Rising to my challenge of a consistent approach to unilateral pre-emption, Alexander Downer has stated that the Indonesians would be justified in bombing Australia if they thought a terrorist group was located in Australia (thanks to Jack Strocchi for this link).
It would be “absolutely” understandable if the Indonesian air force bombed the Kimberleys believing terrorists who threatened Indonesia were located there, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has said.
Defending the Government’s doctrine of last resort, pre-emptive military strikes against terrorists, Mr Downer said he would expect Indonesia to do the same if the situation were reversed. “Absolutely, by the way, absolutely,” Mr Downer told Darwin radio station Top-FM.
“If the Indonesians rang us up and said there’s a terrorist group in the Kimberleys who are planning to launch an attack on Kupang, and we said: ‘Well, we don’t really care, that’s your problem, pal, and we’re not going to do anything about it,’ and they sent an F-16 over and bombed the terrorist group, you could understand that.
It’s fortunate that this doctrine wasn’t put forward in the 1990s, when Fretilin, described by the Indonesian government as a terrorist group, operated openly in Australia.
John Quiggin 
Another example would be the Irian Jaya independence activists of the OPM who used to withdraw across the border into refugee camps in Papua New Guinea. Had Downer been in power at the time, he apparently wouldn’t have minded the Indonesians sweeping across the border in pursuit.
I feel a bit sorry for Downer over this one, rightly or wrongly. The original stupidity came from the suburban solicitor.
So I guess we have to hope that the terrorists decide to hide out in the Kimberleys, and not, let’s say, the more hospitable terrain to be found in the electorate of Mayo. Or else Alex might be called upon to make the supreme sacrifice, which I’m sure he would “understand absolutely”.
His boss might have dug the hole, but that doesn’t explain Downer bringing in the excavator.
Pr Q’s attempt at gotcha blogging fails because a crucial scenario condition is not met: Fretlin was not planning or administering terrorist attacks from Australia. Nice try.
If Fretilin was actively engaged in planning and executing terrorism against INDON targets from AUS soil then I would have no problem with the INDONs taking them out. The right of free expression and assembly does not include the right to start fires in neighbouring cinemas.
PS. Does this mean Leftoid blogospheroids now agree that its ok to preemptively intercept terrorists about to suit-case nuke an Australian city? Or are they willing to unconditionally rely on the integrity of neighbouring failed state security processes? (I will enjoy watching the contortions they will get themselves into trying get out of that one.)
You seem to be the expert on contortions Jack.
Just to clarify, Jack, you mean that, if the Indonesian government asserted (say, on the basis of secret intelligence evidence) that Fretilin was planning such attacks that would be sufficient ground for them to bomb us, even if we denied everything. That’s the unilateral part of unilateral pre-emption, as practiced already in relation to Saddam’s WMDs.
Also,when you say that “planning or administering terrorist attacks from Australia” what does the ‘from’ refer to? If the planners and administrators are in Australia, but the “terrorists” are already in place somewhere else (this is what the Indonesian claimed re Fretilin) does that count or not?
There is a difference between saying “If anyone comes at my family with an axe I will defend them.” and saying: “If you, Fred, come at my family with an axe, I will defend them.”
Fred is justified in asking why someone is visualising him with an axe coming at a family.
Part of the point, surely, is that the Libs want to defend the notion of a pre-emptive attack, which pushes them into saying it could happen rather than dismissing the scenario as the hypothetical it actually is.
And of course its the doctrine of pre-emptive attack that anti-war people like me think is so dangerous and destabilising.
Its amazing to see that right wing supporters are so supportive of their political friends that they take on their particular traits and foibles, namely the art of spin and contortion. Why do they have to debase an argument down to a simple argument over semantics? Becase they know they’ve lost and they can’t accept it.
C’mon Jack you do this so often its boring, start discussing the issue instead of trying to correct the semantics and grammar of people you don’t agree with.
I’m betting you’ll be the one contorting to answer that query, Jack. We all know that Indonesia considered Fretilin a terrorist organisation. According to you that entitled Indonesia to bomb Fretilin in Australia no matter our own opinion of Fretilin nor, indeed, what the “truth” of the matter may or may not have been.
You’re caught by your loyal but misguided support for that goose Alexander Downer.
