What Are the Candidates' Views on Pre-Emptive War?

[Quetzal]

What Are the Candidates' Views on Pre-Emptive War?

Pre-emptive war - that is, war in the absence of an imminent armed attack that renders the war justifiable self-defense - violates the U.N. Charter. There are only two exceptions to this rule: The war can be legal if it has U.N. approval, or if the purpose of the war is to stop ongoing genocide.

Plainly, under these criteria, the Iraq War was illegal under international law. The U.S. did not claim - and could not have claimed -- that an armed attack was imminent, nor that a genocide was currently occurring in Iraq. And the U.N. had not given its approval for the U.S. attack.

The fact that the Iraq War was illegal should raise several key questions for voters considering the candidates' foreign policy for the upcoming election: Might President Bush, if re-elected, be willing to undertake another illegal war? Would Senator Kerry, if elected, ever find reason to undertake an illegal war?

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What Are the Candidates' Views on Pre-Emptive War?

[Owlet]

1. Bush is waging "PREVENTIVE" war - not PRE-EMPTIVE

http://www.globelaw.com/Iraq/Preventive_war_after_iraq.htm

The Bush Doctrine of ‘Preventive War

"For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not
suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend
themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack.
Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the
legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat—most
often a visible mobilization of armies, navies, and air forces
preparing to attack.

We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and
objectives of today’s adversaries. Rogue states and terrorists do not
seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks
would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the
use of weapons of mass destruction—weapons that can be easily
concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4416.htm

"The (Bush Doctrine) grand strategy authorises the US to carry out preventive war:
preventive, not pre-emptive. Whatever the justifications for
pre-emptive war might be, they do not hold for preventive war,
particularly as that concept is interpreted by its current enthusiasts:
the use of military force to eliminate an invented or imagined threat,
so that even the term "preventive" is too charitable. Preventive war
is, very simply, the supreme crime that was condemned at Nuremberg"

(Noam Chomsky)