re: the wrong question
"A lot of people have been shocked that we did not wait until Saddam took the first shot before we attacked him. That's fine in cowboy movies, when the only person who loses by waiting too long is one cowboy, and all the townsfolk shake their heads and go home to supper. In any case the bad guy in the movies always misses with the first shot*. When terror groups and thug nations take the "first shot," thousands of people die and cities burn. We waited on bin Laden and al Qaeda for until they took the first shot. I think that was enough."
It's worse than this. Because the terrorist attacks which "miss" don't seem to count. So it's not "first shot", it's "first hit".