The roles are reversed for Round 2. Please see the CL’s initial answer here.

Question 2-from Scratcher:

A lot of the controversy over the war, particularly in Iraq, stems from the fact that our actions were pre-emptive.

With respect to pre-emptive military action, please explain what you consider an acceptable threshold for American action. For example: Should we wait until an attack has been launched but not yet struck (re: Paul) before acting? Should we act when we have “reasonable suspicion” that another country or entity is actively planning violence against us? Should we act against any state or nation that we know wishes to cause us harm, before they have the opportunity to organize an act of violence against us?

Where do we draw that “line in the sand”?

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Response:

(CL in bold)

“To begin with, I’m against any form of pre-crime”:

What “crime”? Killing terrorists who we’re absolutely certain want to kill us is a “crime”? According to whom? I challenge this premise at the basest level. For pretty much the exact same reasons why KSM should not be entitled to our Constitutional criminal law protections, there is no reason why application of our criminal law standards should be extended to foreign wars. Something is a “crime” here only because we, through our elected representatives, say it is. In my humble opinion there is no such thing as a “crime” when American soldiers are defending our God-given right to exist and live as we see fit.

“…violating UN resolutions isn’t [a just reason for attacking Iraq]”:

Says who? I would agree with this only in the sense that I couldn’t care less what the UN says about anything. There is no credible argument to support a claim by anyone that we are bound by any UN resolution, for or against. By definition, doing so is an abdication of our sovereignty and therefore invalid. The UN simply should not be a factor in any decision we make to go to war.

“…we’ve built 2 Islamic States…”

This is a popular refrain but it is both misleading and irrelevant. To directly answer the question posed, the only metric relevant in deciding on a “line in the sand” is whether it is ‘more likely than not’ that a given enemy will inflict American casualties. As I mentioned in round 1, if we can “build” an Islamic state that is less of a threat to us than the predecessor nation, that’s a good thing. The goal is to build one that isn’t a threat at all and I for one would keep trying until we get it right. American lives depend on it.

While quantifying this “line” is admittedly difficult, the best analogy I can come up with is the budget reconciliation process; we need 51 “votes” out of a 100 to justly attack anyone. Those “votes” include considerations too numerous to mention here, but if collectively they add up to “more likely than not”, we are perfectly within our rights as a nation to preemptively attack. The “laws of war”, to the extent such ever really existed, have changed. Sworn enemies of the United States with access to ICBM’s and nuclear warheads must be dealt with swiftly and convincingly. Again, any resort to a corresponding American criminal justice standard is both in vain and irrelevant.

“…in the execution of our current war strategery, we’ve actively reduced our freedoms at home. Isn’t that exactly what the enemy wants?”

Not even close. The enemy wants to kill us and/or reduce us to slaves. I suppose that slavery is the ultimate “reduction of freedom”, but to compare Islamic Dhimmitude to legislation like the Patriot Act is simply incoherent. There is no evidence whatsoever to support a claim that any war legislation has been misused against Americans and even if there was, there are remedies available to each of us through the system that in most cases will adequately rectify any such transgression. To use the mere fact that war legislation is passed that could conceivably be misused as an argument against initiating hostilities is, to me, less than persuasive.

“[C]hoosing to go after Saddam Hussein instead, was nothing more than going “abroad in search of monsters.”

I can’t even understand this claim. We didn’t have to “search” at all. He was right there, in bed with terrorists, attacking his neighbors in wars of conquest and developing a long-range ballistic missile program. These are facts. He was a committed Muslim who hated our Country and everything for which we stand. This is a fact. No less the Cheney-esque Neo-con than Christopher Hitchens hit the nail on the head when he said that, and I’m paraphrasing here, sooner or later, in one way or another, we would have had to deal with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Suffice to say, all things considered, the decision to invade Iraq easily passes my 51 vote threshold.

As I’ve said before, any higher threshold than ‘more likely than not’ for justifying aggression will result in dead Americans. I concede that the considerations leading to that standard can legitimately be interpreted in different ways, but that’s the conversation we need to be having.

Not to pick on him but Ron Paul misleadingly quotes and, in my opinion, misunderstands Thomas Jefferson in “A Foreign Policy of Freedom”. While I completely agree with the statement that we should pursue “peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none”, I remind readers that in bookending sentences, Jefferson also says this: (emphasis mine)

“I will compress [the essential principles of our Government] within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political…the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad…”

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Stay tuned for the CL’s reply which will be posted at his site shortly.

Russ

Update on Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 4:48PM by Russ

CL’s reply is up.

Update on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 12:02PM by Russ

The Punditry:

TCOTS

Republican Redefined

Motor City Times

Washington Rebel and here.

The Daley Gator

More to come as reactions arrive…

Theo Spark