Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to You've worn me out

...so badly I actually got sick
Robert — (archived)

My head's stuffed with cotton, my lungs are congested, I'm running a fever, I'm sick as a dog...it's all your fault, Tom!

It was nice to take a break and let other people run with it for a while. I'm still feeling like crap, but after a break I think I have enough energy to pen a few thoughts.

When I put together the way you're valiantly trying to spin the question of sufficient evidence to justify preemptive war with the considerable evidence that's developed over the last few months that Bush & Co. spun the intel, I conclude that you're trying to protect Bush. But this goes right to the heart of my argument. If we don't insist on solid evidence to back war, we allow for the possibility that Bush's preemptive war policy* will allow a President to misuse the power. Or, as Greg's ignored link to an article in the New Republic down the page, "What Dick Cheney really believes", plausibly asserts, it could be the Vice President.

Sufficient evidence of an imminent threat doesn't have to be as ironclad as your hyperbolic characterization of an actual attack, but it has to be based on something substantial. As it stands now, there are no institutional checks-and-balances in place to ensure that the decision is really justified. Bush has taken upon himself the power to make war entirely on his say-so. That's wrong, counter to the wise philosophy of the Founders, and a formula for disaster.

Cooked intelligence is too low a standard; it's damn near the "nothing" that you think is all we need. That's too much power to vest in the hands of a President or a Vice-President.

That's all the energy I have for now.

* -- By the way, you may be tired of hearing it called the "Bush Doctrine", but in fact it is, as laid out in the strategic doctrine white paper released in September of last year. It's the first time in American history that preemptive war has been the official policy of the United States.

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