At the moment your position would require you to acquiesce to Indonesian bombing of West Papuan separatists where they or their sympathisers were planning their independence campaigns from Australia, wouldn’t it?
What is a “terrorist”, precisely?
The way I heard it in the Rudd/Downer encounter (and I dont have the transcript to check) is that Donwner included a remark “and we didnt have the capacity to bomb them” , and it was a hypothetical to explain why D though some situation might require Australian action by using the reverse sitation to make is seem reasonable (See, under thiose circumstances wed think the foreign action on Oz soil would be Ok).
My impression is that Rudd projects too much smarts for his own good, and should slow down a bit for for mere mortals.. Also he is too clever by haff by trying to turn an obviously contrived hypothetical into an invitation to bomb, because, of course WE HAVE the capacity to bomb anywhere on our own soil, so its a moot point
Once again jack stroppy knows nothing.
The presence of fretelin operating and raising money in australia was a major irritation for the TNI,as are the west papuans active here.
The IRA raised plenty of money here in the past,a major irritation for the poms.
Under these new rules of engagement,we australians are in the front line for sure.
Did I mention the tamil tigers?
d, here is what Downer actually said, and I quote it because it really was pretty silly. As mentioned above, I feel a bit sorry for Downer on this one.
Thanks Tony, but thats not a complete transcript at the OZ (… …),
and I’m refering to the re-run of the issue on ABC TV as a debate (last night), where I’m certain I heard a Downer qualifying remark like “and we didn’t have the capacity to bomb the Kimberlies” and I’m assuming its mention (last night) indicates it was in the full original remarks that are being very selectively quoted. Thats pretty common in politics you know. In any case whatever Ds weaknesses (and he has them), although Rudd wins many complex argumental points, he’s losing in the PR game by being too hyper intelligent and fast. Ive heard Rudd in person and he comes over as supercilious in debate. But Downer has managed to progress a little from a Billy Bunter persona to acquire a modicum of gravitas the last few years IMHO.
Fair enough, d, and I roughly share your assessment of Rudd’s appearance. He comes across as the earnest honours student in tutorial.
For what it’s worth, Downer has put transcripts of both the radio interview and the Rudd debate up on the web, and they seem to be the same as the quotes in The Australian. Perhaps the Australian’s gaps were meant to denote pauses.
Don’t people think that this scenario is “welcome to the real world!”
We are in a war to the death with Jihad, which is, um…… well we know what it is. If indonesia is going to be attacked, it will be Jihadists. If Australia is going to be attacked it will be by Jihadists. If Israel is going to be attacked it will be by Jihadists. If Russia is going to be attacked it will be by Jihadists. If Spain is going to be attacked it will be by Jihadists.ETC.ETC..ETC… So the question is should Jihadists be exempt from premptative attack or subject to extreme assasination?
I know where I stand.
I feel sorry for those who just don’t “get it”
Pre-emption is wrong. Afghanistan has proven it wrong. We are not safer or more secure – the contrary it true.
The real problem is the classification ‘terrorist’. FRETLIN is only one example of a terrorist group that fought a just cause and won! The striking example is Nelson Mandela and the ANC. Once upon a time, they were the evil people stirring up the ignorant blacks in South Africa. The truth was that those ignorant blacks did not swallow the Arthur Daly line that Apartheid “was good for you”. The reason I choose FRETLIN and the ANC is that, with some research, I could find main stream conservative leaders of the recent past that condemned both organisations as anti-western. Both groups were arguing for the freedom of their people.
The irrationality of the analysis on the Al Quida attacks on the United States mainland has been to mask two simple things. Firstly, no action by one human is without cause. The cause could be stupid, imaginary or so on but any human action does not come from a vacuum. The terrorist actions are alway a bloody form of political protest. By denying that actions have a cause, we have decided to ignore the so called “Islamists”.
Secondly, no-one has attempted to listen to the protest. Their protest, as far as I can understand, is that western culture is both dehumanising and imperialistic. Dehumanising is the way it ignores the needs of people during it economic and political transactions. Imperialistic in the way it imposes itself on other societies. In that, I feel that the protestors are properly right.
Their methods are extreme, yes. But like the PLO in the 1970s found, for a non-westerner to be heard in the west, you need to cause pain!
