 |
| Preemptive Strikes: Are they Justified? By Tony McWilliams September 20, 2002 President Bush and his administration have made the claim that Saddam Hussein presents such a threat to the United States and the world that a preemptive strike is not only justified but also needed. President Bush�s argument goes something like this: Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein could get nuclear weapons. Saddam Hussein could link up with Al Qaeda and use nuclear weapons against the United States. Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Saddam Hussein is a madman. Saddam must be stopped. President Bush (41) proved Saddam was the next �Hitler� and a real �madman�, so none of that needs to be proved again. If Saddam is �mad�, then he is undeterrable, unpredictable, and therefore, means all of our fears about Saddam must be true, which makes him a threat. For the sake of this article, we will assume that President Bush (43) is right. Saddam does have biological and chemical weapons as he explained to the United Nations and is seeking to get nuclear weapons. The question is does that justify a preemptive strike on Iraq? This article will not look at whether or not such a strike is advantageous, that will be another article. While we are not advocating global proliferation, with others having WMD, what is the threat to America with Saddam? America does not preemptively strike Israel, Pakistan, India, Russia or China for having WMD, much less eliminate our own arsenal that may be the largest in the world. Even when we argued North Korea was a country run by a �madman� obtaining nuclear weapons, it didn�t mean preemptive strikes. It meant massive funding for the deploying of a missile defense. That brings us to Iraq. If Saddam Hussein is so �mad� and �hates America� so much that he wants to �destroy America�, and he has biological weapons, why wouldn�t he have already used them? Biological weapons, as a recent report confirmed, are far more dangerous than nuclear weapons because they don�t have limited impact areas. Biological weapons just keep on spreading and they are easier to conceal. Inject a group of people with biological agents and let them spread it through the population unnoticed. A nuclear weapon is far harder to move around and far easier to detect. Some have answered that argument by saying, �well Saddam doesn�t want to die�. However, that very argument proves the rationality of Saddam. If Saddam does not want to die, then he is deterrable. The world understands that the use a weapon of mass destruction against the U.S. will bring nuclear retaliation. That means Saddam can�t be �mad� as the Bush Administration wants us to believe. Maybe deterrence works in Iraq too. They argue that if Saddam and Al Qaeda ever hooked up or even that they have hooked up already, and Saddam gets nuclear weapons, we could wake up to a �mushroom cloud� as proof. Besides the obvious scare designed to make people override logic with emotion similar to a phobia, there is little logic to support such an argument. The obvious question is if both Saddam and Osama are �evil� and �hate� America, why haven�t they used Saddam�s biological weapons? That doesn�t even account for the numerous intelligence sources quoted before September 11th saying Al Qaeda had between 2 and 20 nuclear weapons. The only arguments that begin to make sense to justify such a strike deal with the United Nations resolutions. While it is pleasant to think that America would be supporting the UN and helping to make international law and international standards important in the world, that is far from reality. This administration has scoffed at the ICC, refused funding for the UN because abortion is part of the UN�s population measures, and walked away from any sort of international agreements that don�t put the US ahead of the world. That doesn�t include the number of times America has ignored the hundreds of resolutions that go unenforced daily, including resolutions against Israel that America voted for. The ironic argument is the appeasement argument. The Bush Administration claims that to not change the regime in Iraq is to appease a dictator similar to Hitler. Ironically, the country attacking another country is not Iraq, but America. The analogy also fails when one considers that Saddam has about one-third of the military he had in 1991, instead of growing his military. Additionally, Saddam has been stopped every time he has tried to attack another country, though the US did try to help him in the Iran-Iraq war. Nobody wants global proliferation and no rational person will tell you Saddam Hussein is a good leader. The larger question is what gives America the right to violate the sovereignty of another nation and choose the appropriate leader for the people of another nation? Imagine the reaction to China saying, �America is the only country to have used atomic weapons, they have the largest supply of them, and are acting totally on their own, outside the international norm. Because of this, the United States is a threat to global peace. They are crazy cowboys with weapons that could destroy the world. We must have regime change in America with a preemptive strike.� Of course, no American would accept that and would claim that no other country has the right to determine our leaders. Heck, the outrage of Republicans to hear that Buddhists might be funding Democrats was more than enough. Of course, Americans would say they have the right to defend themselves, and therefore, are justified in having such weapons. Many Americans would say that we are bound to our own constitution, not international law. Yet they want to hold Saddam Hussein and Iraq to a different standard. When is a country justified in violating the sovereignty of another nation? When is a country justified in claiming it gets to determine the leaders of another nation? How long after a �war� is the world allowed to punish a country? Could the world go back and re-punish Germany for World War II? What are the implications of such a strike or such power for the world to decide the leaders of other countries? Is America opening another Pandora�s box? Tomorrow: Preemptive Strike-what are the implications? |
|