they work both ways.

What is a "pre-emptive strike"? It's when someone has not attacked you yet - but you fear that they will. So you attack them first instead.

The planned war against Iraq is a pre-emptive war. Iraq has not attacked any other country since the last Gulf war (and I personally don't think they have the means to attack anyone either at the moment). But - due to fear - we are proposing to attack them first.

As I said, this works both ways. If you've been reading the news, you'll notice that North Korea has also now threatened a "pre-emptive strike" against the USA, if it fears the US will attack it. That means North Korea is using the same reasoning the USA is using in order to possibly strike the USA first. This is all the more worrying because North Korea has an estimated one or two nuclear weapons, and it has missiles which are capable of delivering these nukes to the continental USA (as well as most of the rest of the world).

The USA hasn't replied (to my knowledge) to North Korea's threat of a pre-emptive strike. How can it? After all, North Korea is using the same logic that the USA is using in the Middle East. They fear the USA may attack, so they say that they have the right to a "pre-emptive strike" and to attack the USA first.

As I said, it works both ways. If you accept the validity of pre-emptive strikes on others, then you should also accept a possible pre-emptive strike against yourself. The same logic used by the USA to initiate a war against Iraq, could be used by North Korea to send a nuclear weapon into any major US city.

If pre-emptive strikes become the norm, then I think we will live in a much more dangerous world.

- Dien Rice