The precedent is the IRA. As long as they bombed the Irish, the government in London ignored them. When they bombed the British (especially, the Brighton Tory Party conference – the British establishment took noticed).
“Protesters” are not right to barbarically murder civilians, no.
Tipper is not right if the best he can do in 2004 is display an eagerness to escalate a murderous religious war. Do you draw any lessons, Tipper, from the successes of two thousand years of civilization – or is the Old Testament “eye for an eye” recipe for perpetual war still good enough for you (as you make it sound)?
BTW I was suggesting a sin mostly of omission rather than commission Tipper – you seem to only offer a relative non-solution to the problem.
Anyone (like Michael) who claims pre-emption is wrong is beside themselves with, well…something.
Pre-emption is an important strategy in any war, and anyone who says they are going to take the option off the table is either A:) Lying or B:) Insane.
I’m sure the left would be quite happy for Australia to contract their defense out to Indonesia, but to expect Downer to support that is wishful thinking in the extreme.
In this topic, we’re having a free kick at Downer because he endorsed the opposite of pre-emptive strike, from our point of view. He endorsed other people coming and bombing us. That’s pretty dumb.
In the previous discussions on this topic, the issue hasn’t so much been whether pre-emptive strike is right or wrong, but the extraordinary ham-fistedness of Howard in talking about it in public. It was a loaded question, and a Minister discussing foreign policy would normally display more finesse.
where’s Jack S?
The post 9/11 world has flirted with increasingly permeable conceptualisations of national sovereignty. (I exclude one unnamable hyperpower from this semantic retrofitting).
This accommodating spirit recommends a logical extension of a policy already executed by the Howard Government. Howard’s principle of excision limited the irksome application of refugee laws to unwelcome intruders on certain of our shores.
Similarly, Howard could declare any Australian real estate blown up by selected friendly powers to be extraterritorial under the provisions of the Act.
These provisions might even be applied retrospectively, if necessary.
I have such fun with these sorts of comments. It is so easy to map them back onto the Reichstag fire and Kristallnacht.
Frankis wrote:
“Tipper is not right if the best he can do in 2004 is display an eagerness to escalate a murderous religious war. Do you draw any lessons, Tipper, from the successes of two thousand years of civilization – or is the Old Testament “eye for an eye” recipe for perpetual war still good enough for you (as you make it sound)?”
There are some things you read and wish you wrote, and the following is one of them. It points out perfectly what I think is wrong with a large segment of the left today, and why it’s as difficult as trying to mould blancmange, in having a rational grown-up discussion with them.
I didn’t write this, but I wish I had.
‘SOMETHING should be said about genteel rarefied armchair intellectuals, pacifists, schizoid philosophies and war. There’s an old humorous British song describing the view of war from different army ranks. The privates at the bottom do the fighting. March! March! March! say the sergeants. What a lovely war! say the generals when you get to the top ranks÷who are also at the greatest distance from grimy reality. Reference to this song is not meant to impugn the reputation of someone such as a General Norman Schwartzkoph who, as a relatively senior officer, was capable of going out in a mine field to rescue a scared army kid. But the song should be amended to say, “What a lovely war! said the intellectuals.” War is not a place where intellectuals can demonstrate their cleverness and have tantrums when the realities of conflict fail to conform to their preconceived notions which have resulted from their inhabitation of a protected overly bland world.
Pacifists and adherents to schizoid philosophies tend to be parasitic, egocentric, and very childish. They don’t want reality to disturb the comfort level of a self-centered immature world. They want a free ride. They want the benefits without the duties and responsibilities. They want to be breast fed. They want the right to live according to their desires, but they don’t want to defend those rights for themselves, or everybody. They don’t need to take that responsibility if other people can be made that responsibility for them.
Schizopacifistic adherents sit in childish rebellion with feelings of superiority, while arguing that if everyone shared their view, there would be no conflicts or wars. The reality of the adult world is that, whether we, or they, like it or not, there are, and always will be, other people who don’t share that view and who are just as dedicated to the enslavement of others as schizoid adherents are dedicated to their view. That must be accepted as a part of growing up and accepting mature adult reality.
