Dien, you're absolutely right:-)

Course pre-emptive strikes are OK if they are carried out by the good guys aren't they? Or have I got that wrong?

Or maybe they're OK if they're against a country which MAY have WMDs and may or may not use them if they have them, and NOT OK if they're against countries who DO have WMDs and who openly boast that they WILL use them.

Yeah, that must be it.

Gee, it's kinda confusing isn't it? Maybe I'll head off down the library to see if I can find the rule book on pre-emptive strikes. Wasn't that Hitler chappy into pre-emptive strikes...?

Cheers

p

> 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