Pre-emptive? Perhaps you recall the planes flying into the WTC towers? We were attacked first, that's hardly pre-emptive. Not to mention the Cole, the African embassies, the first WTC bombing, etc. And yes, Al Qaeda had ties to Iraq, read the 9/11 report.

And as for Russia being pre-emptive, two words. School massacre. No pre-emption there.

And Israel? Go for it. They bombed Iraq's nuclear facilites in 1981, as I recall. Don't expect them to let Iran have a pass on creating nukes that could reach them, either. I hope they do it sooner rather than later.

And Israel has a pre-pre-emptive policy. Just ask the Egyptians who were there back in 1967. Not to mention the terrorists who killed the Israeli athletes in Munich back in 1972. Don't mess with the Israelis, they'll find you. Just ask Eichmann. Well,you can't ask him because the Mossad hunted him down, brought him back to Israel and executed him. But if you could, he would vouch for Israel's tenacity.

As to "hardly pre-emptive", two words: Suadi Arabia.

That's where the attackers were from.

no, actually the atackers were from al Qaeda, do you think they identified with Saudi Arabia?

That's a big part of the problem with the Islamic world, it's still the "Islamic world" rather than a collection of countries. Nationalism has generally failed because the people fell no stake in their governments, which are corrupt, autocratic, and top-down. This is part of why some level of "success" in Iraq is so crucial.

And there is no such thing as a "pre-emptive strike" against terror, it is merely preventing the next attack.

The idea of pre-emption is hardly new, as the latest article in Foreign Policy Review shows.

Damn, this is the reason I tried to stay out of the political columns, so many opinions, very few of them informed. Back to the music side of the page for me.

Certainly it's not a new idea, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

Well, that all depends on who is striking whom, but that is obvious, isn't it?

we're safe now...Cat Stevens has been deported.

Eric: "...actually the atackers were from al Qaeda, do you think they identified with Saudi Arabia?"

Good one, Eric. You and Bush just keep finding new ways to spin the ill-advised invasion of Viet Na... I mean Iraq.

re: Cat Stevens --

And Bush has apparently vowed to hunt down Muhammed Ali 'dead or alive'.

I feel safer already!

American dead in Iraq: At the current rate, we should reach 1040 by the end of this week.

MORE GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ:

(from Tomdispatch.com)

"...Oil production, which Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz once swore would fund the reconstruction of a democratic Iraq, is now crippled and well below prewar levels, while attacks on oil pipelines and facilities have risen sharply; American deaths are on the rise (53 for just over half of September) as are the numbers of our wounded, as are attacks on American troops, which are now averaging more than 80 a day, "four times the number of one year ago and 25 percent higher than last spring"; while the strains on American Guard and Reserve units, being called up ever more frequently, grow greater by the week; Iraqi civilian casualties have soared in recent weeks; and on the rise are the killings of Iraqi policemen, targeted by the insurgency, but also of translators, cleaning women, clothes washers, carpenters, anyone in fact who works with the occupying forces; "no-go" areas for American troops have been increasing steadily as parts of Iraq simply blink off the American map; the kidnapping of foreigners has risen as evidently has the under-the-table payment of ransom demands; the number of car-bombings has gone up and they are being ever more carefully coordinated; estimates of the numbers of insurgents and their supporters have been rising rapidly; more mortar shells are being dropped on U.S. bases; desertions from and the infiltration of the Iraqi battalions the American military has been training are high and possibly on the rise; the sophistication and deadliness of guerrilla attacks is on the rise; the number of CIA agents in the country has risen; American air strikes on heavily populated neighborhoods of Iraqi cities are on the rise; the fighting is still spreading (as the battles around Tal Afar, near the Turkish border, indicated last week); more schoolchildren are dropping out of school at ever earlier ages to help support their families; more highways are too dangerous to drive; the number of countries supporting the "coalition" with even handfuls of troops has been falling as have the numbers of troops in allied contingents; the number of articles in leading American newspapers announcing that large swathes of Iraq have passed from American control is on a precipitous upward curve; the number of military experts ready to declare the war in Iraq in some fashion lost is also on a steep upward climb; while -- and nothing could be more devastating than this -- on advice from its new staff and ambassador in Baghdad, the Bush administration has gone back to Congress to switch $3.4 billion in Congressionally mandated reconstruction funds from two of the most important areas of daily life -- the generation of electricity and the purification of water supplies ("'Maku Karaba, Maku Amin' -- no electricity, no security -- is still the cry of Iraqis on the street") -- largely to "security"; that is, to the creation of Iraqi forces that will nominally fight under the banner of Iyad Allawi's regime but essentially under American command. (Does no one remember Richard Nixon's disastrous "Vietnamization" program?) The only number in this last month that seems not to have risen precipitously, but has remained doggedly at zero is the number of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological or chemical) in Saddam Hussein's possession before the invasion began."

== end of excerpt ==

Four more years!

(At least!)

Oh my (Lord of Choice):

I am SO on that.