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  • From: Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Americans, go home !
  • Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 14:07:39 -0700

Gene GeRue wrote:



I love pre-emptive strikes---those by the U.S. against a mortal threat.


Iraq was not a mortal threat and the proof was the posture of her neighbors.


tvoivozhd---yup, primarily Saudi Arabia cowering before Saddam and secretly advising us to stop Saddam, offering us the use of their airfields and staging areas toward that end.


At one time, the Soviets were a mortal threat. They had devastating stuff pointed at us needing only the double key-turn. What if we had struck preemptively? Those of us who survived would be cutting logs with stone tools.


tvoivozhd---through six or seven Democrat and Republican Presidents, the application of hard power and soft power , and Soviet over-expenditure on their military together wore them down.. After Stalin died, Soviet military decision was a collective, not individual action. It its closing phase, Kennedy faced down Kruschev, but allowed him a face-saving exit. Face-saving exits meant nothing to egomaniac Saddam.


We could preemptively strike North Korea and Iran right now and justify it as strongly as we did Iraq.


tvoivozhd---one at a time please, we don't have enough troops to handle Iraq.



I fear the preemptive strike theory will cause us more long-term harm than good.

tvoivozhd---throughout our history we have been the subject of many pre-emptive strikes---Bunker Hill, War of1812, Fort McHenry, General Roth or Ross with 15,000 well-trained, well-armed Redcoats attacking Andrew Jackson's hastily thrown together, hastily-trained 4000 men in New Orleans , Pearl Harbor, Twin Towers (hate that 9/ll term). We successfully employed some of our own, most notably against the Barbary Pirates, Benedict Arnold against Fort Ticonderoga, George Washington against Yorktown, (crucially aided by the DeGrasse French fleet), the Omaha Beach invasion.


ALL military actions are pre-emptive strikes or defenses thereto. I greatly prefer to be on the assault end of a pre-emptive strike, particularly when the surprise element is present.






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