humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Mar 16, 9:22 am, Gordon Sollars wrote:
> In article > 59g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, ilou...@hotmail.com says...
>
> > On Mar 15, 7:33 pm, Gordon Sollars wrote:
>
> > > Bush did not say the threat was "imminent" - if it had been imminent, he
> > > could have kept to the Caroline Doctrine.  Rather, the argument is:
>
> >    On the one side you are saying "preemptive" means "imminent".... on
> > the other you are saying Bush is saying his definition of preemption
> > didn't mean imminent? Then why call he call it preemption in the first
> > place? And while technically he didn't use the word "imminent" (sort
> > of like your link)....,,,
>
> He wanted the the prestige of "preemptive".  He wanted to claim that he
> was still within international law.  

> [. . . ]

> I invite you to consider the possibility that the law has not changed,
> and that the U.S. government *broke the law*.  Once a customary rule
> becomes (international) law, it remains law until it is replaced by an
> another custom that becomes law.  So far, other nations have not
> embraced the Bush Doctrine - but it is early in the game.  


= The doctrine of anticipatory self-defense is very old
For the ancient Greeks, notably Sparta, it was common.

John Locke, in his Second Treatise on Government, tells of "the ship
to Algiers" whose passengers must act preemptively against the captain
to avoid being sold into slavery.

The doctrine of preemption as anticipatory self-defense is possibly
legal under the UN Charter: Article 51 of the Charter should be
interpreted in the context of contemporary realities, "the
capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries."

Remarks made by Charles Hill, Diplomat in Residence and Lecturer in
International Studies, Yale University; Research Fellow, the Hoover
Institution, Stanford University.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION PREEMPTION DOCTRINE AND THE FUTURE OF WORLD
ORDER January 2004 . . .



President Reagan acted preemptively in Grenada; and President Clinton
prepared to strike North Korea preemptively in 1994.

Nevertheless, it is important to realize that the 2003 Iraq war was
not a preemptive or preventive war. When Saddam Hussein's forces were
driven out of Kuwait in 1991, a cease-fire was put in place. An
unprecedented series of security Council resolutions held that if
Saddam Hussein cooperated with UN inspectors and produced Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction, the cease-fire agreement would be
transformed into a peace agreement. But if Saddam Hussein did not
cooperate, the original security Council authorization of force would
be reactivated.

By 1998 Saddam Hussein had made inspections impossible. The security
Council passed Resolution 1205, declaring Iraq to be in flagrant
violation of all applicable resolutions. President Clinton then
launched "Desert Fox" against Iraq, but called it off within a few
days. From the end of 1998 until 2003, Saddam Hussein was left
undisturbed, free to do whatever he wished with his arsenal.

The United States decided to work within the scope of the long line of
security Council resolutions and, after an unprecedented diplomatic
effort, achieved passage of Resolution 1441, which gave Saddam Hussein
one final opportunity to comply; he did not do so. President Bush, in
ordering U.S. forces into action, stated that he was doing so under
UNSC Resolutions 678 and 687, the original bases for military action
in 1991. Since the end of major combat in Iraq, the security Council
has passed Resolutions 1483 and 1511, and it is now working toward an
electoral process for Iraq. What we see, therefore, is not a case of
preemption or prevention, but the enforcement of the security
Council's own established principles regarding Iraq in resolutions
dating back to 1991.



The Bush doctrine is one of reserving the ancient right to
anticipatory self-defense through preemption. This *would* be
contrary to international law as formulated since 1945 *except* for
the presumption encompassed by the phrase in Article 51 concerning
"the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries" thereby
replacing the "custom" (against preemption) since 1945 with another
"custom" (allowing preemption), THOUGH THIS HAS NOT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
as a predictable matter of U.S. foreign policy doctrine under
President Bush.