Schizopacifists argue that the beginning of a better non-violent world must start somewhere, and they are making that start. The reality is, that is not a start, but a finish. It produces increased violence as it confers confidence in unopposed success upon criminal elements in the world. Aside from debate about basic nature of human goodness or badness, there are people who by accident of warped background, by genetic predisposition, or by character disorder, become dedicated to imposing destruction upon those around them on individual or organized levels. Had the schizopacifistic view been prevalent to the point of a resultant non-opposition of Hitler, as was actually advanced by Gandhi, virtually every Jew in the world would have been eradicated and, from a reading of Mein Kampf, Hitler would have gone on to make the Catholics wish they had been Jews. Stalin killed 70,000,000 people to firm up communism in Russia, and if unopposed would have killed another 200,000,000 elsewhere. Mao killed millions in his first revolution, millions more in the cultural revolution, and if he had not been opposed, would have killed hundreds of millions more. Ho Chi Minh killed millions in North Viet Nam. After the fall of Viet Nam and South East Asia, Pol Pot killed 25 percent of the Cambodian population in pursuit of the ideal communist society. That is a reality schizopacifists demand not to face while they demand to remain in rebellion of not leaving their child’s world. They leave other people to face the realities. However, they should bear responsibility for the deaths they ultimately cause.
Schizopacifists can play a sadistic oppositional-defiant game from the security of knowing others, in order to save themselves, will protect the schizopacifists from suffering the consequences of their own thinking.
During the Viet Nam period an extensive pacifist movement developed in the United States which had an exquisite component of sadism, was less than genuine, had purposeful lack of thoroughness and consistency in its reasoning, and was morally bankrupt. It was declared that, “War was bad and to participate in war was bad.” Within this construct, defense against attack or enslavement was participation in violent action that placed a defender in evil moral parity with those attacking him. Thus, the victim was victimized twice, once by the criminal, and again by the pacifists and their accusations. This led to the absurdity that in the supposed unconditional reverence for life, the individual who attempted to save his own life, or the life of others, from senseless unprovoked attack was labeled a villain. Absurd or not, during the 60s there developed a sadistic sport of protesting the actions of those who defended themselves.
In the moral, sane adult world there is a temporal sequence of events that determines moral culpability. Those who are subjected to unprovoked destructive or lethal acts and must defend themselves are not, and must never be considered to be, on a moral parity with the individual or political system that initiates destructive or lethal acts. The victim is not to be accused of the crime.” ‘
Tipper it reads to me as both irrelevant to this thread and, unfortunately, as gibberish aimed at a strawman or at best an ill-educated reader. It would be well housed at dogchurch or horsefeathers. Sorry, looks like we differ on this. You might also care to explain why you preceded it with a quote of my words as though you believe it in some way addresses them. It doesn’t.
Do you actually know who represents “the left” in this thread? Do you understand that more than one of the monstrous names referenced for demonic effect in your quoted piece were, firstly, clearly “leftist” and, secondly, equally clearly not pacifists?
Did you support Indonesia or Fretilin?
If your only response to terrorists is “holy war!” then you’re part of the problem, not part of any solution and no, Tipper, that was not a “pacifist” comment. For that matter, it wasn’t the opposite of “pacifism” the other day when you were calling for the murder of an Australian lawyer.
Part of the answer may require a preparedness to wage war, Tipper – but what else have you got?
this is perfectly consistent and what i said a week ago…
nothing to see hear…move along…
I will not be bullied. Put downs are the tools of bullies.
Yobbo, I do not take drugs and have not been diagnosed with any illness of the brain. I pray that I suffer a mental illness before I treat a person’s opinions like you did mine. Abuse is NOT reasons. Please tell me why pre-emption is wrong. Maybe we can then research why Israel did not make a pre-emptive strike against the Egyptian army prior to the Yom Kipper War in 1967(?). I believe that Israel knew of the attack well prior to it occurring but did not pre-empt. It could have been a propaganda reason, not a military one. I honestly do not know.
From my understanding of the rules of war, Israel would have been justified if it did a pre-emptive strike against Egypt. The difference is that a terrorist does not have a recognised territory.
Tipper accusation those who have a blanket opposition to war are Schizopacifists is rude. They are sane moral human beings that I believe are wrong. They have many good arguments which I am constantly forced to agree with. However, justice demanded that the Russians fought the Nazi and the Americans fought the Japanese Militarist during World War II and the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia during the late 70s. Most wars have been unjust, true! But I will defend those actions.
And now to someone who deserves repect.
