Bush Doctrine
Memory fades? In the evening interview (I didn’t catch it) of Mrs Palin was asked about the Bush doctrine.
Gibson’s description—“The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us,” wasn’t a good description of even the preemption element of the Bush doctrine (and his claim that the preemption element was enunciated in September of 02 is also incorrect), though Palin’s answer suggested she didn’t quite agree with Bush on the question of imminence.
My impression was that the Bush doctrine was essentially that if a country chooses to actively support terrorism, it abrogates the moral right to exist, that is that any other nation may in good conscience attack it. The reasoning behind this is that terrorism, when illegal in nation states is little more than a criminal annoyance. If however, a nation decides to harbor and support terror … those numbers and capabilities grow by orders of magnitude and in our modern world become a threat to our lives and liberty.
Am I wrong in my recollection? Mr Gibson certainly is wrong.
Filed under: Ethics & Morality • Government • Mark O.
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Two thoughts: First, I don’t think I would say that “it abrogates the moral right to exist.” I think it was more limited to “it deserves to be invaded contrary to any claims it might have to sovreignty.” A subtle distinction at best (and it’s my formulation and memory I’m going from).
Second, I think Pakistan is testing the Bush Doctrine.
However you define it, that policy is as nutty and scary as heck.
Nutty? I would rather think that it is nutty to say that we will not go after terrorists if they avail themselves of the protection of a nation state.
We are humans. We make mistakes. Conservatism calls for prudence. We ought to be prudent in our actions because we are prone to be wrong, mistaken.
Therefore, any scheme or policy that calls for pre-emptive actions that call for deadly strikes based on a guess that some nation MIGHT be a threat at some point, maybe, that is just amoral, immoral and wrong.
Iraq is a great case in point. Bush thought there might be WMDs there. That Saddam might be a threat.
He was wrong.
And now, trillions of dollars later and tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) lives later, saying “oops,” is a spit in the face of human decency and morality.
Yes, I think it’s nutty, scary and immoral, to boot.
As to going after terrorists, by all means, let’s do so. Terrorists are a serious criminal problem and we ought to treat them as such. We need to strengthen international law and cooperation so that we have the correct means in place to police terrorism problems the way they should be. And, if a nation is truly “sponsoring” them, there should be means implemented for dealing with those nations.
Pre-emptive strikes, though, are a strike against the kind of international laws that we need to strengthen.
Logically:
IF we are saying, “You know, if MY nation thinks that Nation X is a threat to us – potentially – then IT IS GOOD AND RIGHT for my nation to conduct preemptive strikes against Nation X…”
THEN we have just authorized an anarchical set of values that any nation can attack when they “feel” threatened or when they “think” another nation might be a threat to them.
Is that the international rule we want in place?
Dan,
You should actually argue against what the other guys are saying. We’ve said a country loses its natural right to not be invaded via sovereignty if it harbors terrorists. That is not to say invasion is the first course of action nor that it is required. It is saying that it is moral if another (non-terrorist harboring nation) decides to invade.
Logically we are saying there is “open season” on nations harboring terrorists because terrorists have orders of magnitude more capabilities and numbers when they have support of a host nation. And yes, that is the international rule that the Bush doctrine claims.
You state:
Terrorists are a criminal problem and should be treated as such because and when all nations treat them as criminals … then their numbers and capabilities are indeed that of criminal organizations. When they have a host nation, they should be regarded as a highly illegal armed force of that host nation.
This
does not at all follow from what has been said, and I think you know that.
How does it not follow?
Or put another way: What is the rule you are advocating?
I’m hearing (and the Bush doctrine is):
IF a nation thinks another nation is a threat – not even necessarily an imminent or certain threat, but a likely threat in that nation’s opinion – THEN it is okay to bomb them.
Yes, of course, the Bush doctrine allows for the possibility of non-violent response as well as a preferred option. The point is, it is a very subjective doctrine. IF we feel threatened and we feel we’ve tried enough diplomacy, THEN we can begin bombing.
If that is not the subjective rule you’re advocating, what is the rule for attacks?
Dan,
Uhm, What I said above,
That has nothing to do with “feeling threatened.”
Okay, so if Nation A decides that Nation B “is actively supporting terrorism,” then it is okay for Nation A to bomb Nation B?
Is that the rule you advocate?
If so, this still seems subjective. Is bombing Iraq terrorism? Is crossing the border into Pakistan or Somalia and conducting a bombing raid terrorism?
The people being bombed sure might be inclined to think so. And so, in that circumstance, Somalia now has a right to bomb the US, is that your contention?
Where we might be able to come together and agree is that there should be some legal definition attached to terrorism and that definition should hold true for all countries, not just the ones with the Big Bombs.
And then, in the case of an Afghanistan where the gov’t was propping up terrorist organizations, the nations of the world could legitimately say, “Now it is time to do something about Afghanistan – first diplomacy, pressure, talks, but failing that, then perhaps physical aggression.”
As long as we were doing that (and we were for a while) the world was united in support behind the US. But then, BushCo. began exploiting this doctrine to invading countries where there was no clear consensus that terrorism was being supported.
What I’m saying is that there ought to be international standards and laws that apply and they ought to apply equally.
Dan,
Subjective? Well, you could argue that everything is subjective and words have no meaning. Evidence that you are harboring or financing terrorism seem pretty cut and dried to me.
Certainly there was a consensus, for example with Iraq, that Saddam supported terrorism, that’s without question. He had training camps on his lands, he didn’t prosecute. He paid out money to the families of homicidal bombers in Israel to encourage the same. He and his regime supported terror. That is not “subjective”.
One the second point, what constitutes terror and are the US actions terrorism. You do realize there is a armed men in uniform are legal combatants and not terrorists.
So, how about Nicaragua? We paid the UN-uniformed Contra terrorists, gave them support and helped train them. The CIA helped mine harbors for the Contras.
They took that and terrorized the people of Nicaragua in an effort to overthrow the legally elected gov’t.
What happened? A World Court found the US guilty of war crimes and supporting the Contras. The US promptly said, “We don’t care what the World Court says. We don’t accept the verdict.”
Until such time as we quit illegal actions and supporting terrorists “as long as they’re fighting the right people” we have very little moral wherewithal to condemn terrorism ourselves.
You do realize there is a armed men in uniform are legal combatants and not terrorists.
I don’t believe that to be a legally-viable definition of terrorism, if that is what you’re suggesting. If we have soldiers who invade a nation unprovoked because we think there are terrorists in a village in Somalia, and we bomb that village (where innocent civilians also live), we ARE terrorizing people. The fact that the soldiers wore uniforms does not make it NOT terrorism.
In Rwanda and in Guatemala and El Salvador, very had soldiers in uniform terrorizing civilians. Didn’t mean it wasn’t terrorism.
Unless you’re suggesting that at that point it’s a war crime, instead of terrorism. Perhaps you’d have a point there, I don’t know the fine points of the law in that regard.
Regardless, war crime, terrorism. It’s still wrong.