The United States has a pretty good track record.. From the first world war up until the Yugoslavian conflict, the United States never initated a conflict, yet entered into a war because it felt the world's collective security was in danger. While mistakes have been made to what areas actually endangered collective security (i.e. the line in Southeast asia could have been through Malaya, not Vietnam), nonetheless the United States never entered a war out of selfish territorial/commercial gains.
Along that same vein, the recent conflicts and Afghanistan would never have happened if it weren't for 9/11. For the majority of American voters, that WAS the pre-emptive attack.. As such, nobody nowhere no how complained that Enduring Freedom was 'pre-emptive.' What did Afghanistan do to us? What did Iraq do to us? The issue isn't aggressive action against nation-states, it's action against those who willingly seek to disrupt the current world order. The Taliban willingly gave harbor to Al-Qaeda, while Saddam Hussein has a notorious history of offenses, any of which make him a perfect target for American aggression.
For me, the 'blood for oil' argument seems archaic and pedantic. The United States 'buys' a good chunk of Iraq's oil output, all of which can be easily replaced by either domestic (I do NOT include Alaska wildlife refuges) or international sources. At the same time, I don't think that the United States entered into this conflict to uphold UN resolutions passed a decade ago, especially when it chose to foregoe any current UN support.
I, for one, do not support entering into a pre-emptive strike. Unfortunately, 'diplomacy,' as a blanket term, has a very, very poor record of dealing with aggressive despots. The carnage would not have ended with Saddam, nor could it have been amerliorated in an acceptable time frame using non-aggressive tactics. Those fighting a gorilla (yes I know that's not the right word) war will prevail as long as they don't suffer a loss, and Al-Qaeda will be unbeatable as long as it has the opportunity (whether it be state-endorsed or due to the lax ability of a state to enforce its authority, such as Iraq) to establish power bases.
The war has been waged. I therefore ask, what should we do now?
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"Wave of mutilation."
-The Pixies
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