Frankis, you are right to imply what I said is cruel, even crude. Normally, I do not accept violence in relation to protest. Yet, political violence is sometimes justified. War is a form of political violence, so is rioting in Seattle against globalisations current structures. A protest is about being heard. Very rarely, one could be justified in taking another life. In sillier days, I joined a Trotskyist party which eagerly look forward to the revolution. For me, revolution or political motivated murder is a bit like watching the abattoir in action. My stomach churns, and I give up eating meat for a while.
Oh, please God, do not let me be the cow!
No doubt tipper would have endorsed the WW1 tactics of mass murder by british generals of their own men.
When told that they we are going over the top tomorrow blackadder said-
“General haigh wants to move his drinks cabinet 6 inches closer to berlin”
Tipper, did you change the first letter of your name by deed poll?
“General Ripper (of Dr Strangelove fame): Do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake? Children’s ice cream!…You know when fluoridation began?…1946. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works. I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love…Yes, a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women…women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake…but I do deny them my essence.”
Do yourself a favour Tipper. Let it go.
John Quiggin at October 1, 2004 05:31 PM sought clarification on the validity of “unilateral pre-emptive” strikes against failing/dividing states that harbour AUS-targetting terrorists. Both terms are reasonable and justified in the face of a clear and present danger if, and only if,:
unilateral: the INDON authorities could be compromised or corrupted in which case we cannot rely on local police detection or deterrence;
pre-emptive: the AUS-targetting terrorists could be in transit in execution in which case we should not rely on our authorities detecting or deterring them in time to prevent the mass-casualty attack.
These scenarios are not hypothetical. Some terrorist organisers, in Kopassus, have high level political protection. Israel has taken out terrorist bases in neighbouring states, which has saved many of its citizens lives.
I concede that Howard handled the politics of this proposal badly. I insist that the policy is correct.
Pr Q also wants to clarify the meaning of “administering”, “planning” and “executing”. Pre-emptive strikes, as has been stated innumerable times, are not the same as preventive wars. Pre-emption is a last resort when there is reliable information as to timings, locations and operations, all other anti-terrorist avenues have been exhausted and there is a clear and present danger of attack.
Pre-emption should thus only be employed against terrorists in the process of executing attacks. Planning and administering militant groups, ie acting as Sinn Fein to the IRA, is a form of civil action and requires civil reaction.
I should, as an addenda, modify my original statement about Fretilin to “no comment – too hard”. Fretlin occupies a special place in politico-legal analysis since it was involved in contesting a jurisdiction for which thre was no clear sovereignty. Hard cases make bad law.
THE EMPTIVES FORK: BACK-DOWN OR MELT-DOWN?
Howard/Downer have stated the fair and reasonable reciprocal conditions for pre-emptive strikes. FWIW I have enuncuatied and clarified of my position on the matter.
It is now time for Pr Q, matt byrne at October 1, 2004 07:17 PM, marklatham at October 1, 2004 08:03 PM to come clean on the question that I have posed to them, which I will call the Emptives Fork.
The DSD have reliable info that an anti-AUS terrorist group is:
harboured in an island which is part of a neighbouring failed-state;
armed with a suit-case nuke produced from a looted Russian nuclear arsenal
protected by compromised or corrupted cabinet officials in the failed-state government;
organised for an imminent strike on a major AUS metro population concentration.
Now the vocal critics of Howard have, as usual, not addressed the problem, merely played the man. I shall pose the question in the form of an exclusive and exhaustive fork familiar to those fans of the Devils Alternative. The Anti-Pre-emptive Party has the numbers in Cabinet. Do they:
Renounce their self-hobbling ordinance and take out the terrorists before they hit our shores – in which case Howard wins the argument by potential deed if not actual word;
Stay true to their policy word – in which case substantially increasing the risk of a massive casualty attack worse than all our wars put together
Which is it to be guys – Back-down on Pre-emption or Melt-down on Emption?
I am going to enjoy seeing the wiggling on this one.
Jack, in response to your very imaginative hypothetical, one may take a leaf out of Howard’s handbook and declare “I don’t anwser hypothetical questions.’ But thank you for expecting a higher level of curiosity and honesty than Howard allows for.
