Quote:
Originally posted by fintstone
It would depend on what you mean by "last resort." Last resort before what? If you mean last resort before our country is destroyed...or pulled into a large-scale war with large US (or our allies) military and civilian losses.....I certainly would not wait until then if the means to prempt the enemy and fight the war on my own terms presented itself.
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I suspect that we're just too far apart philisophically to even begin to discuss this. The short answer is "yes" as a genuine last resort only in response to an attack or near enough. It's a b!tch being the good guys.
My opinion is that there are only a handful of countries, and possibly really only the US, which can genuinely consider waging a pre-emptive war without truely disasterous consequences. The irony for me is that if a second country acted pre-emptively against a third country ---> even if neither was clearly a US ally ---> then the US would be against pre-emptive war and for the protection of that nation's sovereignty.
So I'm stuck on "the end justifies the means" as the primary basis for a pre-emptive war (given it immediately violates the premise of a just war, as it is by (my) definition not necessary).
Snowman:
Terrorist tactics require the use of preemptive war. Why? Because no nation is directly involved.
Sovereign nations. Not places to invade to root out terrorism. If you want your own sovereignty to be respected, you gotta respect other peoples' sovereignty.