Two weeks after 9/11, a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales' office concluded that "President Bush had the power to deploy military force "preemptively" against any terrorist groups or countries that supported them-- regardless of whether they had any connection to the attacks on the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon. The memo argues that there are "no limits" on the president's authority to wage war.
Similar language is used in the official "substantiation" for American foreign policy, the National Security Strategy of 2002. The invasion of Iraq was the first "petri dish in which this experiment in pre-emptive policy grew." When the strategy was released, Foreign Affairs referred to the document as the "new imperial grand strategy" and immediately criticized it as a threat to the U.S. and world stability. The principle was not wrong, it argued, but the style was too dangerous.
Madeleine Albright wrote that while every former President had a similar doctrine, its contents were kept private. Henry Kissinger, also writing in Foreign Affairs, described Bush's policy as a "revolutionary" doctrine but cautioned that it might be adopted by other nations. The rights of aggression, Kissinger wrote, must be reserved to the US. That is, 'we must never apply to ourselves the same standards we apply to others'.
Meanwhile, a recently released UN report rejects President Bush's arguments for preventive war, stating that "only the U.N. Security Council has the legal standing to authorize" it. Thus, according to the UN, Bush's doctrine is illegal. None of this is mentioned in the Newsweek article.
more on this:
www.politicalthought.net
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(61 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