Your hypothetical is a case study in the watchword that one never should say never. After all, if even God can conceive of a rock that he cannot move, why should we mere mortals not also consider possible but highly unlikely scenarios?
Of course there are cases for pre-emption. Your hypothetical, Jack, is indeed in the realm of possibilities: indeed it is international relations Jack, but not as we know it.
Jack, in the hypothetical situation you describe, we could invoke our right to self-defence and get UNSC approval for our actions – the closest analogy is Afghanistan. So there is no need for a unilateral doctrine of pre-emption here.
Tipper, I’ve deleted your offensive comment. Anything more like that and I’ll bar you from commenting.
Then I take it that Howards doctrine of pre-emptive strikes falls has legal justfication under the right of hot pursuit of outlaw agencies. THe only difference being that, in the hypopthetical case, the hot pursuit is pre- rather than post-emptive.
The USs predator attack on Al Quaeda operatives in a third party country was a splendid example of hitting terrorists before they could hit us. I assume that both Pr Q and PM Howard would both agree that the world is better off when people of that ilk can never rest assured.
THe issue of imminent threat could be addressed by simply declaring certain agencies and individuals as terrorist outlaws and fair game for any authorised deputy. THis raises the question of whether the UN has an index of terrorist organisations. If it doesnt then it should.
Since we are already in a global war on sectarian terrorism, which the UN fully endorses, I will take Pr Qs affirmative response to the pro-active fork as endorsing the substance of Howards pre-emptive policy. It is not in dispute that Howards politics were clumsy partisan ill-advised etc.
Jack, the obvious practical application of the Bush/Howard doctrine of pre-emption, as it differs from the general doctrines of self-defence, collective security etc has been Iraq.
Clearly Bush and Howard were wrong there and we are all paying the price. The big costs are still to come, as the terrorist groups now being incubated in Iraq go global.
I would go to the UN Jack. I would also consult with our neighbours, form a coalition of the willing, tell the UN your taking too long, go in wipe out that nations infrastructure, kill many civilians, not find the terrorists for many months, start having to fight more new terrorists (or is that locals?) that have gathered arms due to our invasion and deny to this country that many of our own are coming back in body bags…
..sound familiar?
i agree with Katz at October 3, 2004 06:03 PM
“I don’t anwser hypothetical questions. But thank you for expecting a higher level of curiosity and honesty than Howard allows for.”
“Clearly Bush and Howard were wrong there and we are all paying the price.”
What do you mean by “wrong” here?
John, when making such claims it is important not to conflate “morally reprehensible” and “unsuccessful”.
It is probable that the Coalition the Willing’s adventure in Iraq was doomed to failure regardless of the justice of their case regarding WMDs.
The only counterarguments to that position, it seems to me, are:
1. The COW might have attracted some more credible members, like Germany, Russia and France.
2. Potential Iraqi resistance fighters, shamed by Iraqi associations with evil weaponry, resolve to co-operate with the COW occupation of their country.
Neither of these scenarios seems likely.
John Quiggin at October 4, 2004 01:35 PM seems to be playing the time honoured game of bait and switch:
For the umpteenth time, Iraq-attack, and Pearl Harbour, were instances of pre-ventive war.
Operations like the Predator attack on AL Quaeda in Yemen, Israels attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon and the hypothetical strike I outlined (which Howard had in mind) are instances of pre-emptive strikes.
The distinction between preventive war, and premptive strikes, is crucial and is muddied by Pr Q’s conflation of the two concepts when he instances preventive Iraq war as an example of preemptive strike.
Pre-ventive wars are ideologically-motivated, large-scale, main force military actions against sovereign state armies. I concede preventive war is illegal in principle and disastrous in practice.
Pre-emptive strikes are empirically substantiated, small scale precision strikes against outlaw targets. I affirm that pre-emptive strikes are in principle legal and often have beneficial effects.
The case against preventive war was well-made by Pr Q before Iraq and experience has confirmed his gloomy expectations. It is clear that Pr Q cannot find substantive grounds to criticise the policy of pre-emptive strikes, whatever the defects of its political presentation.
Jack, you should take up these semantic disputes with Bush and Howard. If they had called Iraq a “preventive war”, I’d be attacking the “preventive war doctrine”. AFAIK, they never used this term.
