had no trouble finding them. Had that been the case, we would have had nothing better to do but shut up, let Bush have his way and acquiesce to four more years of yuppie fascism. And, of course, the UN Security Council would have voted for enabling resolution unanomously.

But that mean ol' Saddam didn't play fair. He was disarmed by the late nineties and left the Bushies no justification for war.