You Say Pre-emptive, I Say Preventive
February 5, 2004
Well, you dumb mutt, the difference between a pre-emptive war against an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and a preventive war against an inconvenient regime...
…is the difference between collecting your unearned pension and parading on the rubber chicken circuit for the rest of your life defending your abysmal record as the worst president in modern history…
…versus getting your clueless ass impeached and maybe hauled before a war crimes tribunal to boot.
Believe me, George W. Bush and his advisers know the difference…
…which they are trying desperately to obscure.
The “intelligence failure” red herring is a classic piece of Rovian misdirection.
President Bush went to war despite good intelligence — from the UN inspectors.
If a modicum of WMDs had been discovered, the issue of Bush’s pre-existing war lust would have been conveniently ignored.
Now that the distracting WMDs are AWOL, we’re remembering that George W. Bush from the beginning prosecuted a war of choice against Iraq…
…a preventive — and preventable — war…
…and the intel was irrelevant.
Pre-emptive war is meant to forestall an imminent threat. It’s kinda OK.
Preventive war is a war of choice to prevent the rise of a competing state. Traditionally, it’s not OK.
Because it’s a war of choice. And international law only condones war when it is the only, last resort.
But war became Bush’s first resort.
In the days after 9/11, when George W. Bush was master of the universe, his National Security Strategy enunciated the Bush doctrine that he could blow up anyone, anytime, anywhere, with anything and for any reason. I’m simplifying here, but the Bush doctrine was rightly recognized and feared as a license to practice preventive war.
Preventive wars are aggressive, opportunistic wars; they are driven by political strategies aiming at desirable outcomes through military force. They have nothing to do with pre-emptive wars, supposedly initiated in response to tactical intel concerning imminent dangers that only prompt military action can counter.
Preventive wars deal in targets, not threats.
First target: Iraq.
When Bush got his Iraq War Resolution from a compliant Congress, an important, enabling weasel word was inserted in the meat of the act:
“continuing”.
As in: the President was empowered to take unilateral military action to “defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq”.
So clever, isn’t it? Relieves the White House of the burden of proof required for pre-emptive war against an imminent threat.
No wonder Scott McClellan is now taking special pains to emphasize “But we never said the threat was imminent”. Because omitting the word “imminent” removed the Iraq war from the hell of pre-emption accountability to the Bush heaven of zero responsibility and unlimited opportunity to invade where and when he felt like it — regardless of what the intel said.
Preventive war means never having to say you’re sorry.
Legally, maybe. Politically, it’s another story.
Today, George Bush is probably unable to derive much consolation from George Tenet’s recent statement “Hey, we didn’t say there was any imminent threat either!” It just emphasizes that Bush can’t hide behind the excuse of a hasty, pre-emptive war provoked by crappy, sensationalized CIA intel.
Right now that kind of reminder is about as welcome as a ten-ton anvil dropped in a leaky lifeboat.
The spectacular failure to find any WMDs or al-Qaeda links has totally discredited the preventive war doctrine, at least as practiced by the fumble-fingered hands of President Bush.
Preventive wars are not as popular as pre-emptive wars — and failed preventive wars are extremely unpopular, both with the public and with war crimes judges.
By screwing up in Iraq, George W. Bush has joined the illustrious roster of ambitious preventive warriors whose plans simply didn’t pan out. They include:
Adolf Hitler (who invoked preventive war as the justification for invading the Soviet Union);
Admiral Tojo (who concluded that decisive military action at Pearl Harbor was needed to counter the continuing threat from one Uncle Sam).
Nice company for our George, isn’t it?
Defining Iraq as a preventive war — once the ultimate legal loophole that would give Bush unlimited political and military freedom — is now political suicide.
Because when you fight a war of choice, it means you had…choices. Choices other than war. Lots of nice, safe, boring diplomatic, multilateral, peaceful choices.
Instead of doing the hard, tedious work of negotiation, accommodation, and consensus building — and accepting the limited political advantages of postponed and partial gratification — Bush chose the seductive rush of immediate preventive war.
He was in such a hurry to go to war on March 19, 2003 that he trampled over the misgivings and objections of the UN, our allies, the professional military, our intelligence community, and world opinion like a desperate drunk trying to reach the stadium beer concession before it closes in the 4th quarter.
And he was wrong.
The “threat” turned out to be neither imminent nor continuing; it was non-existent.
The consequences of our invasion: enormous and irreparable. Now American prestige and tens of thousands of American lives and billions of dollars of taxpayer money are trapped in the quagmire of a failed war in Iraq.
The blood of our hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded is literally on Bush’s hands.
Because they would have been alive and whole if Bush had lived up to his responsibilities as a president and a leader.
That’s impeachable.
When you add the thousands of enemy combatants and civilians dead and maimed Iraq as a result of our war of choice — that’s a war crime.
The Iraq war was a failed war of choice — George Bush’s war of choice.
Remember how George brayed from his dunghill how “America will go to war at a time of its choosing”?.
He chose the wrong time. And the wrong war.
Now he should take the responsibility for his mistake in taking this country to war.
Instead he blames the intel that he previously ignored as a distraction and impediment to his vainglorious imperial planning.
The question that should be ringing from the rafters should be:
George Bush, you chose to fight this war. When it went well, you took credit for “Mission Accomplished” on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln. Now that Iraq has been shown to have been no threat to America, how can you refuse to accept the responsibility for this unnecessary war and for the death and maiming of so many American soldiers?
I think we’ll have to wait forever for an answer. Hopefully, after November 2, Bush will be gone and we won’t care anymore.
Copyright 2004 Peter Lee
Peter Lee is the creator of the anti-war satire and commentary website Halcyon Days. He can be reached at peter@halcyondays.info.
