Japans sneak attack on Pearl Harbor: Pre-emptive or Preventive strike?

[NNN0LHI]

http://themoderntribune.com/speech_senator_edward_kennedy_-_bush__doctine_of_peremptive_war_preventative_war_bush.htm

Senator Edward Kennedy Speech on Iraq War and Pre-emptive Attacks

Monday, 7 October, 2002

We face no more serious decision in our democracy than whether or not to go to war. The American people deserve to fully understand all of the implications of such a decision.

The question of whether our nation should attack Iraq is playing out in the context of a more fundamental debate that is only just beginning—an all-important debate about how, when and where in the years ahead our country will use its unsurpassed military might.

On September 20, the Administration unveiled its new National Security Strategy. This document addresses the new realities of our age, particularly the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorist networks armed with the agendas of fanatics. The Strategy claims that these new threats are so novel and so dangerous that we should "not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting pre-emptively."

But in the discussion over the past few months about Iraq, the Administration, often uses the terms "pre-emptive" and "preventive" interchangeably. In the realm of international relations, these two terms have long had very different meanings.

Traditionally, "pre-emptive" action refers to times when states react to an imminent threat of attack. For example, when Egyptian and Syrian forces mobilized on Israel's borders in 1967, the threat was obvious and immediate, and Israel felt justified in pre-emptively attacking those forces. The global community is generally tolerant of such actions, since no nation should have to suffer a certain first strike before it has the legitimacy to respond.

By contrast, "preventive" military action refers to strikes that target a country before it has developed a capability that could someday become threatening. Preventive attacks have generally been condemned. For example, the 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor was regarded as a preventive strike by Japan, because the Japanese were seeking to block a planned military buildup by the United States in the Pacific.

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President Truman's thoughts on preventive strikes:

"You don't 'prevent' anything by war...except peace."

[rockymountaindem]

1. My international relations professor used those very same examples

as Kennedy did. Pearl Harbor was not a pre-emptive strike, because the US was not threatening Japan militarily at the time.

[lenidog]

2. Pearl Harbor and the Philipines was a preventitive strike designed

to cripple the US military and give the Japanese military the strategic initiative in the Pacific by crippling the US Navy and Army Air Force and thus preventing them from stopping landings across the Pacific and South East Asia.

[A HERETIC I AM]

3. But you didnt say "Why"

And the why is, waaay back then, just as it is now...O I L!!! US Oil companies had a stranglehold on oil supplies in that region and the Japanese needed it. The Japanese expansion in the western pacific and their attack on the United States was driven by the need for natural resources.

Same old story. Nothing has changed, just the players.

Of course, once we (The US Military-Industrial complex) has kicked your ass into the dirt, we'll (The United States Government) then help build you into an economic powerhouse if you just give us 20 years or so.

[lenidog]

4. In the Japanese case it was more than oil it was EVERYTHING

you could imagine except for coal. Also it wasn't a foregone conclusion the Army heavily pushed for the northern route which would have meant the conquest of Siberia instead of the Pacific.

[fujiyama]

5. It's a great statement

and it's a distinction worth noting.

Preemption can be justified if there is an immediate and imminent threat.

Prevention is not justified, period. Just because you "see" a vague threat far off into the future, doesn't mean one exists.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Unless it is the CIA who is reporting an immediate and imminent threat

I will never believe anything they say anymore since the "slam dunk" thing in Iraq. The CIA's credibility is nonexistent.

Don