It is a tale of a good man doggedly working for a bad end, an end that was not simply a war of choice, or a preventive war of dubious legality, but a war of revenge.
"First strike" implies a one-sided, preventive war of annihilation.
One important factor that John Kerry's statement only alludes to is popular world opinion of our preventive war on Iraq.
Anyone who claims to be waging a preventive war in the cause of justice is confusing either a particular or a partisan interest with the interests of humanity.
He also contrasts the Bush administration's policy of "preventive war" with what he calls "preventive democracy," which "assumes that the sole long-term defense for the United States (as well as other nations around the world) against anarchy, terrorism and violence is democracy itself".
Some hawks even promoted the concept of a "preventive war", to thwart strengthening foes.
In any event, even a worst-case scenario would not justify a U.S. preventive war to preserve a "balance of power" in Asia.
(National Security Strategy, 9/20/02) The morality and the legality of preemptive and preventive war – to whatever degree they are legitimate - rest on the concept of self-defense.
However, "preventive wars" were exactly what the hawkish Von Neumann wanted: in the immediate aftermath of the second world war, he briefly advocated the idea of a quick preventive war with the USSR to be followed by a Pax Americana.
The Bush doctrine sought to use preventive war against Iraq as a means of raising the perceived cost to would-be proliferators of approaching the nuclear threshold.
We felt entitled, even obliged, to punish upstart "rogue" regimes that wanted weapons of mass destruction, with preventive war if necessary.
