Posted on 06/10/2002 7:30:57 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache
Bush: U.S. Must Strike Terror First
By SONYA ROSS
Associated Press Writer
Posted June 10 2002, 8:05 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- President Bush made a case Monday for pre-emptive strikes against terrorists that seek weapons of mass destruction for use against the United States and other nations, saying "we will oppose the new totalitarians with all our power."
"With the spread of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons, along with ballistic missile technology, freedom's enemies could attain catastrophic power," Bush told a group of about 100 world conservatives gathered for a White House dinner.
"And there's no doubt that they would use that power to attack us. ... We will oppose the new totalitarians with all our power."
In an earlier speech before the group, the International Democrat Union, Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States will not shy away from first strikes when it acts against terrorists.
Cheney said a strike-first military policy is necessary because past approaches to world security -- Cold War deterrence, summit meetings and treaties -- will not work against terrorists who have no single base of operation and "nothing to defend."
"Grave threats are accumulating against us, and inaction will only bring them closer," Cheney said. "We will not wait until it is too late."
The IDU, a collection of conservative and moderate-to-right politicians, responded favorably to the anti-terror coalition Bush has assembled. The group issued a statement supporting the president's approach on expanding the anti-terror fight and denying dangerous weapons to "terrorists and hostile states."
"We believe the coalition must be bold, not complacent, in addressing these threats," the statement read. "The nature of this threat and the risks of doing nothing to combat it must be clearly understood. We support fully the policy that this threat must be defeated."
Bush plans to formalize the "strike first" military policy when he submits his first national security strategy to Congress by early fall.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday that the document would incorporate various foreign relations and national security policies that Bush has articulated since Sept. 11, including new demands that poor countries make political and economic reforms in order to receive U.S. aid.
Cheney did not refer to Bush's pending written policy, but emphasized that the United States has a special responsibility to initiate military action if it will thwart grand-scale terrorist plots before they happen.
"The nature and scale of the challenge we face became apparent last year on the morning of Sept. 11," Cheney said. "It is now clear that every aspiration we have for the countries we serve -- our prosperity, our security and the peace of the world -- all depend upon our answer to that threat of global terror."
Specifically, he said, Iraq poses a threat because its leader, Saddam Hussein, has shown a willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, and because there is potential for Saddam's government to link up with terrorist networks.
"Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles, or secretly provide them to their terrorist allies," Cheney said. "We have a responsibility to protect ourselves against future attack, to prepare our military for all future threats, to maintain the global coalition we have built to defeat global terror, and to take pre-emptive action when necessary."
Such a pre-emptive stance is a departure from the decades-old Cold War policies built around the theory that an enemy would not attack the United States because such an attack would mean a certain and devastating retaliatory strike.
"A group like al-Qaida cannot be deterred or placated or reasoned with at a conference table," Cheney said. "For that reason, this struggle will not end with a treaty or accommodation of terrorists. It can only end in their complete and utter destruction."
Bush articulated his "strike first" doctrine in a June 1 commencement address at West Point, where he vowed to "take the battle to the enemy, disrupt its plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge."
The IDU is comprised of representatives from more than 60 countries and 80 political parties. It was formed in 1983 by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, then-Vice President George Bush, French President Jacques Chirac and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
Republican National Committee spokesman Jim Dyke said the group focuses on exchanging ideas that forward conservative politics.
"It's a chance for like-minded, center-right parties to share their experiences in order to achieve electoral success," he said.'
Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press
I am not wise, but know when someome isn't. Why do you think you are?
I detest the way the media have been so diligent to portray the actions of people and countries in terms of games, as if any given response is just an equivocally-valued response to the most recent event from the other side.
Through such (conscious and reflexive, I believe) portrayals, the media would leave the citizenry apathetic (as is the aim of totalitarian regimes). This pattern surfaces most typically in the "all politicians are bad"-kind of comment. "He did that, but his opponent responded by doing something equally bad."
With the above headline, the AP has no qualms leaving the masses with the impression that "Terror may be bad, but Bush is willing to be bad first, just so he has a better chance to win the game."
I very much appreciate the 10,000-word-value cartoon I saw here on FR recently. It had a portrayal of a feminized donkey-prostitute with a banner hawking various prices for such things as Lincoln bedrooms, WH coffee klatches, etc., all in the tens-of-thousands of dollars range, with a modest female elephant sitting behind a sign reading "Bush photos, $150." The donkey-hooker calls the little elephant "SLUT!" (Somebody will help me out here, with a link. (?))
Of course, this is what the Carvile and Begala's of Clinton-dumb will always try to do (given what little with which they have to work), that is, try to build reflexive responses among their constituencies to assuage the hestitations any of them might have had about believing Clinton-type fund-raising to be "over-line-corruption-line" by "Everybody (and certainly the Republicans) do it!"
Clearly, in the long-term, moral upbringing, education toward fact-gathering, analysis and interpretation, and always actively siding with "doing what's right" is what we need to instill in the citizenry, especially the young. The demonrats' purposes and actions are anti-thetical to this paradigm, and their successes must be reversed, or we're all in for increasing if not overwhelming troubles.
They must be overcome! That is, voted out of office by intelligent citizens.
HF
Check Out the site referred to in the article. And oh yeah President Bush rocks when he says we must strike terrorists first!!!
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