TPM Reader BS on Bush …
That the President is being less than forthcoming on an issue of national security is hardly anything new. What worries me is setting out a doctrine that pre-emptive strikes are not only justified by an actual gathering threat but by hypothetical futuristic scenarios which have no bearing in
the present reality. You canât invade a country without a nuclear program to stop them from maybe one day changing their mind about it any more than you can shoot an unarmed man because he might one day buy a gun. Didnât Bush ever read that Bible he likes to invoke so much? Remember Exodus,
where mean old Pharoah starts killing all Hebrew newborn males to decimate the population? To quote:âLook, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war, they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.â (Exodus 1:8)
By Bushâs new logic, Pharoah would have been completely justified in his genocide – yeah the Hebrews werenât rising up but âimagine a worldâ in which they did. In fact, by this logic a nation can justify invading ANY country at ANY time and even commit widespread atrocities against civilians. Saddam could have invaded Kuwait because they might one day get nuclear weapons. Russia could have invaded Afghanistan because they might one day get nuclear weapons. Hell, Hitler could have invaded Poland because pigs might fly and Polish scientists invent some kind of super duper laser beam that makes them an armed superpower. Or he could have just killed all the Jews using the same rationale for pre-emptive action that Pharoah (and our President) endorsed.
We really can spin out this yarn in an infinite number of directions. But the antic nature of this riff really is inseparable from the ridiculousness of the president’s logic.