I am interested in substantive reality not semantic quibbles over politicians chronic abuse of political concepts. In any case the record on usage indiates
that there is plenty of confusion out there. Google records 29,100 incidences of “Preventive war + Iraq” and 32,300 incidences of “Preemptive strike + Iraq”. So my reference to Wikipedia, the universal web standard, should help to clear this up.
What remains to be cleared up is where Pr
Q stands in relation to my hypothetical. Everyone knows where Howard/Downer, & I FWIW, stand.
But Pr Q continues to dance around the question. Is it still too late to expect a straight answer to a straight question.
Which tine of the Emptive Fork does he take in the case of a substantiated, imminent, WMD-scale attack from a prescribed terrorist group, harboured in a neighbouring failed/divided state:
Pre-emptive Back-down
or
Emptive Melt-down
?
Jack, I answered this question about 10 comments back (Go to the UN and invoke our right to self-defence) We seem to have reached the point of diminishing returns here.
My apologies to Pr Q, I did not properly read John Quiggin’s comment at October 4, 2004 05:37 AM where he in fact addresses the Emptive fork:
I am happy to drop the unilateral condition if the State Department’s list of designated Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTO) could get UNSC endorsement as a kind of global presribed index of outlaws. This would give law abiding states automatic approval to launch immediate strikes in the case of imminent threats from said groups.
But this approach would override, or at least be independent of, the wishes of the nominal governing authority in the jurisdiction harbouring the attackers. So I read Pr Q’s comment as conforming to the substance of Howards pre-emptive policy.
And whatever the lawyers and lexicographers say I sure sleep more soundly knowing that Predator thing is giving the Bad Guys nightmares as it drones about over the Badlands.
John wrote:
“Tipper, I’ve deleted your offensive comment. Anything more like that and I’ll bar you from commenting.”
John,I had just spent 4 hours talking to a shaman, from the old USSR, on how to set up a business in Australia.
I showed him a video taken in the islands to the north of Russia. This is anthropology as it is never discussed. There was a tribe that is esentially unchanged for thousands of years.
Yhe tribe had two main buildings, the chief’s building and the shamans temple. The chief handled economic matters….. the use of land, contributions to the tribe etc. And he also controlled the military.
The shaman, on the other hand was concerned with the social aspects of the tribe. He was the local healer, poet, musician, priest, educator etc.
The best shaman were those who could opereate naturally,i.e. didn’t need to be taught. They were the ones who were hyper-sensitive, heard voices in their heads, were super-rational, wanted to live their ideology.
Basically they were schizophrenic.
However they knew that if they stepped too far out of line the would bring the wraught of god (the chief) down on them. So there was this constant tension between them.
I then explained to the wannabe shaman (who incidentallt has a doctorate in biochemistry) the economic concept of division of labor. The chiefs role has been taken over by governments and government institutions.
The shamans role(the schizophrenic) has been taken over by the intellectuals. We now have a division of labour between poets, artists, teachers doctors etc. But the feeling amongst the general public is that most of them are a bit weird. (After watching Peter Singer on Enough Rope, tonight, I think I agree with them) So when I come up against an “intellectual” I wonder what degree of “weirdness” they possess.
By the way I subscribe to the concept that all human advances were brought about by people who could be classified as insane or if you prefer schizropheniac.
Look,jack I hate to lecture,but……
Mindanao,and the string of islands through to east sabah and the port of sandakan are the real problem for us,not Iraq.
I have just read a fantastic book,one man war,abouta scots australian who escaped first from changi,then from sandakan and became a guerilla fighter on mindanao,with the moros.
They have fought everyone for 300 years,and will continue to do so.Their islands are perfect for guerilla war,how do we stop javanese radicals going to mindanao to learn how to bomb us?
Latham talked of the navy patrolling between sabah and the phillipines to try and stop the traffic in whatever-but it would be impossible.
In this book published in 1957,the moros were described as arabs and mohammedans who prayed five times a day.They also killed,looted,kidnapped,smuggled whatever as they have for hundreds of years.
They also beheaded many americans who didn’t observe propriety with their women.
marklatham at October 5, 2004 12:28 AM is a real try-hard:
Look marklatham, I hate to patronise but you seem to be having real cognitive problems with straightforward ENglish words. Jack Strocchi at October 3, 2004 05:34 PM included the following (emphasis added):
Got that? Now go back to the beginning and start again.